• 1 Part of the translation of this article has been possible thanks to a research project funded by t (...)

1The abundant research on the democratic transitions in the three national cases has made little mention of gender and sexual identities1. The purpose of this article is precisely to incorporate gender and sexuality issues into the existing debates on the Transitions to Democracy in Southern Europe. Firstly, the article will analyze the conservative gender systems of the authoritarian regimes. Second, it will explore how women’s and gay and lesbian groups emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in Portugal, Spain and Greece as a collective response against conservative gender archetypes and the denial of their political, social, labor and individual rights by the authoritarian regimes. Those movements then responded both to their legal dispossession of rights and to the gender archetypes by creating new gender models that challenged the heteropatriarchal model of dictatorships. Third, the article will also expose how feminism and the gay movements, while promoting the democratization of society as part of the struggle in opposition to dictatorships, also questioned the hierarchical gender roles in political parties and unions of the left. Both in the transition process and later in the new democratic states, feminists, gays and lesbians, and later LGBTQ groups, challenged the existing gender gap in the new political elite. Finally, the article explores why the new democracies included only limited reforms in the service of gender and sexual equality in the initial agendas of the transitions. As a result, the transitions began with a “gender deficit”, which has continued in the historiography. The article will conclude by indicating that the longed for democratization was achieved without fully incorporating the majority of the population.

• 2 Pimentel, 2018, pp. 43-56; Ofer, 2005, pp. 663-674; 2009, pp. 583-605; 2019.
• 3 Rodríguez Gallardo, 2011, pp. 337-366, p. 341.
• 4 For a compilation of works on repression against women by the Franco regime and observations on th (...)

6These new roles and values vested in women were conveyed not only in the schoolhouse, but also via other organizational tools that Portugal and Spain adopted to indoctrinate women and shape their ‘national identity’. In Portugal, the Obra das Mães pela Educação Nacional and Mocidade Portuguesa Feminina were created, while Spain established the Sección Femenina de FET y de las JONS. These agencies bolstered the antifeminist ideology of the two dictatorships, leading to the creation of a new woman2¹. At the same time, both regimes punished those women who dared to undermine the pure essence of the nationalistic, authoritarian, corporative, patriarchal state that they represented. However, while the repressive policies against women in Portugal were underpinned by the development of ‘security measures’3², in Spain, the punishment took not only the form of brutal violence, but also other types of symbolic punishment4³.

• 5 In Portugal, the 1966 Penal Code stipulated a maximum sentence of two years for the indecent assau (...)
• 6 Notable thinkers from the Franco period dedicated part of their careers to declaring that homosexu (...)
• 7 Observatorio andaluz, 2020.

7Non-normative genders and departures from binary gender were also repressed. In Portugal and Spain, homosexuality was criminalized5⁴ and both countries allowed individuals to be detained6⁵. In Spain, homosexual men were generally sent to one of two penitentiaries in either Badajoz or Huelva7⁶. In Portugal, one highly-recognized activist from the LGBT movement, Sergio Vitorino, observed that:

• 9 Gazi 2011, p. 17.

9In the Greek case, while the ideology and policies were similar, the later onset of the dictatorship also shaped the specific manifestations, particularly in response to the “sixties” youth movements and its implications for both male and female gender roles and sexual norms. The dictatorship of the colonels (or junta) that was established after a coup d’état on 21 April 1967 had a nationalist, sexist and homophobic/heterosexist ideology, summarized in the motto “fatherhood, religion and family”. As historian Effi Gazi argues, the holy triad motto had already been constituted between 1880 and 1930, before its promotion as a key-notion of the junta’s’s ideology9.

• 10 Ladas, 1970, p. 19.
• 11 Kornetis, 2014, p. 213.
• 12 Katsapis, 2013, p. 407.
• 13 Katsapis, 2013, pp. 414-417.

10The context of the 1960s youth movements added new perceived threats to the triad. In addition to communism, which was considered a major danger for homeland and religion, emphasis was given to a social aspect of corruption: the decadence of filthy, longhair hippies. Hippies were connected with “the non-Greek, European/American youth which is steeped in drugs, pansexualism, decay, degeneration”10. The regime connected the long hair with “abnormality (“men becoming women”) and homosexuality, which were treated as identical. Furthermore, it was connected with “a particular type of leftist politics as well” 11. As for women, the regime valued them only for their capacity to biologically perpetuate the nation through the role of motherhood. Consequently, any display of parts of a female body violated the stereotype of motherhood and was considered provocative, especially for men, who could be distracted by the view of women colleagues wearing miniskirts at work12. This moral panic of the junta was endorsed by many parents, high school teachers and the Orthodox Church, which along with the police were controlling the youth13.

