Badajoz is one of the major cities of Extremadura, located in the province of the same name. It has a population of around 151,000 people. The city’s economy is dominated by the service sector, with a lot of trade as a result of being the provincial capital and being so close to Portugal. It has campuses for two universities, Universidad de Extremadura and UNED.
History
Margarita Xirgu visited Badajoz in the mid-1920s, visiting the city to participate in a performance. As she was in the area, she decided to also visit Mérida.
In Badajoz in the 1960s, lesbian couples often had one member who was butch and another who was femme. The butch lesbian wore pants, with corduroy pants being particularly popular, at a time when it was suspect if a woman to wear pants because the gender norms of the day dictated women wear skirts or dresses. People were aware of what the lesbians were, would call them bolleras and tortilleras, would call them abnormal for being lesbians and would be abusive towards them. If a woman defended them, their own sexuality could become suspect as a result.
A homosexual rights movement began to emerge into the daylight in Extremadura in 1994 in Barcarrota, a small town of then around 4000 people. A local radio station in Barcarrota broadcast a program in 1994 called “Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales” presented as part of “La tarde del viernes” that looked discrimination faced by many different groups, with a different group each week. The program looked at the reality of gay and lesbian life in Extremadura. 20-year-old José María Núñez helped present the program, realizing as he did so that there were not homosexual rights groups in the region to actually talk to about those issues. As a result, he and others in Barcarrota and Badajoz decided to create the first LGBT organization in Extremadura later that year. The organization was De Par en Par. Early members included José María Núñez, Ana Carmen Fraile, Amparo Hernández and Roberto González. The group advertised in the magazine El trastero to try to get people to join, and met once a week at embarcadero de Badajoz. Amparo Hernández came from Barcelona and had previously been involved with a homosexual rights organization there. The group then started searching beyond Badajoz, including at places like Womad in Cáceres.
José María Núñez, who was born in Barcarrota in 1971, went on to become a university professor and president of Fundación Triángulo. Early in is academic career in Extremadura, a professor said he would likely not be hired because he was a faggot.
A lot of the early meetings for De Par en Par were just about spending time together with other homosexuals free of the fear of being outed, and being able to express themselves freely.
In the 1990s, many gays and lesbians from Extremadura left for other parts of the country where they felt they could be more open in their love of people of the same sex.
De Par en Par’s offices were vandalized with graffiti several times in the early years.
Fundación Triángulo was created in 1997 to build on the initial energy of De Par en Par, and to work towards improving the life of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals in Extremadura.
Transsexuality quickly came to De Par en Par when a transsexual gitano woman approached them for assistance. They were unsure how to help them, and the transsexual woman eventually turned to prostitution being unable to find any other solution.
Life for homosexuals in the mid and late 1990s in Extremadura was very difficult. Almost everyone was in the closet. Despite some change of attitudes in places like Madrid and Barcelona, the topic of homosexuality was very taboo in Extremadura. Even amongst their own kind, homosexuals had to battle internalized homophobia. For most, their public life was non-existent.
After the group met with consejero de Bienestar de la Junta de Extremadura Guillermo Fernández Vara, they were able to find space for an office at Calle San Juan, 21 in Badajoz. They soon started a support telephone line, which was very active as it allowed callers to remain anonymous.
One of the group’s early initiatives was to post propaganda around the city, featuring posters of men and women kissing, shaking hands or hugging. Their goal was to make homosexuals visible and to break stereotypes with these images. The posters were still viewed as controversial despite no explict imagery and were removed by the police. Despite that, people themselves did not respond in a hostile manner to the posters.
Around 1996, de Par en Par started an HIV / AIDS initiative. As part of a media interview related to it, José María Núñez said that HIV did not distinguish between race, sex or class.
When FanCineGay first started, it faced a perception issue. People who were outside the LGBT community often asked if all the films were pornographic as that the main way they knew about gays and lesbians through movies.
