This article is the result of research deriving from a line of work that has been pursued for the last five years by Ramon Llull University’s Sports and Society Research and Innovation Group [Grupo de Investigación e Innovación sobre Deporte y Sociedad] (GRIES) in Barcelona. The aim of this line of research is to analyze the characteristics of sociability, bonds of affection, and social network development among lesbians through sports and in various historical contexts throughout the twentieth century. From this vantage point, research has focused on soccer in the city of Barcelona during the late Francoist era and has already given rise to several scientific and academic publications (Ribalta and Pujadas 2019, 79–102; Ribalta and Pujadas 2020, 1–19). Still, the lack of national Spanish studies on the participation of homosexual women in sports during the Franco dictatorship stands in stark contrast to the existence of publications addressing the repression, persecution, and vulnerability suffered by lesbians in that context (Platero 2008; Osborne 2008 and 2009; Mora 2016; Sanz Romero 2021). Despite the greater invisibility of female sexual nonconformist behavior as compared to its male counterpart in the public sphere and in social studies, historical research into non-heterosexual women as a group during the Franco dictatorship is beginning to emerge, albeit at a very preliminary and incomplete stage (Sanz Romero 2021, 14). In this light, the present study seeks to reconstruct the general environment surrounding the participation of lesbians in women’s soccer in Spain between 1970 and 1982. As detailed below, together with archival documentary research, the key methodological approach adopted for this study was to work with oral sources.
The general aim of the study was to analyze lesbians’ experience of socialization and the development of their sexual identity during the initial phase of women’s soccer against the backdrop of the late Franco era and Spain’s political transition to democracy between 1970 and 1982.
Linked to this general goal are three specific objectives associated with the study’s analytical dimensions: (a) to study the characteristics of initiation and initial socialization within the world of soccer; (b) to analyze the characteristics of nonconforming sexual identities and orientations in the world of soccer; (c) to identify the appearance of formal or informal networks of lesbians in the world of women’s soccer during the period studied.
As mentioned above, this research was conducted based on oral histories as a fundamental method for historical reconstruction considering that “if we want to recoup our historical memory, we must also give a voice to those women who suffered at the hands of the dictatorship” (Sanz Romero 2021, 15), and because “memoirs, autobiographies or life stories have given us access to new historical subjects and to traditionally undervalued historical issues” (Aguado 2011). As such, the invisibility of lesbians as a female collective during the dictatorship has necessitated the use of oral histories as a way to bring more to light concerning this group. The results of the open-ended, semi-structured interviews have, of course, been expanded and compared with other sources of a documentary nature (data collected from press, documents, and literature review) to reconstruct the context and validate the information gathered.
The study analyzed and compared the experiences of a non-random sample of eleven informants comprising nine participants in women’s soccer active between 1970 and 1983 and two men involved in coaching women’s soccer teams during the study period. A systematic analysis of the data was subsequently performed based on a series of categories together with their descriptors and indicators. The categories analyzed in the accounts were developed from three key dimensions for the study: (a) sports; (b) sexual identity and orientation; (c) social networks of lesbians in women’s soccer. In the end, eleven categories and forty-five indicators were identified, as detailed in Tables 1–3.
Dimension of Sports
| Categories | Main indicators |
|---|---|
| Socializing agents and motives for taking up participation in sports | - Initial participation in gymnastics and/or sports - Initial participation in women’s soccer - Other sports played - Socializing agents contributing to participation in soccer |
| Attitudes by family members | - Positive - Negative |
Source: in-house.
Dimension of Sexual Identity and Orientation
| Categories | Main indicators |
|---|---|
| Sexual orientation and identity | - Awareness - Acceptance (difficulty or ease of accepting this identity) - Normalization - Other lesbians on the team - Visibility or invisibility - Support |
| Lesbian types | - Masculine - Feminine |
| Personal attributes | - Clothes - Mannerisms - Body language - Stereotypes |
| Self-designation | - ‘Dyke’ - ‘Lesbo’ - ‘Lezzy’ - Rebels - ‘Mari Loli’ - Buzz like a wasp - Others |
| Role models | - Lesbian players - Lesbians - Films - Others |
| Society and female homosexuality | - Acceptance - Rejection, hostility - Concealment |
Source: in-house.