• 14 Stefatos, 2021.
• 15 Stefatos, 2021, p. 9.
• 16 Korovesis, 2021, p. 11. Gasouka, 2021.

11Gender repression also included the systematization of sexual torture of anti-regime militants who were arrested by police. As political scientist Katerina Stefatos14 argues, though the political violence against dissident leftist women was a common practice in post-war Greece, especially after the civil war, violence and sexual torture were more systematized and became an official state practice during the junta. This sexual abuse was justified in the minds of the torturers by the macho, nationalist perception promoted by the military junta that regarded dissident women as violators of proper female sexuality and betrayers of the ideal of motherhood15. Both male and female victims have been reluctanct to come forward. This silence was due to social norms and gendered perceptions, according to which these matters are personal, private and therefore women must remain silent16.

• 17 The Salazar regime, however, continued to limit the rights of women, as reflected in the new Civil (...)
• 18 For Spain, Tezanos, 1984, pp. 19-62, p. 57. For Portugal, Machado-Pais, 2003, pp. 26-33; Almeida a (...)

13Beginning in the 1950s and even more so in the 1960s, a series of cultural, social and economic changes began to occur in Spain and Portugal that would come to serve as the basis for a new model of femininity that accelerated the transformation of gender relations and sexuality17. New tastes, fashions and habits came from Western Europe, thanks to a controlled openness that stimulated the mass arrival of tourists whose attitudes towards life were quite different. These changes in society and mentality, which heralded ideas about the exercise of social, moral, cultural and political freedom, undermined the ideological pillars of the Salazar and Franco regimes18.

• 19 Kornetis, 2015, pp. 176-198, p. 193.
• 20 Larumbe, 2002; Tavares, 2008.
• 21 Nash, in Aguado and Ortega López (eds), 2011, pp. 283-316.
• 22 Dean-Valencia, 2018.

14Young people in particular were changing their way of viewing family relationships, gender relations and sexuality, and adopting a new aesthetic. The country’s youth helped to change mentalities that were deeply rooted in society, adopting a rebellious identity that opposed the control and subjugation of intimate behaviour19. These trends were led, to a large extent, by young women who were joining the workforce or attending university20. Widely-read books from the second wave feminist movement served as a basis to, on the one hand, devise alternative models of womanhood that were critical of the hegemony and social power of men and, on the other, address new issues related to the body itself, sexuality and the subject of motherhood as a choice from a feminist perspective21. There was also an underground anti-authoritarian youth culture that created a small but vibrant transgressive counterculture in venues like punk comics22.

• 23 Ortuño Martínez and Moreno Seco, 2020, p. 796.

15Beyond personal mores, intellectual debate or political activism in revolutionary left-wing organizations provided another avenue for many young women to reaffirm their opposition to the female models proposed by the dictatorships. During the final stretch of the two dictatorships, the militancy of women in the new left-wing parties became conspicuous. Since the principles of the revolutionary left included gender equality, many young men and women were able to experience new forms of behaviour and explore egalitarian relationships that eschewed the gender hierarchy, principles, beliefs and values associated with the preceding generation23.

• 24 López Romo, 2013, pp. 99-121, p. 121.
• 25 Kornetis, 2015, pp. 176-198, p. 193.
• 26 Quaggio, 2017, pp. 219-253, p. 222. These internal tensions also emerged in the Communist Party of (...)

16However, tense and contradictory situations still existed in these left wing circles. As observed by Raúl López Romo, for instance, the discourses of many feminists, which were presented as cutting edge, often intersected with old revolutionary theory and maintained rigid binary models (us/them, women/men) to describe the problems of a complex society that could not be reduced to black and white terms24. At the same time, as Kostis Kornetis has noted, machismo and homophobia permeated the revolutionary left25. The sexual freedom called for by feminism was repudiated as a mere expression of bourgeois morality, while gender inequality was considered, at best, a secondary battle. As late as 1970, Rodolfo Llopis, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party general secretary in exile, referred to the role of the women in his party in terms of bonds and support for the male activists by virtue of their status as mothers, wives or daughters26.