Orgullo was celebrated in Cáceres and Badajoz in 1997. Posters advertising the event featured hearts with the names of two women and two men.
de par en par was an organization for a platform doe affective sexual diversity that was around in 1997. At that time they were located at Calle San Juan, 21.
Foro Extremeño por la Diversidad Afectivo Sexual was created in Extremadura in 2002 to promote Orgullo across the whole of the region. The first such event organized through the group was held on 28 June 2002 at Plaza de San Francisco in Badajoz.
A kiss-in event was held in late June 2003 in Badajoz, with 300 people attending the rally in Plaza de San Francisco, to support gay and lesbian rights. Among the attendees were a woman named María and her partner, Angel who was an IU Concilor from Ayuntamiento de Nogales, a gay man named Roberto who lost friends in the AIDS epidemic, parents and grandparents of gays and lesbians, and a drag queen. The plaza had music, balloons and was bedecked in rainbow flags. The rally was called for by Fundación Triángulo de Extremadura, Somosiguales.Net, De Par en Par Joven, FanCineGay.Com. El Arrabal, IU, Juventudes Socialistas, Alternativa Joven, Comité extremeño contra el Racismo, la Xenofobia y la Intolerancia, el Consejo de la Juventud de Extremadura, la Universidad, Malvaluna, Tremm and Mujeres Jóvenes. It took place as part of Orgullo celebrations.
The I Jornadas cómo hablar sobre homosexualidad a los niños took place in 2003 at the Universidad de Extremadura. The event was organized by Fundación Triángulo Extremadura.
In 2005, the first year that same-sex marriage was legal, Badajoz’s Registro Civil performed 4 same-sex weddings.
Silvia Tostado and Ana Paredes were coordinators in Foro Extremeño por la Diversidad Afectivo Sexual in 2008, and helped organize the Orgullo celebration in Badajoz, coordinating efforts in Cáceres and Mérida along the theme of lesbian visibility. In a press conference on 26 June 2008, the women talked about the gynecology protocols and need to address training for health professionals when dealing with lesbian women. They highlighted that there was a need to remove barriers to accessing assisted reproductive services in public health and advocated for legalizing the Ropa method in public health. They also advocated for improved abortion rights.
Orgullo 2008 was celebrated in Badajoz in Plaza de San Andrés. The plaza was covered in rainbow flags. The event was organized by Foro Extremeño para la Diversidad Afectiva Sexual. The theme of the march was lesbian visibility. Festivities were kicked off with a performance by the musical group Sentimiento Loco. The manifesto was then read by women representing different organizations who collaborated in organizing the event. Attendees included 29-year-old Badajoz lesbian Sonia Fernández, who said she never felt discriminated against but that social lesbian life in Badajoz was very limited compared to Chueca in Madrid, where she felt more free to be herself. Another lesbian attendee Ángeles interviewed by Hoy said it was very hard to meet homosexual girls in the city, which is why many went to Madrid to flirt. It was a problem she saw across Badajoz society, where women were generally one step behind men. She also said that lesbians were much less visible in the city than gay men, and that lesbians were required to hide more and be more closeted than their male counterparts.
The Ayuntamiento de Badajoz helped celebrate Orgullo 2009 Badajoz with a concentration on 27 June organized by Foro Extremeño por la diversidad afectivo sexual at plaza de San Andrés. The event was subsidized by Consejería de Cultura and Turismo de la Junta de Extremadura. Associations participating in the event included Mujeres Progresistas, Mujeres Jóvenes, Malvaluna, Amnistía Internacional, Asociación de Derechos Humanos de Extremadura, CCOO Extremadura, UGT Extremadura, PSOE Extremadura, IU Extremadura, Juventudes Socialistas, Juventudes Comunistas, Los Verdes de Extremadura, Alternativa Joven, Asociación Tremn, El Arrabal Oriental, Extremadura.com, Cáceres Laico, Centro de Ocio Contemporáneo, Comité Extremeño contra el Racismo, la Xenofobia y la Intolerancia, Consejo de la Juventud de Extremadura, FanCineGay, EraseUnaVez.com, la Federación Estatal de Lesbianas Gays, Bisexuales y Transexuales y Fundación Triángulo.