Dimension of Lesbian Socialization Networks in Soccer
| Categories | Main indicators |
|---|---|
| Network characteristics | - Informal and self-managed - Sexual relationships - outside sports - Invisible (not in public view) - Facilitating role - Liberation |
| Network activities | - Private/public parties - Bars and/or night clubs - Player trips and get-togethers - Public holidays - Work |
| The lesbian struggle and feminist movements | - Activism or lack of activism - Demands |
Source: in-house.
The snowball sampling technique was used to select the female interview subjects, applying the following criteria for inclusion: (a) active soccer players for teams in Madrid or Barcelona between 1970 and 1983; (b) those who played in the top division or for the national team; (c) those coming from different backgrounds and socioeconomic levels; (d) those having a homosexual or bisexual (seven) and heterosexual (two) orientation. The male interview subjects were coaches from the world of women’s soccer during the 1970–1986 period. All interview subjects had been informed of the ongoing project and had agreed to participate, signing an informed consent declaration. The identity of all participants has been kept strictly anonymous. Respondents’ accounts were corroborated through consultation of written sources.
Invisibility, Secrecy, and Repression: Lesbianism in the Late Francoist Era
Lesbianism was consistently rejected by the Franco regime throughout much of the Spanish dictatorship in Spain. The key reason for this policy was the model of femininity that the dictatorship itself systematically constructed, disseminated, and transmitted, based from the outset on imposing a social role centered on childcare, housework, and morality, always without questioning male authority (Manrique 2011, 261-2). In contrast, masculinity under Franco was constructed on a model of virility and patriotism (Pérez-Sánchez 2004; González Aja 2005). As a result, the regime’s authorities were unable to acknowledge the existence of active sexuality between women since “to recognize it would be to acknowledge the sexual initiative of women without men” (Osborne 2009, 59). Moreover, acknowledging lesbianism would have meant breaking with the two-tiered idea at the heart of national Catholicism: that female sexuality was passive in its relation to men and that reproduction was the only possible purpose of sexual activity for women. Of course, this did not mean that nonconformist female sexuality or erotic lesbian relationships never took place during the Franco regime or that such activities were not strictly controlled by the state. In contrast to the legal, punitive, and public persecution and repression of male homosexuality, however, sexual control of lesbians was primarily informal and ideological (Nash 1989; Platero 2009; Ramírez Pérez 2018). The educational, social, and moral institutions of the Franco regime were responsible for disseminating the model for women to follow, which permeated the social fabric and family life of Spain. Control by society, family, and the Catholic Church was extreme, condemning homosexual women to a life of invisibility and isolation (Osborne 2009, 75) “in the deepest of closets” (Ramírez Pérez 2018, 149). Thus, while direct repression of non-heterosexual women by the State’s law enforcement and judicial apparatus was much less severe than the methods employed against men, the mission of controlling these women rested in the hands of their own families, who “condemned them to absolute silence and secrecy...in the most absolute repression of their sexuality” (Platero Méndez 2009).
However, from the 1960s onward and during the late Franco regime, several specific cases of lesbianism began to emerge in texts and communications from lawyers and doctors (Mora Gaspar 2019). This was undoubtedly a public response to the fear and alarm caused by the proliferation of cases of sexual nonconformity practiced in the context of international openness in a Spain now characterized by developmentalism, tourism, and urban growth. In the 1960s and 1970s, attorneys including Antonio Sabater Tomás and Luis Vivas Marzal argued that the problem of homosexuality could not be eradicated with existing legal tools, given that the 1933 Vagrants and Criminals Act [Ley de Vagos y Maleantes] (amended in 1954 to include homosexuality in the text) did not allow for the imprisonment of homosexuals (Mora Gaspar 2019, 42-3). In 1968, psychiatrist Juan José López-Ibor described both male and female homosexuality as “perversions of instincts” (López-Ibor 1968). In the 1970 report referencing the previous year, the Francoist Public Prosecutor’s Office described female homosexuality for the first time as a surprising practice because “there were hardly any precedents for it,” a statement that was refuted a year later by the emergence of new incidents (Ramírez Pérez 2018, 150). In 1970, the Balearic Islands Prosecutor’s Office described female homosexuality as having minimal relevance, although the Huelva prosecutor alluded to its significant danger in 1975 due to existing “cases of incitement or outbreak of pederastic or lesbian activity” (Ramírez Pérez 2018, 151).