• 27 See Romero and Ruiz, cited by López Romo, 2013, p. 120.

17Statements made about homosexuality by Marxist leaders also reflected the persistence of cultural traditionalism. The opinions expressed by, for instance, Domènec Font of the Communist Organization of Spain (Red Flag), Diego Fàbregas of the Organization of the Communist Left, Manuel Guedán of the Workers’ Revolutionary Organization, the Spanish Labour Party’s Eladio García and Enrique Tierno Galván of the People’s Socialist Party oscillated between paternalism and the consideration of homosexuality as a degeneration or petit bourgeois “deviation” 27.

• 28 Arriero Ranz, 2016.
• 29 In Spain, the links between the MDM and neighbourhood associations, as well as the group’s involve (...)
• 30 Tavares, 2008, pp. 168 and following.
• 31 Cabrero Blanco, 2017, pp. 73-102.

18The “chauvinist world” of the revolutionary left and the evolution of feminist thinking generated new debates and associations. Before the two dictatorships came to an end, the first feminists had begun to organize independently as women. The most important organizations were the Movimento Democrático de Mujeres in Spain (1965) and the Movimento Democrático de Mulheres in Portugal (1968)28. Primarily made up of communist activists, the MDM established itself in a large number of cities29, where the organization quickly drew up a feminist agenda to present to the respective transition governments. One month after the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, the MDM drafted a programme containing demands such as equal salary for the same type of work, equal access to all the professions, legal equality, 14 weeks of maternity leave and social security during childbirth30. In Spain, the MDM’s demands included the right to an education, labour rights (maternity leave, an end to the wage gap), healthcare for pregnant women, the legalization of contraceptives, the elimination of the subordination of the wife to her husband during marriage, the legalization of divorce, civil marriage, joint custody of children, universal suffrage and all the political freedoms one would expect to find in a democratic state31.

• 32 See also Avdela, 2013, p. 310.
• 33 Handman, 1983, pp. 88-89.
• 34 Hirschon, 1989, pp. 114-115.
• 35 Handman, 1983, p. 87.

19During the dictatorship, Greece also experienced a mixture of cultural and social change and conservative attitudes, even within left wing culture. However, it appears that the balance of conservative attitudes versus new gender norms was more weighted towards the former in 1960s-70s Greece. All public places were male-dominated except for upper-class neighborhoods. As for women, the unmarried ones especially were restricted from going out in public if not accompanied by a man, or better yet a relative32. This restriction was due to the monitoring of female chastity. The taboo of unwed females losing their virginity was prevalent in the villages33 and among working class urban immigrants from rural areas. In most cases marriages were not the result of romantic love; rather there was a widespread preference for marriage by “proxenio” (arranged marriage) 34. In general, according to the findings of anthropologists doing fieldwork in Greece in the 1970s, sexuality was perceived as a merely physical, “natural” instinct aimed at either reproduction or the satisfaction of male sexual needs. It is not by chance that the word ‘work’ (δουλειά [doulia]) was a common term used to signify sexual intercourse35.

• 36 Kornetis, 2014, pp. 208-209.
• 37 Yannakopoulos, 1996, 2016.

20In contrast, there is some evidence for changes in the exploration of non-normative sexual identities. Despite the fact that, both in official discourse and left wing culture36 homosexuality was regarded as taboo, masculine homosexual practices were tolerated notably in working-class milieu. A considerable number of soldiers even of the military police had engaged in homosexual practices as “andres”, i.e. masculine and active. This was a form of homosexuality which extended beyond a minority of self-identified “homosexuals” who socialized in gay spaces. According to interviews with homosexual interlocutors, the dictatorship had been an authoritarian regime for the gays as citizens, but it did not affect their sexual lives, especially those who had a masculine public appearance. Although few identified as gays or homosexuals, a sort of community consisting of homosexual men and a gay way of life developed, both of which will proliferate in the years after the fall of dictatorship37.

• 38 Yannakopoulos, 2014, p. 204. They represented 33.7% of all students and 38.5% of all graduates in (...)
• 39 Papadogianis, 2015, pp. 51-52.
• 40 Papadogianis, 2015, p. 51.
• 41 Avdela et alli, 2020, p. 11.

