Not Such a Soft Dictatorship: Francoism and the Forgotten Repression of Sexual Minorities

In the later years of Franco’s regime, Spain was beginning to change socially, culturally, and economically. But beneath the surface of so-called “soft dictatorship” the state continued to torture, imprison, and silence those who didn’t fit its moral order and catholic ideology.In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Sonia Cuesta Maniar, a doctoral researcher at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, whose work examines how the Spanish state persecuted gay and trans people during the late Francoist period, turning them into public enemies that threatened the social order of the country.We talk about how the regime used psychiatry, imprisonment, and humiliation as tools of control, and how these acts of violence were justified.Re-released as part of our Francoism series, this episode reminds us that the dictatorship was not the “soft” authoritarianism it’s sometimes remembered as, but a system built on fear, repression, and the erasure of those who lived outside its narrow vision of Spain.The Sobremesa Podcast is completely independent; no ads, no sponsors, just time, research, and a lot of coffee. If you enjoy what we do, consider supporting us through Buy Me a Coffee so we can keep the podcast sustainable.Donate here!