There is hardly any information to suggest that legal repression was conducted against lesbians. According to Ricardo Llamas and Fefa Vila (1997), data from the Lambda Institute report on two women targeted for retribution, although the procedural details of these cases are unknown. No data indicate that lesbians were ever convicted under this law (Gimeno 2005, 191).
While it is true that, “unable to comprehend a means of sexual pleasure independent of heterosexual male pleasure, lesbianism was erased from the sexual horizon by the Franco dictatorship in its later years” (Pérez-Sánchez 2004, 46), it is equally true that the gradual changes sweeping Spanish society in the 1960s and 1970s allowed for the emergence of some cases of unsanctioned female sexual behavior that did not go unnoticed by the authorities. Against this backdrop and in contrast to other countries such as the United States, where homosexual areas had been springing up in cities like San Francisco or New York since the 1960s, the ongoing presence in Spain of repressive laws and a culture of fear continued to hinder public displays of this kind, pushing them underground into certain scenarios and contexts.
The Slow and Difficult Emergence of Women’s Soccer During the 1970s
There is no doubt that the sports policies introduced by the new Francoist government represented a break from the process of sports development pursued in Spain up to the 1930s (Santacana 2010, 206). For the role of women in sports, however, this break was a significant departure from the conditions during the Second Spanish Republic, given that the new regime’s official position regarding women and their relationship with their bodies and physical activity differed openly from the view held by the liberal republic. Studies of the moral, cultural, and bodily effect of the Francoist sports model on the experience of women have highlighted the use of physical activities as a form of social control (Pujadas 2016). Falangist sports theorists such as Dr. Luis Agosti, national adviser to the Falangist Women’s Section beginning in 1939 (Manrique 2011, 267), maintained from the outset that the question “was not one of women playing sports in a masculine way, but rather of performing according to their own form of expression” (Suárez 1993, 156). Moreover, Agosti was radically opposed to women participating in soccer or track and field, not to mention other sports permitted during the Second Republic, including boxing, wrestling, rugby, and some gymnastic events, arguing that “they require qualities completely opposed to the female constitution” (Suárez 1993, 156). Fully in keeping with the regime’s female model, he was referring to both physical and moral qualities in relation to the stereotypes of self-sacrifice, submission, beauty, and fragility assigned to women. In this context, women were openly banned from engaging in violent or contact sports as defined by the regime, while some sports either went unrecognized by the political establishment or were strongly discouraged during the 1940s and 1950s. In Seville, the Church banned gymnastics in girls’ schools, and women were prohibited from bicycle riding in Valladolid (Manrique 2011, 264). The 1960s brought about a formal shift in the landscape of sports policy, including passage of the new Physical Education and Sports Act [Ley de Educación Física y Deportes] in 1961 and a cautious openness, with women able at last to participate in competitive track and field and other sports.