21In terms of women’s roles, by the early 1970s, Greek women were also entering the university in larger numbers, which was certainly a breakthrough regarding their place in Greek society and an emancipatory experience for them38. In addition, historians Avdela and Papadogiannis claim that premarital sex was becoming increasingly common and legitimate in the 1970s, even prior to the fall of the dictatorship, among urban youngsters and university students39. While Papadogiannis notes the topic needs further examination, we suggest that there was an emergence of new perceptions of gender and sexuality, mainly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As he puts it, the late 1960s and early 1970s witnessed contradictory developments in the field of sexual relations in general40. Female chastity and fidelity gradually became less of a concern among married couples while sexual intimacy and pleasure became broadly accepted as preconditions of a happy marriage for both men and women41.

• 42 Kornetis, 2014, pp. 206-208.
• 43 Kornetis, 2014, p. 213.
• 44 Kornetis, 2014, p. 204.

22This coexistence of contradictory perceptions is evident in the student movement. In interviews of dissident leftist students conducted by Kornetis42, some students claim that there was a sexual revolution, sexual experimentation, and others underline the fact that conservatism was apparent. As one student said to Kornetis: “Long hair was not accepted either by the traditional working class or hardcore communists”43. According to interviews conducted by the anti-regime student journal Protoporia in 1972, most men were still in favor of gender segregated socialization and women condemned premarital sexual relations defending the merits of the traditional “Greek way of life”44. These perceptions and/or attitudes of the students reflected the general public perceptions concerning gender and sexuality at that time.

• 45 Kornetis, 2014, p. 212.
• 46 Papadogianis, 2015, p. 52.
• 47 Kornetis, 2014, p. 212.

23Perhaps this explains why, while social attitudes were changing, no political group or press–even illegal–addressed women’s and gay liberation during the Dictatorship, in contrast to the Iberian cases. However, there were individuals who either participated in the student demonstrations or in anti-regime cultural/artistic acts as intellectuals/artists without posing the question of gay liberation at the time, nor revealing their sexuality. In addition, it seems that some students and intellectuals were reading books on these topics45. Citing Kornetis and Maragkopoulos, Papadogiannis argues that the absence of early signs of feminist and gay politics among radical students was due to the fact that the conceptual framework of the dominant left-wing ideology was not challenged during this period46. This was in contrast to Francoist Spain, where, despite the oppression, protofeminist (but also gay) groups emerged already in the late 1960s47.

• 48 Maragkopoulos, 2020, p. 285.
• 49 Nikolopoulou, 2015, pp. 268-269.
• 50 Charitidis, 2013.

24Considering that the Greek leftist political parties had conservative views on sexuality and gender, all of the young women and men who were yearning for more progressive views48 had to look for them in the so-called underground culture, which flourished in Greece from the early 1960s until the mid-1970s in literature, music and film. This type of cultural politics was connected to hippyism, the beatniks, rock music and drug culture, all of which constituted “anarchism” according to the Junta. Leonidas Christakis, one of the prominent figures of the Greek underground movement, dedicated an entire issue of his magazine Ideodromio to homosexuality in 1981. During the dictatorship, Christakis published two anti-regime literary and political magazines called Kouros and Panderma, which were more close to international underground publications than Pali49, which stopped its publication as soon as the junta was established. Maria Mitsora, an underground writer, states in an interview that in Athens during the junta there were three kinds of people: a majority who was terrified, the militants ready to fight and “us” (the underground), who were revolting in a different way, in daily life50.

• 51 The continuity between the post-dictatorship era and the long 1960s is suggested also by Dimitris (...)

25Summing up, given that the official left in Greece was conservative or hostile when it came to challenging gender or sexual norms, the libertarian underground culture constituted a refuge for intellectuals who articulated a discourse on (homo)sexuality, sexual liberation and women’s liberation. In general, the dictatorship, due to its authoritarianism and conservatism concerning gender and sexuality, limited the development of new radical ideas. At the same time, cultural and social changes were occurring despite the efforts of the regime to maintain traditional norms51.

• 52 Their demands went beyond the revision of the Civil and Penal Codes to the recognition and prosecu (...)
• 53 During the first half of the 1970s, Spain was also home to the Association of Women Lawyers, which (...)