Orgullo 2010 Badajoz took place at the Plaza de San with a concentration. The event celebrated 15 years of LGBT activism in Extremadura.
The Facebook group Lesbianas & bis de badajoz was created in 2011. The group was most active in 2014. The group was open to the public and did have occassional posters trying to convert lesbians to Christianity. The group became almost completely inactive by 2016.
“palomos cojos” was a euphemism for homosexuals. In February 2011, Badajoz Councilman Miguel Celdrán said used the euphemism in a radio interview saying that there are few “palomos cojos” in Badajoz and most are thrown to the side because the land is healthy and strong. Celdrán had been previously accused of using “palomos cojos” in 2007 in the City Council meeting when discussing alleged irregularities in municipal contracts.
More than 10,000 people attended the Caravana de los Palomos Cojos in 2011 after a call was made by the television program “El Intermedio”. Plaza Alta in Badajoz was covered in rainbow flags for the event.
Diversidad Afectivo Sexual de Extremadura, working with Fundación Triángulo, Extremadura Entiende y T-Entiendo, organized Orgullo 2011 Badajoz. The day’s celebration started with having information tables by organizations like Fundación Triángulo, UGT and Consejo de la Juventud de Extremadura at Plaza de San Andrés. At the same time, videos were shown on how to prevent AIDS and HIV. Later in the evening, an LGTB manifesto was read in Plaza de San Andrés.
The theme of Orgullo 2013 in Cáceres and Badajoz was “Jóvenes sin armarios en Extremadura”. Both Orgullo events were organized by Extremadura Entiende together with Fundación Triángulo Extremadura. The concentration in Cáceres took place at Foro de los Balbos while the concentration in Badajoz took place at Plaza de España. Both concentrations featured tables with information sharing, followed by a reading of a manifesto and then were followed by afterparties. The afterparty in Badajoz took place at Bar Carmen at Calle San Juan, 31 while the afterparty in Cáceres took place at El Corral de las Cigüeñas on Calle Cuesla de Aldana, 6. Neither Pride event had specific mentions of lesbians.
As part of the 2014 Los Palomos preprogramming, the documentary about lesbians in Extremadura, Los versos de Safo, was shown at the MEICA in Badajoz.
In July 2014, the Universidad de Extremadura announced they were withdrawing teaching materials that were homophobic that were still being used in one of the degree programs being taught. The text being withdrawn implied that the gay lifestyle was unhealthy and that some homosexuals freed themselves of it and were now ex-gays. The material had been denounced by students in July 2014, including on social media, as it was being used as part of the virtual campus. The complaints were then picked up by the student organization AssambleaUEx Badajoz, who mentioned them on Twitter and Facebook. The UNEX University Ombudsman initially said they had not received a formal complaint before backtracking after the complaints gained momentum. The sociology teacher who included the material was later investigated as her selection of the homophobic material appeared deliberate.
Podemos Extremadura linked to an article about the double discrimination faced by lesbians in rural Spain in August 2015.
The Los Palomos de Badajoz fiesta against discrimination based on sexual orientation was in its fifth edition in 2015 and attended by 20,000 people. It was the first edition held after the region based anti-discrimination legislation based on sexual orienation or gender identification. The event was organized by Fundación Triángulo. A manifesto was read out for the event condemning discrimination based on sexual orienation or gender identity, and praising the process of finally getting the regional law passed. Because the event coincided with International Lesbian Visibility Day, additional references to lesbians were made, including highlighting the double discrimination faced by lesbians and calling on the national government to reverse the decision not to support reproductive assistance to lesbians in public health because lesbians should have the ability to go anywhere in the country they want to become mothers.