With regard to soccer, the Spanish Soccer Federation did not officially recognize the women’s game until 1980, well into the period of transition (Ribalta and Pujadas 2020, 7). Nevertheless, during the late Francoist era and particularly from the late 1960s and early 1970s onward, some women’s soccer matches took place in cities like Barcelona and Madrid and their environs. Since 1970, soccer initiatives led by women have been documented in the regions of Catalonia, Andalusia, the Basque Country, Valencia, and Asturias, where new teams were created and championships held through private initiatives despite federal disdain to extend official recognition to women’s soccer (Muga 2015, 10). This initial emergence in Spain coincided with the renaissance of women’s soccer in several European countries. The French, German, and English federations all recognized women’s soccer between 1969 and 1971 (Prudhomme-Poncet 2003, 218). The ban persisted until 1970 in Germany, where the combativeness of the sport was viewed as contrary to women’s nature, while in England between 1921 and 1971, the FA (Football Association) considered the modality inappropriate and called upon FA clubs to reject women’s matches. The rise of women’s soccer in Europe led to the founding of the Federation of Independent European Female Football (FIEFF) in February 1970 in Turin with the backing of UEFA. The first World Cups were organized (unofficially since these were unrecognized by FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association) (Ribalta 2011, 6). Despite the sport’s growing acceptance in Europe, the late Franco regime in Spain continued to intensify its opposition to women’s soccer. In 1971, the Women’s Section of the Falange sent the following message to its delegations: “we ask you to refrain from promoting any activity associated with women’s soccer, as you do not have the approval of the Women’s Section” (Muga 2015, 97). In the 1970s, however, against the backdrop of the rise of women’s soccer, the official rhetoric of the federation and regime authorities was at odds with social reality. New teams began to spring up across the country beginning in 1971, a fledgling National Council was founded to develop the sport, a magazine dedicated exclusively to women’s soccer was launched, and the first international matches involving an unofficial Spanish team were played (Ribalta and Pujadas 2020, 6).
Despite the overt opposition of the Women’s Section and Spanish public institutions against genuine promotion of this sport, Spain was chosen by the FIEFF to host the third Women’s Soccer World Championship, which took place in July 1972. However, the Spanish Government failed to respond to the invitation issued by the international federation, and the tournament never took place (Muga 2015, 147). After many years of political transition and at a time when it was already being regulated in most European countries, women’s soccer was officially recognized as a sport in Spain upon the admission of the Royal Spanish Soccer Federation in October 1980. Consequently, on February 5, 1983, the Spanish national women’s team gained official status with a match against Portugal played in the border town of A Guarda (Ribalta and Pujadas 2020, 6).
“Covert Visibility”: Socialization, Soccer, and Sexual Identity
This emergence of women’s soccer in the 1970s gave rise to contradictory situations. The young women who liked this sport and who had played on the street, mostly with boys, were unable to play on a girls’ team when they traveled to visit their relatives1 or vacationed at their summer homes.2 Beyond the absence of women’s teams in practice, it was also impossible for them to join a men’s club.
Reaching their teenage years, they were able to join teams that were emerging in regional capitals like Barcelona and Madrid. In some cases, the playing environment favored them: “My father was the manager of a team in Madrid and my uncle was the equipment manager. When I was little, I helped him clean and oil the cleats (...) until one day, when I was 15 years old, my father found out that they were coming to play here and he said to me: I have a surprise for you. He got me some cleats so I could play.”3 In others, it was encouraged: “they did not reinforce it but they respected me.”4 Girls sometimes met with prohibitions or guidance that kept them from playing the sport: “My mother (...) told me: you’re too old to still be playing soccer in the street.”5
The differences between late-Franco Spain and some European countries in how women’s soccer was viewed and evolved were significant. This is confirmed by the account of a female interview subject born outside of Spain, who asserted that in her country “it was normal ...”6 for girls to play soccer, whereas, in Spain, it was more of a boys’ game, and that “they needed to break the mold”7 during that period. In fact, when she arrived in Spain, this female player went with her mother to “Bernabéu [Stadium] to see if there were girls’ teams, and they looked at me as if to say...”8 Later, influenced by her surroundings, her mother changed her mind because “the neighbors or people in general told her that it was just for boys.”9 Both in this case as well as in many others, women’s soccer coaches had to intervene, going to the homes of the young players to try to convince the parents: “It’s true. I visited people’s homes many times to tell mothers: Look, this is a sport; your daughter arrives, everything is under control, everyone has a good time and plays; they have fun and that’s it, and then they go home”10 or to insist that playing was harmless: “I picked up the player, I called her at home because her parents told me that she is very young, and I argued that she played very well and while she had no future in soccer, she had fun and that they should allow it as they would other sports.”11
