Article #87560

Pioneering activists risked arrest and imprisonment amid lingering persecution after Franco dictatorship

New research has shed light on Spain’s first transgender political organisation, a trailblazing collective that was launched in 1978 as its members grappled with the lingering persecution of the country’s four-decade dictatorship.

Founded in Barcelona, the Colectivo de Travestis y Transexuales, or Collective of Transvestis and Transexuals, sought to add its voice to the heated conversation playing out across Spain in the transition to democracy after the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.