Stonewall and its Legacy in Iberia

This short article evaluates the changing and conflictive discourse and practice around homosexuality over the twentieth century in Spain and Portugal. The Iberian states were under dictatorship at the time of the Stonewall riots in 1969. Despite the repressive legislation introduced in both countries, it is possible to discern resistance against the law and against a general climate of social opprobrium. Rather than seeing Stonewall as a starting point or an obligatory definitive reference for ‘gay liberation’, the experience of LGBT people in Iberia allows us re-evaluate the history of sexuality against the backdrop of authoritarian regimes, the colonial past and acts of resistance, however small, for a critical history of LGBT life in Europe and beyond.