Los homosexuales en Barcelona bajo el franquismo. Prostitución, clase social y visibilidad entre 1956 y 1980

Abstract

Based on the files of the Catalonia and Balearic Islands courts pertain­ing to vagrants and social rehabilitation from between 1956 and 1980, I wish to demonstrate that a highly developed gay world existed in Barcelona during the Franco regime. This world, which was confined to the Barrio Chino, was visible, and the gays in it were not persecuted. Indeed, there was even a certain permissiveness. Only “invested” individuals who had some link with crime or prostitution were convicted. Those who could prove that they had hones work had no problem with the law. Therefore, there was a true class-based justice, since only homosexuals from the lower classes were convicted in Bar­celona during the Franco regime.