Lesbians in Francoist Spain
Lesbians in Francoist Spain had to contend with a culture where a fascist state met with a form of conservative Roman Catholicism to impose very rigid, traditional gender roles.
In the immediate post-Civil War period, the new regime was not concerned with homosexuals in general, but instead were focused on changing laws to enforce restrictive gender norms like repealing divorce.
[6] Women in Francoist Spain had problems meeting their own heterosexual desires, required through state indoctrination to forgo female sexual expression.
Among the findings were that the number of lesbians was increasing as a result of a number of factors including "physical or congenital defects", the "affective traumas and unsatisfied desires", family being unable to prevent women's conversation, "Contagion and mimicry" and "[...] the lack of relationship with men as a consequence of an excess education rigidly rigid, the existence of institutions that by their very nature eliminate these relationships: prisons, hospitals, psychiatric, religious communities etc ..., the media, tourism, alcohol, drugs and desire of search for new sensations, prostitution, and vice."
To tackle the problem of the growing lesbian population, the government commission proposed solutions like "early diagnoses and medical treatments and psychotherapeutics that [corrected] possible somatic defects", creating a sex education program and the promotion of the idea that both genders can peacefully co-exist.
The repeal of the law allowing divorce occurred on 23 September 1939, and severely restricted ways which in women, including gender non-conforming lesbians, could behave outside their homes by placing legal and cultural constraints on them.
[23] Instead of using existing laws, lesbians in Francoist prisons were charged with prostitution instead of homosexuality, which makes it impossible to determine their true numbers when compared to gay men.
[29] In 2018, the Townhall of Barcelona tried to bring six Spanish judges to trial for alleged crimes against humanity for the period between the 1950s and 1970 over their judicial treatment of homosexuals and lesbians.
[4][31][32] The charge against her read, "She was arrested when she was in the bar La Gran Cava, located on Calle Conde del Asalto number 25 in a suspicious attitude and dressed as a man.
Special Court, especially when, to a greater extent, our rehabilitation services inform us in an absolutely negative sense as regards the possibility of reeducation of this young woman, given her age and characteristics."
(Spanish: “Su clara, definida y manifiesta tendencia a la homosexualidad, la hacen particularmente peligrosa para convivir con las jóvenes acogidas a este patronato, a las que ya ha pretendido hacer objeto de sus prácticas homosexuales en los escasos días que lleva internada.
Tal peligrosidad […] es lo que nos hace poner a la referida joven a disposición de ese Ilmo.
[37] In the end, the then 17-year-old served four months at the Alcázar de San Juan in Ciudad Real as the state determined that she presented a social danger and needed to be re-educated.
The clandestine nature of their relationships rendered lesbians invisible and prone to having collective imagery about them negatively defined by the state and its apparatus.
[42][45] With few outlets to escape the confines of marriage, some lesbians in rural areas deliberately sought out convents as a safer place to exist.
[9] 1920s and 1930s had created a fashion shift in Spain that allowed women to echo their foreign counterparts in wearing clothes and styles traditionally associated with masculinity.
Franco's victory shut down this fashion outlet of expression, with the imposition of a generic feminine women's style that attempted to oblate female sexual identity.
The area would later transform into one of the most important hubs of radical leftist Spanish thinking and be an intrinsic part of Madrileño LGBT identity.
[6][42] When lesbians socialized with each other but still in broader society in places like theaters, cafes, cabarets and literary gatherings, they would use pseudonyms to make it harder for people to be able to identify them if they were inadvertently outed.
[53] The lesbian poetry of Lucía Sánchez Saornil fell into oblivion during the Franco period as the writer went into hiding and tried to anonymize herself in order to protect both herself and her partner.
Time of the Cherries (Spanish: Tiempo de cerezas) by Montserret Roig in 1976 is an example of the cliche of students in an all girls school having lesbian sexual experiences.
[46] Despite the liberalization of Spanish society in the immediate transition period, literature featuring lesbian characters tended to conform to historical type of being secondary figures and representing insubordination against oppressive heteronormative societal norms.
[57] Almodóvar's provocative and in your face dealing with homosexuality Entre tinieblas and his 1982 film Laberinto de pasiones were viewed by parts of the LGB community as a necessary responsive to the oppressive nature of state-censorship during the Franco period that condemned and erased them.
This was in part because while lesbianism was culturally taboo, norms around women allowed them to walk arm-in-arm down the street unmolested except by a few aggressive and insulting men.
Maria Giralt was given a list of 30 names and phone numbers of women who attended, called them all up and got 10 to show up at Bar Núria for the new organization's first meeting.
It differed from American and British activists who were keen to develop political connections and change the legal status for members of the LG community, while maintaining links to explicitly leftist organizations.
[8][69] The mostly gay male Barcelona based group kept meetings to eight people or fewer in order to avoid attracting attention from the government.
[69] Front d'Alliberament Gai de Catalunya was formed in 1975 in Barcelona, and two years later, in 1977, would host the first Spanish Gay Pride march which saw participation from lesbians, politicians and union members.
[76] The Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory was founded in 2000 by Spanish journalist Emilio Silva after he successfully located the remains of his grandfather and eleven others in a roadside ditch.
Starting in 2002, he began lobbying for historical memory to become law, which it did in 2007 with the support of the Zapatero government as La Ley de Memoria Histórica.
