Women, Football, and Francoism: Lesbians and the Formation of Social Networks through Women’s Football in Barcelona, 1970–1979

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to analyse the appearance of women’s football in Spain in the 1970s and to show the links between the sport and the creation of a lesbian community in the city of Barcelona. The study will examine the ways in which the construction of women footballer’s sexual identities was shaped by their participation in this sport, given the repressive context of the era. Oral interviews constituted the main method used in the study. This historiographical technique allowed us to gather oral histories from a number of women footballers, most of them lesbians. The information provided by these first-hand sources was also enriched and corroborated through the use of additional documentary sources (both from the sporting press and from other publications), which placed the first-hand testimony in the proper context and served to confirm some of the information collected in the interviews. By way of conclusion, the study established that, in the context of the lack of visibility of female homosexuality in the era and the hostility of the authorities and the public institutions under the dictatorship, women’s football provided a valuable space.