The fact that women’s soccer was not officially recognized during the late Franco era exacerbated social rejection and encouraged expressions of open hostility (Muga 2015, 97) or even violence. Some of the young female soccer players interviewed explained how they had to fight against the hegemonic language of the day and endure insults and aggressive behavior from spectators: “tomboys,”12 “dykes, go and wash the dishes, sluts, why are you here instead of in the kitchen?” etc. And sometimes those on the sideline would reach out to try to grab us.”13 Arguments linking women’s soccer with medical issues and motherhood had become widespread during the 1970s just as soccer was gaining in popularity among some young women. Shocking rumors were spread: “They said it was going to make it impossible for us to have children.”14 Not without reason, they affirmed that the atmosphere was hostile and that if they had listened to all those comments, they would have quit playing.15
Regarding the participation of lesbians on the women’s teams, the female players interviewed stated that this was something that they were gradually discovering: “it was something that I was not at all used to,”16 given that female homosexuality was something invisible and concealed out of necessity:
“It was highly frowned upon: the Vagrants and Criminals Act was in force, and it was punished as if it were a crime; the cases I knew about took place in absolute secrecy”17 and “it was handled with discretion” within the teams.18 Some of the female players from the period in question were barely aware of their own homosexual identity: “...most, at least from the early period, I don’t think that any of them knew that they were lesbian per se (...), they suspected it, or perhaps they knew deep down, but it’s not as if we went looking for sports to find lesbianism, not at all. At least for me and those around me, we started playing soccer because we liked it.”19 Many of them did not consider themselves to be homosexual or bisexual, and the emergence of sexual self-awareness was very painful in some cases. “This period was very difficult for me to go through, but the one that followed was not. I was terrified and said to myself: I’m going to go back—I’m going to die.”20 A shameful rejection even began to surface since, “to be perfectly honest, I felt a bit sad when I realized that my teammates were lesbians and, in my case, I didn’t fully accept it until I told my mother.”21 For others, in contrast, it was a way of normalizing what they already felt: “Before I started playing soccer, I did have my doubts because I had never heard of lesbianism or that two women could have a relationship,”22 or a way to consider other possibilities: “You know, after what happened to me, any woman can, after what happened to me, being a virgin when I got married, it was something a small town would meddle in.”23 The researchers also heard from women who did not feel comfortable with couples in the locker room and who did not identify with the group or with some of the sexual insinuations against them, causing them to distance themselves gradually from the team.24
For the male coaching staff, this was also a learning period, but managing a locker room comprising different sexual orientations did not pose a major problem: “There was a female representative, president of a soccer team, who came with me, and she and her husband introduced me to this issue and explained the ins and outs of the matter. I understood completely.”25 In short, a distinction had to be made between “the team and the privacy of each team member,”26 and what the coaches wanted was to lead winning teams.27
In this context of zero visibility outside of the group itself, tensions between players who were in a couple relationship could sometimes surface. When these situations arose, they tended to have a greater effect within the women’s own team than on the national squad: “some players sided with one and some with the other.”28 Often “it was more for technical than personal reasons, and it did not take long for them to make up.”29 In soccer there was what we could define as “covert visibility,” given that in a hostile and critical environment in which homosexuality was even punishable by law, the team offered a place of protection and refuge. As the interview subjects confirmed, it offered them “security”30; in other words, “in the world of soccer you can feel somewhat liberated because you see other girls exactly like you (...), but you know what? I had a hard time admitting it.”31 And they admitted it, since “I started to like that person and the feeling was mutual.”32