Fundación Triángulo organized a conference in 2017 to coincide with International Women’s Labor Day in Badajoz titled Las mujeres y la igualdad LGTBI that ran from 8 to 11 March. It was held on the campus of the Universidad de Extremadura in the building of the Facultad de Educación. Among the attendies were Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela deputy Tamara Adrián and Peruvian activisist and Articulación de Lesbianas Feministas member Marivel Saldaña. The conference had no lesbian specific discussion. Lesbians were always included alongside transsexuals and bisexual women.
A training booklet was created by the Universidad de Extremadura in 2017 titled, “Guía contra la homofobia. Cuaderno para trabajar en el tiempo libre el prejuicio hacia la homosexualidad y el lesbianismo”. It was based on training workshops organized by Consejo de la Juventud de Euskadi and ALDARTE that took place in December 2003 and April 2004.
Plataforma 8M Badajoz’s manifest in 2018 specifically mentioned lesbians, transwomen, bisexual women, intersexed women, queer and straight women, saying these women were all killed as a result of male violence and that they should all stand together to fight male violence and demand that the state take action against male violence.
A male presenting person named Juanmaa Bravo Becerra from Badajoz posted a picture of themselves to a Facebook group for bisexual and lesbian women in Mallorca in March 2018 looking to meet women. Members called him out for being a male. This sort of thing was not uncommon at the time and into the 2020s, with many transwomen and male presenting people participating in dedicated lesbian and bisexual women online Spanish places.
A single woman from Plasencia tried to become a mother in March 2018 using IVF. She was given a referral from her local doctor to Hospital Virgen del Puerto. After some tests were conducted, the doctor at the hospital referred her to Centro Extremeño de Reproducción Humana Asistida (CERHA) in Badajoz. She was able to go to the clinic 200 km away in August 2018, where they asked her if she was a lesbian or single woman as the doctor in Plasencia had a reputation for not treating either group and encouraged the woman to report him. After investigating to find out if this was true, she found a lesbian couple who had faced the same treatment by the gynecologist at Hospital Virgen del Puerto. She also found a straight couple who had no issues getting treatment from that gynecologist. Despite the obstacles and need to travel 200 km from her home, she was able to get pregnant after two rounds of IVF.
Ley de Igualdad Social de Lesbianas, Gais, Bisexuales, Transgéneros, Transexuales e Intersexuales de Extremadura was unanimously approved by the regional Parliament on 19 March 2019. The final debate on the law was attended by LGTB activists and organizations. The law was presented to the parliament by Partido Popular.
Plataforma 8M de Badajoz on 26 April 2019 specifically discussed the fight lesbians, calling for equality for lesbians who face discrimination. Their statement was released on Lesbian Visibility Day, and they highlighted the issue of double discrimination faced by women for being women and homosexual. They also called for LGTBI organizations to do more in the fight against lesbophobia, claiming these organizations relegated women to second place positions compared to men because of patriarchy inside these organizations. They highlighted that lesbians who had children together were still required to be married in many places in order for both mothers to appear on the birth certificate and be registered as a child’s parents. They also highlighted the fact that discrimination against lesbians in rural places was increasing.
Junta de Extremadura posted on Facebook in honor of Lesbian Visibility Day in 2021. Junta de Extremadura posted on Facebook in honor of Lesbian Visibility Day in 2021. They included an image that featured a pair of women in facemasks dancing in a plaza.
Fundación Triángulo Extremadura celebrated 2021 Lesbian Visibility Day by giving out tortillas, a slang word for lesbians, to lesbian leaders across the region, including activists and out lesbian politicians in small towns and larger cities.
In early March 2022, there was one LGTB friendly room for rent in shared accommodation on Idealista.
There were fifteen women from the city listed on the website Pink Cupid. Five of those were transwomen. The other women had ages like 19, 20, 27, 29, 29, 33, 34, 37, 49, and 53.