27In Spain and Portugal, the new opportunities that appeared after 25 April 1974 in Portugal and 20 November 1975 in Spain paved the way for hundreds of events and the formation of new associations. Meetings like the Women’s Liberation Conference in Madrid (held days after the death of Franco), the Catalan Women’s Conference in Barcelona in May 1976 and the 2^nd National Women’s Conference in 1979 in Granada, brought feminism into the open. These were followed by the establishment of the Portuguese Movimento de Libertação das Mulheres and the União das Mulheres Anti-fascistas e Revolucionárias, as well as the Spanish Frente de Liberación de la Mujer and Unión para la Liberación de la Mujer52. In that same year of 1975, lawyer Cristina Alberdi organized the legal group, Seminario Colectivo Feminista de Madrid, in Madrid, which was followed by the Colectivo Feminista de Barcelona, started by Lidia Falcón53. These feminist landmarks made significant contributions to starting debates on subjects like sexuality, abortion, gender discrimination and violence against women.

• 54 Nash, in Aguado and Ortega López (coord.), 2011, pp. 283-306, pp. 283 and 298.

28Beyond debating the varieties of feminism, these meetings and associations played a key role, as noted by Mary Nash, in redefining feminist political culture during the transitions by blurring the boundaries between the personal and the political54. However, the attempt made by feminism to bring new formulations about the citizenship of women, gender identities and sexual diversity (a challenge to heterosexuality), the family, abortion, divorce and legal discrimination to the political world–now the epicentre of democracy–produced considerable tension, disappointment and silences.

• 55 Larrondo, 2009, pp. 627-655.
• 56 This occurred, for example, with the People’s Alliance. Félez Castañé, 2018.

30The weight of Catholic morality in the Iberian Peninsula meant that the thinking filtering into Spain and Portugal from the new European Left about the legalization of contraceptives, divorce, abortion, reproductive methods, sexuality and the socialization of children were handled as very sensitive issues. Moreover, the dominant chauvinist attitudes in the media55 and the political organizations of the time did not make it easier to tackle these debates. The more conservative groups did not even consider them and fought the feminist proposals and discourse fervently, with insults and disqualifications56. At the same time, the broad factions of political activists in the left-wing parties frowned upon these proposals because, according to the maximalist language of the time, they were bourgeois and removed from the real problems of workers.

• 57 These negative reactions included denial and psychologizing. The article by Coronado Ruiz and Galá (...)
• 58 Revez, 2014.

31The feminism that emerged once democracy had taken hold in the Iberian Peninsula was characterized by the existence of four battlefronts, all a clear reflection of the contradictions inherent in the two transition periods. The first was the negative perception of feminism in Spanish and Portuguese societies57. Indeed, the demonization of feminists was a commonplace during the transition, and derived from the fact that feminism challenged all facets of life. It was not easy to dislodge the model of femininity imposed in Portugal and Spain, two countries that had spent some forty years under the grip of dictatorships that fought to reduce women to faithful wives and proper mothers. Thus, the MP Manuel Vilhena de Carvalho, of the Portuguese Social Democratic Party, warned that “it would be unrealistic to say that all of Portuguese society will immediately accept the innovations proposed [by the feminists] without fear or any sign of resistance” 58.

• 59 Quaggio, 2017, pp. 219-253, p. 230.

32The second battlefront involved the political parties that were apparently more inclined to meet feminist demands. However, their efforts were based on the classic Marxist conception of the oppression of women, which subordinated all activism to the socialist revolution and refused to recognize women as a specific oppressed group. Even many women who were active in the parties voted against the creation of specific women’s institutions, fearing that they would lead to disintegration and division within their organizations59. Consequently, without opposing feminist proposals and demands, but without decisively prioritizing them either, the left-wing parties relegated feminist concerns to a subordinate position.

• 60 In Spain, the breakdown of the feminist movement over this issue became apparent at the 2^nd Nation (...)

33The third battlefront was related to the divisions that opened up within feminism itself. One characteristic feature of the women’s movement in Spain and Portugal was the confrontation between the feminists who argued for action on two political fronts and those who wanted to limit their work exclusively to feminist activism. While the former group of “double militants” saw the feminist struggle as part of party politics and wanted to combine the two spheres to achieve their aims, the latter faction rejected the world of politics as built on patriarchal principles and advocated taking an independent political path. This second group was identified with radical feminism. The arguments around whether or not to fight for full autonomy as a movement and the dilemma over whether to take a single-minded or two-front approach produced the first schisms60.