Regarding the names used to identify themselves as lesbians, the interview subjects from Madrid-based women’s teams usually did not associate any such name with themselves because they saw it as something that was completely natural. 33 In contrast, women interviewed in Barcelona tended to label themselves as “rebellious,”34 “dykes,”35 and “lezzy, but never in a derogatory way,”36 as well as “Mari Loli”37 and imitating the “buzz of a wasp,”38 a sound they used when they began to go to bars as a way to communicate without using actual words. Generally speaking, they used the terms “nanny goats, lesbians, lesbos, dyke, and lezzy.”39 In the social context of late Francoism, some of these terms were very “derogatory, conveying fierce criticism,”40 or a “snub,”41 which would often be accompanied by macho comments on the playing field.42
In their identification of lesbians, players were guided “by their physique, by how they dressed if they were more masculine,”43 and by “contact or the way they looked at you”44 or “behaved”45 if they were feminine or ambiguous. Moreover, “when we played soccer, almost all of us were more masculine.”46 Yet, while certain attributes and behavior were apparently branded as masculine, some players had their feminine side.47 “Then, once a few years had passed and we started going to pubs, we also started meeting very feminine people, very masculine people, and everything in between.”48
The first female soccer players claimed that they had no role models in the form of other female soccer players or other homosexual women and that if there were any, they were unaware of them.49 In contrast, women soccer players of the 1980s could look to some of their peers who had preceded them and who had made a name for themselves abroad, women like Conchi Amancio.50
Initially, the fear of being discovered by their family or society made them not want to look for role models “because at that time (...), in the first place, I did not know how to do that, and secondly, I was afraid (...) and, above all, I did not want to hurt my mother.”51
Films about soccer or in which lesbians appeared were subsequently released: Las Ibéricas F.C. (1971), which featured players from Madrid’s Olímpico Villaverde,52 La Liga no es cosa de hombres [Our Blonde Football Player Is a Playboy] (1972), Me siento extraña (1977), Carne apaleada [Battered Flesh] (1978), Su mejor marca [Personal Best] (1982), Media hora más contigo [Desert Hearts] (1985) and Berlín interior [The Berlin Affair] (1985).53
Soccer films began to be released just as women’s soccer was emerging in Spain and as spoof matches were being contested, such as those played between Las Finolis and Las Folklóricas.54 These were a way of belittling or discrediting women’s soccer that did not sit well with the female players.
Finally, in Madrid, the female interview subjects highlighted the importance of “Alaska, Mecano, Almodóvar, and all these people”55 of the Movida madrileña period (1977–84). This was an artistic movement that attempted to create a break from censorship and the Franco dictatorship through the sexual nonconformity, rebellion, and liberation they experienced in the bars.
Informal Homosexual Networks in Soccer: A Safe Haven for Sexual Nonconformity During the Late Franco Era and the Transition
Although historiography has scarcely studied sexuality in sports during the Franco regime and the transition (Ribalta and Pujadas 2020, 2), it is undeniable that the participation of lesbians in the women’s soccer teams of this period allows us to analyze the behavior and experiences of these women, who are practically invisible in other public spheres. As such, while other authors have focused this type of research on settings such as prison, in which “it was foreseeable to imagine the compression of unsanctioned sexual experiences” (Osborne 2009, 75), studying women’s soccer teams during late Francoism and the transition brings to light experiences, strategies, and the forming of homosexual networks during a period in which these are difficult to observe in other scenarios. The accounts given by the female interview subjects provide us with a large amount of high-quality information enabling us to reconstruct the experiences of sexual nonconformity against the backdrop of open hostility from society and the regime itself. By analyzing these accounts, we have been able to identify certain features that help characterize the behavior of female players within the informal networks that sprang up in this context.
In previous studies, we identified the following seven basic characteristics in lesbian socialization networks formed through soccer: (1) informal networks self-managed by the players themselves, (2) the sexual relationships between network participants, (3) participation in leisure and work activities that went beyond soccer, (4) invisibility or covert visibility in society, (5) the network as facilitator of one’s own sexual experience, (6) the furnishing of security, and lastly (7) the liberating effect of one’s own sexual identity and orientation (Ribalta and Pujadas 2020, 12).
