Mariquitas on the March in San Pedro de Alcántara, 22 January 1969: An Unlikely, Rural Stonewall

A Spanish Civil Guard report is to be found in the Historical Provincial Archive of Malaga, where a number of signs proclaiming the ‘day of the liberation of the queer’ in the small town of San Pedro de Alcántara in January 1969 are transcribed. This article analyses the historical ramifications of this multi-layered report, arguing that the contents of the document, its explicit articulation of gay identity and its demand for emancipation came at a crucial time during the Spanish Francoist dictatorship (1939–75). By examining the connections between tourism, the policy of ‘opening-up’ in the second half of Franco's dictatorship, and the changing, yet still very conservative, attitudes towards sexuality in the Spanish 1960s, this article emphasizes the existence, importance and agency of smaller, rural LGBTQ communities in general, and of the San Pedro de Alcántara case in particular. This article analyses the original document, focusing on queer humour, political allegiances and resistance. The article proposes a reconstruction along and against the grain of the rich network of influences that led some LGBTQ people in San Pedro to display signs in defence of their own sexuality and beliefs amidst intense persecution by Franco's regime.