Where Spain's gay rights movement began

[reader]

From the BBC

Once a poor fishing town, Torremolinos became an unlikely LGBTQ+ haven in the midst of a fascist regime.

The walkway outside Mariquita Copas, a hole-in-the-wall bar in Torremolinos' main "gaybourhood", La Nogalera, glowed blue. The makeshift drinking terrace I was sitting at was surrounded by palm-filled squares in the heart of southern Spain's Costa del Sol, a few blocks up from the Mediterranean. As I sipped a beer on my first night in town, I surveyed the scene: pedestrians holding shopping bags had stopped to chat; a man and woman sat entwined on a bench; and gay locals clinked cocktail glasses. In the midst of it all was a bearded drag artist, outlandishly tall in knee-length platform boots, leather cap and skin-tight camouflage bodysuit. This, I soon realised, was just another night in Torremolinos.

Of course, it wasn't always this way. Until now, I'd been blissfully ignorant of Torremolinos' important role in Spain's LGBTQ+ history. But, as I was about to learn, not only did the country's first gay-friendly bar open here back in 1962, it was also where Spain's gay rights movement began – rather violently.

Why Torremolinos? Let's start, as we Brits like to, with the weather.

Originally a poor fishing village, Torremolinos' sub-tropical climate – among the warmest in Spain – was key in its metamorphosis into a resort during the 1950s. With Francisco Franco's fascist government keen to encourage hotel construction to kickstart Spain's war-decimated economy, by 1959 the town boasted the country's first five-star hotel (Hotel Pez Espada). Celebrities followed, from Brigitte Bardot, Greta Garbo and Pablo Picasso to Grace Jones, Frank Sinatra and John Lennon – a golden era commemorated in the town's Ruta del Murales street-art trail, which was unveiled in 2022. 

Aided by the rise of charter flights in the late 1950s, the increasingly cosmopolitan and liberal town began attracting artists, musicians, writers and queer visitors, too. Despite the fact that homosexuality was still considered a crime under Franco's regime, in 1962, a British gay couple opened Tony's Bar on the narrow L-shaped alleyway Pasaje Begoña.

"Although Tony's cannot be defined as a 'gay bar' as we understand it today, it was a place where the owners were gay and allowed the clientele freedom," said Jorge M Pérez, the president of Pasaje Begoña Association, which was founded in 2018 with the aim of "recovering the memory of this emblematic place and rescuing this forgotten chapter in the history of Spain".

Tony's was an instant smash and over the next few years, it inspired a slew of other establishments catering to the gay community. What was once a sleepy fishing community soon transformed into a queer hub known for its inclusivity and hedonism. There was, for example, the often-raided La Sirena (nicknamed "The Sissy Bar"); Bar Tabarín, the first to host nude shows; Pourquoi Pas, the town's first lesbian club (still operating as an LGBTQ+ bar); and jazz venue The Blue Note, owned by the Dutch lesbian singer Pia Beck.

Continues at

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230605-torremolinos-where-spains-gay-rights-movement-began

 

[forrestreid]

Glad to read that the history of that time is being kept alive