We held team meetings among ourselves; one of us was the president, another the treasurer. We met every night in a regular bar run by two lesbians, and when they closed—I don’t know, I think they closed at 10 or something every night—we would have a game or two of cards before starting the meeting and discussing our issues.56
With regard to the second characteristic, the network was built on sexual affinity but did not exclude non-lesbian players from participation: “If a girl who was not like us (i.e., not lesbian) joined us, everything was fine because there really was no problem.”57 Initially, “our circle was not very wide outside soccer; at first it was just us from the team.”58 Later, the network began to expand because “when we started going to pubs, we met all kinds of people.”59
The third characteristic concerns taking part in activities beyond the world of soccer, extending to experiences at work, vacations, or leisure pursuits. Several lesbian players from the same team went to work together,60 “we also went on vacation,”61 or checked out the pubs: “The ringleader of all this was M.D. She was the most determined and would say to us: I’ve found you some pubs.”62 Some particularly fun experiences: “We had such a good time because we were always horsing around.”63
At that moment when you were going out to a party, when you started discovering night clubs, when you broke up with a boy, when little by little you started saying to yourself, well, I think I like girls just as much, and you begin to involve yourself with this topic when you went out, but of course you didn’t tell your mother where you were going.64
They held some clandestine parties: “We also made friends with players on other teams. One teammate went to one team, another to a different team, and then they rented a house together and hosted private parties.”65 This invisibility was also maintained on bus trips: “So we would more or less meet up on the bus, those of us who were more like-minded would get together”66 and even “hold hands, but in secret.”67 They took advantage of the intimacy of restrooms to kiss,68 and gatherings in hotels: “We changed rooms to be with our partner,”69 or, if they were leaders and able to decide: “I paired myself (with the person I wanted).”70 If the coaches became aware of any relationships, they would take steps to dissuade these, putting one player in “room one hundred seven and the other in room seven hundred one.”71
The fifth characteristic is the network as facilitator of one’s own sexual experience. In this regard, the interview subjects recalled that “in the world of soccer you are able to feel somewhat liberated because you see other girls exactly like you.”72 They also point out that “getting together with people of the same sex helps you to (recognize/identify) sexual identity.”73
Sixth, these networks provided greater security to resolutely confront homonegativity and heterosexism (Krane and Kauer 2007, 73), because in the 1970s homosexuality lived in the shadow of Franco’s armed police force (los grises), who could arrest both gay boys and lesbian girls at will.74 Similarly, in Barcelona, “visits from the Social Brigade could end with exchanges of money behind the bar and free rounds of whiskey for the inspector on duty” (Morales and Pollina 2018, 192). Faced with these difficulties, one interview subject lamented that, “I wish we could have gone to normal bars and expressed and shown ourselves as we wanted to, without having thousands of eyes on us.”75
In seventh and last place, the facilitating role of the network triggered the effect of liberating one’s own identity in a normalizing, safe, and friendly group dynamic because some had never even considered it, and seeing it for themselves allowed them to question, discover, explore, and choose (Ribalta and Pujadas 2019, 93) in an environment that was even somewhat embarrassing or “horny when I liked someone.”76
Beyond the networks of women and the team, hardly any of them had been there during the homosexual struggles that began in June 1977 on Las Ramblas boulevard in Barcelona, a demonstration that marked the start of the fight for rights for the LGBT community in Spain. The interview subjects were also not on the front line for the feminist struggles, but they did join the “union struggles,”77 and emphasized that, “I would join them if I could turn back time.”78
Finally, it is interesting to note that the players remain in contact, whether they were on the same team or rivals. Some continue to play in the senior leagues of Madrid’s Autonomous Community, some in the veteran teams of Catalonia, while some are simply still friends: “We were a very nice group. In fact, we are still in touch today.”79 Moreover, they also point out that, “I have friends from that time, and we’ve now been close for more than 30 years,”80 which underlines the importance of shared experience and established bonds.
Conclusions
Studying female homosexuality in the world of soccer in the late Franco regime and the transition to democracy in Spain is a relevant field of research since it allows us to reconstruct the attitudes, experiences, and forms of expression of lesbian sexual nonconformity during a complex period of history. It was precisely during this final phase of the dictatorship and in the early years of the transition that two distinct aspects simultaneously emerged and evolved: a new social sphere of women’s sports traditionally rejected by the Regime, women’s soccer, and the 1970 Danger to Society and Social Rehabilitation Act [Ley de Peligrosidad y Rehabilitación Social], which was in part enacted in response to Franco’s animosity towards homosexuality against a backdrop of greater international exchange.
