Migration, Repression and Homosexual Sociability in Francoist Spain: An Analysis of the Case Files of the Special Courts of Barcelona (1965–1975)

Abstract

In Spain, under General Franco's regime, homosexuality was regarded as an antisocial and dangerous behaviour. It was thus pursued both by the police and judicial courts. The Law on Vagrants and Crooks (1954) and, subsequently, the Law on Dangerousness and Social Rehabilitation (1970) constituted the legal mechanisms used by the dictatorship to lock up and re-socialise homosexuals. In this article, we examine 321 case files of persons of Spanish nationality who emigrated to the city of Barcelona and who were convicted of homosexuality by the Special Courts of Barcelona between 1965 and 1975. The analysis revealed a bias in Francoist justice based on social class and Catholic morality. Those convicted were overwhelmingly young men of limited financial and cultural resources who came from the less developed Spanish regions. However, despite this repression, spheres of homosexual sociability which transgressed the dominant moral norms existed in Barcelona during that period.