Women
Marisa Ardila Cordon was born on 3 March 1948 in Badajoz. When she was young, she was also a victim of family violence by her mechanic father and b her mother. She also dealt with hatred by her brothers from a young age. Her education was from a convent school run by the Adorers, and she never completed her education. After threats from her father, her mother put her in a special school for two years where she was very happy.
Ardila moved to the Balearic Islands in 1969 because her aunt was there and her aunt could help her get a job in nursing despite her lack of formal educational credentials. The family, including her sister and brother, came with her as her father had lost his job. Ardila’s job was at an infirmary in Calas de Mallorca. She felt the islands provided a greater sense of freedom while also liberating her from the presence of her parents. She also had the promise of a job in Palma, something she struggled to find in Badajoz. Despite the move, she was not completely free as her father threatened to put her into a psychiatric center, something he could do by law until she was 23 years old.
Her mother died around that time. Soon after, she met a group of French people, with one girl inviting her to go to Paris, which she did in 1973 or 1974 and stayed for five years where she was able to explore her sexuality with the woman who invited her. Going to Paris finally allowed her to escape her father. She continued to work in Paris, this time at a brooch shop.
Ardila only realized was a lesbian at the age of 23, mostly out of fear of being penetrated by a man. She had tried to had boyfriends in this period and formally had one, but never had sex with them out of a fear of getting pregnant and later having fears of rejection. It was only later that she realized she had sexual attraction to women, but she did not have a name for it at that time because lesbianism was not a word that was used except as a means of criticizing other women and trying to mark them as different. She claimed that she was not born a lesbian but made herself into one, despite the fact that she also claimed that she never liked the male body. She eventually found refuge and a sense of belonging in the feminist movement and in the gay right’s movement. One of the feminists in her group was Leonor Taboada, one of the first and most prominent feminists in the Baleric Islands in the post Franco period. Among their early activities were teaching sex education and things like how to use a diaphram. Ardila continued her involvement in both communities into the 2010s.
María Cabezudo Chalons is a Spanish Romantic poet who belonged to the Hermandad Lírica, a group of female poets who wrote about women’s issues of the time and whose work often had homoerotic and lesbian themes. Carolina Coronado and Cabezudo were the main promoters of the literary section of the Liceo de Badajoz. The pair were also close and intimate friends.
Cabezudo was born on 10 February 1821 in Badajoz. She was actively publishing her work by 1844 in provisional magazines, and in ones from Alicante and Madrid. Cabezudo was active in the literary section of the Liceo de Badajoz, which published several of her poems between 1845 and 1849. She taught classes there in 1846. Coronado was a big booster of her work, encouraging her to submit it to more publications though outside a handful of publications, that never happened. Two of her poems were dedicated to Carolina Villar y Aldana who died in 1849. She greatly missed Coronado when Coronado moved from Badajoz to Madrid. She continued to write poetry into the late 1890s mostly through the liceo. Coronado described Cabezudo as, “a slender young woman, with curly blond hair and very bright eyes.” She never married, though the reasons are unclear. Cabezudo died at the Hospital Civil de Badajoz on 19 July 1902.
19th century poet Carolina Coronado, born on 12 December 1820 in Almendralejo, Extremadura, was one a handful of Spanish Sapphic writers in this period who would later be written out of history despite being widely read at the time unlike her contemporaries like Pilar de Sinués, Fernán Caballero, Emilia Pardo Bazán and Rosalía de Castro whose works became part of Spanish literary canon. As a group, those women with class privilege were better placed to ignore social norms that said writing was a masculine activity. Others were protected because of a network of women they surrounded themselves with. Others found validation and support of their work through support of male family members. Others could self-publish their work. In many cases, the group who remained visible in history for much longer periods were able to do so because their works did not fundamentally challenge patriarchal narratives of the state and society.
