A Basque cultural camp has come under fire after children in attendance reported disturbing behavior from camp counselors, including being forced to shower nude alongside them. The camp, organized by Euskal Udalekuak, was held from August 8 to 23 in the small town of Bernedo and was facilitated by a controversial trans activist who had previously claimed to “indoctrinate” children.
According to the camp’s website, one of Euskal Udalekuak’s main objectives is to “help children live in Basque, to show that Basque is a useful tool for everyday life, and bring together children from all over the Basque territory so that they can take home from summer camps the richest possible view of Basque and Basque culture.”
However, the camp’s activities reportedly extended beyond language and cultural immersion, also promoting the celebration of “sexual diversity” from a self-described “transfeminist” perspective.
Late last month, Spanish media reported that several children attending the Bernedo camp had written letters to their parents describing inappropriate and sexualized situations allegedly initiated by counselors. Because the children’s cell phones had been confiscated, handwritten letters were their only means of communication. Through these letters, families said they received a disturbing glimpse of what was happening at the camp.
One young girl reportedly wrote to her mother claiming that campers were forced to shower in mixed-sex facilities alongside naked adult counselors. According to the letter, the counselors said the purpose was to help children overcome body shame and promote “sex-positive education.”
The children reportedly rebelled against the order to shower together and created their own sex-segregated schedule. According to reports, the boys and girls refused to enter the showers when members of the opposite sex were present, waiting until the others had finished before taking their turn.
The same child also reported that the youth were being completely cut off from the outside world. Using a friend’s phone that had been smuggled into the camp, the girl, who takes blood pressure medication, reported that she was not being allowed to go to the hospital or pharmacy when experiencing dizzy spells.
Additional letters sent from campers to their families alleged that all mirrors at the site had been painted over so that children could not see their reflections. This was reportedly done in the name of “body positivity,” a concept the camp promoted. On one of the mirrors, children said a drawing of a naked woman with her legs spread open had been added, accompanied by the caption “Enjoy your meal!”
Huge thanks to @Zurine3 for speaking to me about the shocking abuse at the camp at #Bernedo It was Zuriñe who broke the story in @diarioelcomun 🔗 to our conversation and the full story in English in the first reply 👇 pic.twitter.com/H9lO2FC8Z2
— Gender Lupa (@GenderLupa) October 3, 2025
Other incidents described in the letters involved supposed “games” organized by the counselors. One child was allegedly forced to suck a counselor’s toe, while another was made to “drop his pants and show his buttocks to the entire camp.” Children who participated in these “games” were reportedly rewarded with food.
Local residents in the community were the camp took place said that it was common to see the camp counsellors walking topless around town, bathing naked in the swimming pool, and even smoking cannabis around the children themselves, according to El Correo Vasco.
Disturbingly, it has since been revealed that a top director of the organization that runs the camp is a non-binary trans activist radical who had previously boasted of “queering” children.
Aner Peritz Manterola, 23, is a bertsolari, a traditional Basque performer who combines poetry and song. Having attended the same camps since age 13, Peritz credits the experience with introducing him to the art form, saying that becoming a bertsolari transformed him into a “transfeminist.”
Along with identifying as non-binary, Peritz describes himself as a “unicorn,” which within the Spanish queer community refers to having multiple open and polyamorous relationships. “In the queer scene, we indoctrinate each other outside of heterosexuality, and that’s a good thing,” he told Pikara Magazine in an past interview.
Last year, Peritz won a national poetry competition, going viral for a poem detailing the bullying he faced in the locker rooms at school. The conclusion of the poem promised “revenge” for the harm he claimed he had been subjected to.
“I, Aner, still remember the shame, with glasses and without coming out of the closet. That scared kid has grown up and wants revenge,” the poem finished.
In an essay written in February, Peritz confirmed that he specifically wanted to turn children towards his ideology. In an essay entitled “Children and Gender Essentialism,” Peritz argued that “this way of thinking about birth identities is pathologizing, stigmatizing, and queerphobic,” and that society forces
“cisheteronormativity” onto children via a system of brutality and socialization, not nature.
“Just as we have learned that macho violence is answered with transfeminist violence — and not with some general, neutral, assimilative peace — we also know that heterosexual education is answered with transmaribollo education (education from trans and queer perspectives),” Peritz wrote.
“Call it indoctrination. We want to carry out transmaribollo indoctrination, and we are ready to do it. It wasn’t a joke; the echoes were right — we do want to ‘make your children queer’ (we usually don’t have children ourselves), so that you won’t heterosexualize them as you did to us. You didn’t completely succeed. And we, too, have teaching degrees,” Peritz concluded.
Amid growing backlash, Euskal Udalekuak released a statement earlier this month defending its camp counselors and educational methods. The organization characterized some of the parental outrage as “transphobic,” asserting that the Bernedo program was “educational” and founded on “transfeminist values” aimed at “creating safe spaces for all identities and bodies” among the children.
“With diversity as its foundation, we aim to create a context that guarantees co-education and acceptance of each person’s differences,” the statement read. “We work from this perspective, breaking down gender stereotypes and viewing the discomfort that differences can generate as an educational opportunity.
Every activity at summer camps is a tool to cultivate coexistence, autonomy, and mutual care, including showers. These, beyond being a simple space for hygiene, are also an opportunity to normalize all bodies, break stigmas, and free ourselves from shame and sexualization. In our society, bathrooms and showers are a tool to divide people according to a binary and gender logic. This division, in addition to excluding different bodies and identities, causes situations of discomfort and discrimination.”
The controversy surrounding the Bernedo camp has intensified following confirmation from local authorities that the site was already under investigation for alleged child sexual abuse.
Zarautz Police confirmed they had been looking into Euskal Udalekuak since December of last year after receiving complaints of possible “sexual assaults of minors” at the camp. The investigation reportedly began when a social worker filed a report on behalf of three foster children who had attended the Bernedo camp between 2021 and 2024.
Despite the seriousness of the allegations, police did not instruct the camp to shut down, and organizers were permitted to continue operations for the 2025 season.
On October 6, the Basque regional government also confirmed that the youth group had broken the law and was never even formally registered to operate. The government announced that it was planning on instituting restrictions and regulations on youth camps to ensure the issue could not be repeated, and other measures expected to include tighter oversight of volunteer roles and expanded safeguarding protections for minors.
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