• 61 Radcliff, 2012, pp. 195-225.

34Finally, the fourth front concerned the political context surrounding the Spanish and Portuguese transitions, and the limited willingness of the governing parties to prioritize feminist issues in their negotiations. In the end, as Pamela Radcliff has observed in the Spanish case, they opted for an abstract version of gender equality–without the nuances proposed by the feminist associations–as the best way to reach a working consensus and consolidate democracy. Thus Article 14 of the Constitution enshrined the equality of men and women before the law. But the parliamentary Constitutional Commission closed without any significant debate about how to implement this equality61. The style of feminist militancy clashed with the political culture of the Spanish Transition, which was dictated by moderation and consensus, while the demands of the women were perceived as strident and non-negotiable. As a result, many feminist groups and associations advocated abstaining from or voting against the referendum to enact the Spanish Constitution of 1978. One of the most critical voices belonged to radical feminist activist Lidia Falcón, co-editor with Carmen Alcalde of the journal Vindicación Feminista, and founder of the Feminist Party of Spain.

• 62 Ferreira, Bermúdez and Bernárdez Rodal, in Bermudez and Johnson (eds), 2018, pp. 301-311.
• 63 For this evolution see Tavares, 2008 and Pimentel and Melo, 2001, pp. 375-388.

35Feminist disappointment also characterized the consolidation of democracy in Portugal, where specific rights for women to guarantee gender equality were very slow in coming after the adoption of the Constitution of 197662. The commission responsible for drafting the regulations for women’s labour, which became the Commission on the Status of Women after the Carnation Revolution in 1975, like the other feminist organizations, was left out of the process of writing the Constitution. However, from the outset, the Constitution recognized equality before the law and workplace equality. Thus, the Commission was fundamental in obtaining approval for later legislation on behalf of women’s rights in the areas of labour, health and social welfare, and became the main source of public events and editorial initiatives aimed at studying, raising awareness and changing the status of women. At the same time, magistracies and the diplomatic service were opened up to women, the last existing electoral discriminations were eliminated, the concordat with the Holy See was revised and divorce was permitted. Furthermore, the Civil Code was modified, eliminating the discriminations related to marriage and giving it a democratic structure. To that end, the concept of head of family was eliminated and the same rights and responsibilities were granted to both spouses63.

• 64 Galván, 2017, pp. 67-82, p. 78.
• 65 Interview with Vitorino, 2020.
• 66 As reflected in the Amnesty Law passed in 1977 in Spain, homosexuality was denied any connection w (...)

37The obstacles to challenging the heteronormative status quo in the Iberian countries was even greater. The bulwarks of the Salazar and Franco dictatorships–the Catholic Church, the Armed Forces, conservative groups–stifled any early, profound debate over the rights of homosexuals and lesbians during the post-dictatorship period, while continuing to reinforce the heteronormative bases of society. Such reinforcement also came from the more progressive groups. In fact, studies have shown that in Spain, the opinions of some Marxist leaders regarding homosexuality coincided with the ideological principles of National-Catholicism64. The same was true of Portugal, where there was no widespread acceptance of homosexuality among either the popular movements or the main left-wing parties65. In other words, the decriminalization of homosexuality did not coincide with the Carnation Revolution in 1974 or arrive with the Amnesty Law of 1977 in Spain. LGBTQ groups would be disappointed by the unspoken “law of forgetting” that permeated both the political amnesty granted during the transition and the constitutional texts of 1976 in the case of Portugal and 1978 in Spain66. Once again, the transitions were marked by grey areas and contradictions.

• 67 Kornetis, 2011, p. 194.
• 68 The Law on Social Danger and Rehabilitation remained in force until 1979. This law introduced the (...)
• 69 Germán Labrador, 2009, 2017; Jonathan Snyder, 2015; Francisco Fernández de Alba, 2021. Also Kerman (...)

38Given this wide range of circumstances, the sexual liberation movement in both countries became dominated by an anti-authoritarian culture with heterosexual undertones67, which obstructed new modes of thought and action. The silence encountered concerning the rights and recognition of sexual minorities was reinforced by a climate of omissions and evasions when it came to topics that were considered antithetical to the maintenance of political stability and social peace in Portugal and Spain. This meant that when the democracies were launched, homosexuality in the Spanish case was still considered a social danger68, and in the Portuguese case, a mental deviation that could be cured by the forced psychiatry of a lobotomy. Still, there was a booming counterculture with a strong homosexual component in Spain from around 1977-78 onwards. The Movida madrileña is of course the most known example that was born out of this69,–a fact that tempers the phenomenon of anti-authoritarianism with solely heterosexual undertones.

