For many of Spain’s gay and lesbian citizens, June 30, 2005, brought with it a deluge of emotions — and a rush of history.

By David Muto

SANTANDER, Spain - For many of Spain's gay and lesbian citizens, June 30, 2005, brought with it a deluge of emotions --and a rush of history.

In swiftly legalizing gay marriage with a single measure, a newly elected Socialist-led Spanish government surprised not only a global community that still largely viewed Spain as a conservative Catholic stronghold, but also many of the nation's own gay and lesbian citizens, for whom a victory on the marriage front seemed distant.

For Regino Mateo, secretary of the Santander-based Association of Gays and Lesbians of Cantabria (ALEGA), a swell of happiness and pride was only natural, as was incredulity: Just 40 years earlier, in a different Spain-- a Spain of oppressive dictatorial Catholic rule - gays were living lives of silent repression under laws that prohibited homosexuality and often sent offenders to camps and jails. This rush of history, for Mateo, was a reminder of those who had come before him, and of the unfinished work for social acceptance that would remain.

For 40 years, following the bloody Spanish Civil War, which between 1936 and 1939 pitted Republicans against Nationalists and left up to 200,000 dead, Francisco Franco ruled Spain with an authoritarian iron fist. Divorce was prohibited. Castilian Spanish was the only permitted language. Women were often kept out of the workforce to occupy traditional roles and were never afforded positions of professional power. For many, this 20th-century dictatorship cemented Spain's historical status as a land of absolute religious rule.

Unsurprisingly, state control extended to what the Franco regime termed "deviant" sexual behavior. The pre-Civil War Vagrancy Act was modified in 1954 to criminalize homosexuality.  Gays could thus be sent to prison and were at times detained quietly, simply under suspicion of homosexuality. Other laws on the books during the Franco years, including the Law of Social Danger, resulted in  about 5,000 gays being sent to internment camps, often for 10- to 12-month terms until deemed "cured."

Gays were "the worst category that one could be in Spanish society," Mateo said.

In response, gays were forced into places of refuge. Clandestine gay scenes emerged in areas of Madrid and Barcelona.In smaller cities--where secrecy was even more crucial--gay meeting places were largely concentrated in areas of public transportation, where men could wait for one another easily, Mateo said.

But the death of Franco in 1975 and a swift movement toward democracy did not bring instant reversals. Gays were jailed until 1979, and a history of criminalization had left its mark on the nation.

Mateo, who was 10 when Franco died and did not experience the full extent of the authoritarian grip on daily life, nonetheless felt the legacy that the regime had laid. In his hometown of Reinosa, located in southern Cantabria, he felt an "excess of social control," which still exists today, he said. His family, while not overtly religious or conservative, cleaved to tradition--and still does.

"There aren't problems, but we don't talk much about the topic or of my emotional life," Mateo said in an e-mail, "in spite of the fact that I now live with my partner."

Regino Mateo

Such silence is indicative of the struggles that gay Spaniards face in a "post-gay rights" Spain. With marriage legal and gays treated largely with tolerance, Mateo said, true respect for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community still lags behind. It is with this approach that ALEGA works to further advance LGBT rights in Spain by providing support for LGBT youths and aiding other communities in the world working toward securing similar rights and recognition.

But, while the struggle for full acceptance continues, Mateo still finds himself in a place of contentment-- one of relative normalcy, in which "for the first time you can just wear one mask when going out," he said.

For him, work remains. But in looking back just 40 years to a Spain in which homosexuality was illegal and living now in a nation whose government has extended marriage rights to all, a line delivered by Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero on the floor of Parliament after the vote that legalized gay marriage lingers in the minds of many LGBT Spanish citizens, he said.

“‘Today, Spain is a more decent nation,’” Mateo said, recalling the phrase. “It’s a beautiful sentence.”

Regino Mateo was interviewed in Santander, Spain, by David Muto, in the summer of 2009.

Transcript in Spanish:

“De tal manera, que cuando tú descubres tu propia homosexualidad, lo primero que sientes es que eres lo, lo más horrible del mundo, ¿no? Es decir, un poco eres lo que los chicos o la gente utiliza como insulto. Y además tus únicos referentes simbólicos — en el cine, en la literatura, en la cultura, en la calle, en el habla de la gente — son terriblemente negativos. Porque, por ejemplo, durante franquismo y primera Transición, sí pueden aparecer homosexuales en textos, o en la televisión o en el cine, por ejemplo, pero siempre que se les asocie a algo ridículo o algo peligroso.”

English Translation:

“In this way, when you discover your own homosexuality, the first thing you feel is that you’re the most horrible person in the world, you know? That is, you’re a little bit of what kids and people use as an insult. And also, your only symbolic references — in film, in literature, in the culture, on the street, in the way people’stalk— are terribly negative. Because, for example, during the [Francisco] Franco years and the first Transition, there could be homosexuals appearing in print, or on the television or in film, for example, but they were always being associated with something ridiculous or something dangerous.”