Gay history of Barcelona

I firmly believe that love is love.

One day, when I took a train from Prague to Barcelona, I saw the words on a banner that moved me:
I love you and you should love me too.
I think it is a unique romance of Barcelona.

Barcelona is the pioneer city of Spain in the fight for LGTBI rights.

The Gay Liberation Movement in Spain dates back to the late 60s, a period marked by social conflicts. There were student riots in Paris in May 1968. In the same year, the American demonstrations against the war in Vietnam took place while the Civil Rights Movement progressed unstoppably, despite the deaths of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, which happened in 1968 as well. Mention should be made about the Prague Spring and the subsequent Soviet Military Invasion, the brutal bloodbath of students in Tlatelolco square, Mexico DF, just before the Olympics, the Italian Hot Autumn and The miners’ strikes in Great Britain in 72 and 73.

The late sixties and the seventies were a time of change and generational replacement in the Western world, which led to a shift from the old social values. In Spain, there was another major change that took place in this period as well: the Transition. After a dictatorship that had lasted almost 4 decades, the country gave way to a new democratic system. The Spanish Gay Movement during the Transition benefited from this situation, thanks to a growth in terms of new Gay Organizations and Magazines.

For some time now, Barcelona has been a dream destination for LGBTI tourists from all over the world. The Catalan capital is an open, cosmopolitan city where gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals and intersexed will find an atmosphere of freedom, tolerance and respect. The reason for that is, since the 1970s, there has been a good number of groups and associations that have shown concern and fought tirelessly for the rights of everyone, something they are still doing today. A good example of that is the Catalan Parliament’s passing of the Anti-Homophobia Act, a pioneering piece of legislation in Spain promoted by a large number of associations.