• 70 This law had replaced the Vagrancy Act, which was in force from 1933 to 1970, having been passed d (...)
• 71 The first Portuguese homosexual manifesto published after the Carnation Revolution. https://spsc.p (...)

39At the same time, groups were formed to demand an end to their isolation and the recognition of their rights. In 1970 in Spain, for example, the Agrupación Homosexual para la Igualdad Sexual (AGHOIS) was constituted, later called the Movimiento Español de Liberación Homosexual (MELH). After Franco’s death, its members strengthened their ideological profile and became the Front d’Alliberament Gay de Catalunya (FAGC). In March 1977, the FAGC adopted a manifesto that became the first political analysis of the homosexual question in Spain and the basis for the elaboration of the theory of sexual liberation there, serving as a guide for gay movements in the rest of the country. The primary demand presented by the FAGC involved repealing the Law on Social Danger and Rehabilitation70 and amnesty for all those jailed or detained on the grounds of homosexual behaviour. In Portugal, “25 April” allowed for the return of homosexuality organized in groups, like the Frente Homossexual de Ação Revolucionária (FHAR) and the Movimento Homossexual de Acção Revolucionária. The latter group published a manifesto entitled “Liberty for Sexual Minorities” in the daily newspapers Diário de Lisboa and Diário Popular, demanding rights for the homosexual population. An immediate response came from General Carlos Galvão de Melo, who said on television that “25 April” had not taken place so that homosexuals and prostitutes could make demands71.

• 72 The events in Portugal and Spain in the 1980s are taken from Ferreira, Bermúdez and Bernárdez Roda (...)

40Reforms came gradually over the next decades, as did continued organizing from feminist and LGBTQ advocates72. In Spain, the Congress of Deputies voted to repeal several parts of the Law on Social Danger in December 1978, some of which applied to homosexuals. In 1980, the Spanish government legalized the first homosexual organization, although it was not until 1982, with the victory of the Socialist Party, that the general prohibition of homosexual organizations was lifted. Portugal decriminalized homosexuality that same year.

• 73 On the history of the Comissão da Condição Feminina, see https://www.cig.gov.pt/area-a-cig/histori (...)

41In the mid-1980s, socialist governments adopted more controversial reforms advocated by feminist groups. Most importantly, both countries enacted limited abortion laws. In 1984–one year before Spain–Portugal included a law on abortion in the Penal Code that permitted the procedure in the case of three exceptions: threat to the mother’s physical life or health, foetal abnormality and rape. Portugal also witnessed the creation of the state-supported Comissão da Condição Feminina, which organized seminars on women’s rights and other awareness raising topics73. These landmarks were complemented by the work done over the course of the 1980s by groups of women who came together in organizations–most notably the União de Mulheres Alternativa e Resposta–that were concerned about other issues not addressed by state feminism. In Spain, the socialist government created the Institute for Women’s Affairs in 1983 to promote equality between men and women. In the same year, it passed the first law to decriminalize abortion, although it did not come into effect until 1985 due to a challenge made by the conservative party, Alianza Popular, on constitutional grounds. As in Portugal, the Spanish law only allowed for abortion in the three exceptional cases.

• 74 Varikas, 1992, pp. 66-67, Papadogianis, 2015, p. 260.
• 75 See feminist magazine Skoupa, 1980, p. 49, Varikas, 1992, p. 74.

43In Greece, the feminist and women’s groups that emerged during the Transition were divided along the same lines as in Spain and Portugal. First, there was the approach of the autonomous radical feminist movement, which emerged in 1975 and was mainly represented by the Women’s Liberation Initiative and, after the dissolution of this group, by different, small feminist groups74. These radical feminists had an ambivalent attitude towards legal reforms. Although the autonomous feminist groups organised demonstrations for the abolition of sexist and patriarchal family laws, they doubted that legal and institutional equality were enough for women’s liberation75.

• 76 Papagaroufali, 1995-1996; Repousi, Psara, Michopoulou, 2017.
• 77 Varikas,1992, p. 79.