Although women’s soccer would continue to go unrecognized by official bodies until five years after the dictator’s death, its popularity among women grew gradually between 1970 and 1982. The coming together of groups of female soccer players into teams permitted the formation of relationships and experiences between lesbian women that had previously been concealed in the public sphere and routinely denied by the political, educational, religious, and familial power centers.
Within the confines of the soccer team, unsanctioned sexual identities could surface. This practice was not without its difficulties, and it took place in parallel to the regular development of the group as a whole in a kind of “covert visibility” that acted in some cases as a “safe haven” for sexual nonconformity that could never have flourished in the public sphere. The accounts given by the lesbian and bisexual female players in this study reveal the emergence of informal networks self-managed by the players themselves who maintained a sexual affinity. These relationships took the form of activities that went beyond soccer or could even, at certain times, facilitate the sexual experience itself in a safer and more liberating environment.
The research presented in this article on female homosexuality from 1970–1982 expressed by means of soccer has a number of limitations that should be corrected in future studies. The research must be expanded to include new accounts from women from regions outside the two large cities of Madrid and Barcelona, and the number of informants should be increased to a point that facilitates comparison with the experiences reported above. Experiences in other more impenetrable urban settings with teams that were less active, less mobile, and more in the shadow of social control agents would generate better understanding of a heterogeneous and complex reality as well as the social role played by sports in the liberation and repression of unsanctioned sexual identities during the late Franco era and the transition.
Acknowledgments
This article is part of a research project that has received a grant from Research Aid Fund APR-FPCEE2122/06. Blanquerna-Universidad Ramon Llull [Ramon Llull University].
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Notes
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Rosa Pedrosa, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, January 27, 2018.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Rosa Pedrosa, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, January 27, 2018.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E7, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 20, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E7, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 20, 2022.
E8, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 21, 2022.
E8, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 21, 2022.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Interview E7, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 20, 2022.
Ibid. Interview E7, interviewed by Ribalta D., Madrid February 20, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Rosa Pedrosa, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, January 27, 2018.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E2, interviewed by Ribalta, D., March 4, 2018.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E7, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 20, 2022.
E8, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 21, 2022.
E8, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 21, 2022.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E3, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, March 7, 2018.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E7, interviewed by Ribalta D., Madrid, February 20, 2022.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E8, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 21, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta D. Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta D. Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E2, interviewed by Ribalta, D., March 4, 2018.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta D. Madrid, February 18, 2022, and E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Las Ibéricas F.C. Directed by Pedro Masó. Madrid, C.B. Films S.A./Pedro Masó P.C. 1971; La Liga no es cosa de hombres [Our Blonde Football Player Is a Playboy]. Directed by Ignacio F. Iquino.1972. Me siento extraña. Directed by Enrique Martí. Madrid, Oscar Guarido, 1977; Carne apaleada [Battered Flesh]. Directed by Javier Aguirre. Madrid, film 5, 1978; Su mejor marca [Personal Best]. Directed by Robert Towne. EUA, Geffen Company, 1982; Media hora más contigo [Desert Hearts]. Directed by Donna Deitch. EUA, The Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1985; Berlín interior [The Berlin Affair]. Directed by Liliana Cavani. Co-production Italy-West Germany (FRG); Italian International Film/Cannon Productions, 1985.
‘Filmoteca Histórica Flamenca [Flamenco Historical Film Library]. Partido Folclóricas vs Finolis’ NO-DO (1971), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72eYg_CSjUo&t=60s (Accessed on January 12, 2018).
E4, interviewed by Ribalta D., Madrid, February 18, 2022, E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022, and E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, January 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E3, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, March 7, 2018.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E4, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E8, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 21, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E5, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
E6, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Madrid, February 18, 2022.
Isabel Ruiz, interviewed by Ribalta, D., Barcelona, June 6, 2017.