44Οn the other side, there were women’s organizations that aligned with left-wing parties and promoted legal reforms. The majority of these organizations–i.e. OGE (Federation of Greek Women/ Ομοσπονδία Γυναικών Ελλάδας) that was close to the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and EGE (Union of Greek Women/Ένωση Γυναικών Ελλάδας), which was close to the Socialist Party (PASOK)–did not self-identify as feminist and were hostile to radical feminism. On the contrary, the KDG (Movement of Democratic Women/Κίνηση Δημοκρατικών Γυναικών), which aligned with the eurocommunist party KKE Esoterikou, was closer to the feminists76. These organizations were the privileged interlocutors with the State regarding the ongoing legal reform and other “women’s issues”. For radical feminist critics77, the dominance of state feminism, its appropriation of feminist struggles and the ideology of legal equality prevented women from realizing the causes of their oppression and the necessity of their self-organization.

• 78 Papadogianis, 2015, p. 261.
• 79 Varikas, 1992, p. 76.
• 80 For a background history of attitudes towards abortion in Greece, see Hionidou, 2020, p. 145.
• 81 Della Porta, Valiente, Kousis.

46As in the Iberian countries, it was future Socialist governments that instituted more major changes. Thus, it was not until after the Socialist party (PASOK) came to power in 1981 that the Family Law was revised, taking for instance the long-overdue decision to abolish the legal requirement of the dowry78. The previous family law laid down that the husband is the “head” of the family and that the wife had to adopt his surname. Varikas79 remarks that after the reform Greece had one of the most progressive Family Laws in Europe. Induced abortion was also formally legalized in 198680. Nevertheless, as in many other countries, this legislation did not correspond to the social reality of gender relations–while PASOK also promoted state-driven feminism as opposed to the autonomous, grassroots one81.

• 82 Papadogiannis, 2015, p. 267, Yannakopoulos, 2010, pp. 392-394. For AKOE/amfi see also Mais, 2015, (...)
• 83 Papadogiannis, 2015, p. 267.

48At the same time, as in the Iberian countries, the Transition opened the opportunity for groups to form in defense of gay rights. In 1976, AKOE (Movement for Liberation of Homosexuals), the first gay group in modern Greek history–at least in the postwar period and from 1978 onwards–was founded and the first gay magazine Amfi started being published. Τhe trigger for the founding of the gay movement was a bill on the “protection from sexually transmitted diseases and the regulation of relevant issues” in 1977. AKOE argued that the bill stigmatized homosexuality82. The group collected signatures of Greek citizens, including artists and scholars, as well as European intellectuals. Apart from AKOE/Amfi which consisted mainly of gay men, a lesbian group was founded in 1979 within AKOE. Later on they left AKOE and participated as the “Autonomous Group of Homosexual Women” in the feminist “House of Women”. Also, in Thessaloniki a gay and lesbian group called AMOTH (Αυτόνομο Ομοφυλόφιλον Μέτωπο Θεσσαλονίκης / Aytonomo Metopo Omofylofilon Thessalonikis / Autonomous Homosexual Front of Salonica) published in 1980 the one and only issue of a magazine, Bananes83.

• 84 Nevertheless, as Papadogiannis (2015, p. 266) and Kornetis (2016, pp. 155-156) note referring to t (...)
• 85 Papadogiannis, 2015, p. 228, Amfi, 1980 B issue 5, pp. 54-55 “i katalipsis tin AEI ke i fitites” [ (...)
• 86 In an article published in Amfi an anonymous author criticizes Christakis for the obscene language (...)

49In the underground culture of the transition era, there were a range of attitudes concerning the sexual idiom and gender ideology among youth/intellectual groups. On the cautious/conservative side were leftist/anarchist students who were called “Choros”, while feminist student groups and AKOE were more provocative. Although underground intellectuals and autonomous leftist, anarchist students were the most open and welcoming amidst the broader left political milieu to feminist and gay liberation issues84, they were accused, mostly by feminists but also by AKOE members, of sexism and homophobia in their “libertarian” sexual expression and attitudes, mainly during the occupations of universities by students in 197985. AKOE’s insistence on the use of modern western gay categorisation instead of the popular Greek categories, used by underground intellectuals such as Leonidas Christakis86 and groups like AMOTH, was justified by the need to de-stigmatize homosexuality, but disregarded native perceptions of homosexuality and hindered the understanding of homosexuality in Greece.