Coronado’s fate to be forgotten was partly a result of challenging patriarchal narratives and her works containing Sapphic themes. By 1840, the 20-year-old had established a literary circle of like-minded, though not necessarily lesbian, women that included Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl, where the phrase “hermandad lírica” first gained prominence along with the concept of “las amistades”, circles of female writers who developed deep friendships with each other that didn’t involve competition with each other. Her four-poem collection of Los cantos de Safo was published in 1843 in a poetry volume, Poesías, along with the piece “El salto de Leucades” using Sapphic myth and voice. Coronado had feared that borrowing from this tradition would limit her broader appeal as it would require readers to have a classic education to understand them. She also was transgressive in writing about female desire for other women by borrowing from tradition that suggested Sappho’s writings about such desire were aimed at men. She friends with fellow Extremadura writer Vicenta García Miranda, who started writing poetry after reading Coronado’s work. The pair would correspond frequently, sharing a close but societally accepted relationship.
Coronado was born into a wealthy but progressive family, the third of nine children. Both her father and grandfather were persecuted for their progressive activities. When she was a 4-year-old, her family moved to Badajoz because of her father’s job and she began a traditional female education. Despite this, she learned to read, and would read whenever and whatever she could. She started writing poems when she was a 9-year-old, only stopping when she married at which point she started writing novels. By age nine, Coronado suffered catalepsy, a chronic condition that causes loss of voluntary limb motion causing them to remain in place, that would cause her to be confused as dead several times; this instilled in her a lifelong fear of being buried alive and lent to her Romantic temperament in her writings.
Coronado supported the revolutionary activities of the 1838 Spanish War of Independence. By 1848, she was living in Cadiz when doctors recommended that she move to the area near Madrid so she could drink the special water of the city; she moved to the city and six years later she married Horatio Perry, secretary to the United States Ambassador. She had one son and two daughters with him. Soon after her move to the city, her home became an important literary gathering place for progressive, revolutionary and persecuted writers. Her willingness to host these writers would lead to her work being censored. Coronado and Concepción Arenal would become leaders in Spain’s anti-abolitionist movement. Following the Revolution of 1868, Coronado and her husband moved to Pozo do Pispo, near Lisbon; she continued to live there until her death on 15 January 1911.
Sisi Cáceres Rojo is a feminist activist and was president of Extremadura Entiende. She has a degree in teaching and has worked as a project technician in various NGOs.
Cáceres was born in Trujillo. She had difficulty coming out of the closet, and was unable to do so until she was a 41-year-old. She became with her partner in 1993 and the two women had a son together in 2007 who was conceived using artificial insemination. She separated from her partner in 2009. Cáceres became involved with Extremadura Entiende after that, and it allowed her to better understand feminism and feminist activism. Part of the reason she remained in the closet for so long was because her partner did not want to be visibly out. On 24 October 2015, she was first elected the president of Extremadura Entiende for a two-year term. She remained in the role until 2019, when she then became the organization’s technical coordinator. In 2017, she was the co-presenter of the central act of Orgullo Madrid that took place in Plaza de Colon. That year, she was also unemployed for a while.
Vicenta García Miranda is a Spanish Sapphic poet inspired by the work of Carolina Coronado. Her work had feminist overtones, and examined topics like women’s submission to men, escaping reality and the need to seek new horizons. Many of her poems had homoerotic overtones, and belong to the Hermandad lírica along with the works of Encarnación Calero de los Ríos, Robustiana Armiño and Amalia Fenollosa. These women did not view lesbianism as subverting the social order but instead as a natural extension of women supporting women.
García was born in Campanario in 1816. Growing up without a mother and a bedridden father, she moved with her family into the home of her paternal uncle when she was an 11-year-old. Prior to that, she had learned to read, write and gained an appreciation of classical literature. Life in her uncle’s house made that difficult to continue. In 1833 at the age of 17, she married and nine years later had a son who died when he was eleven months old. About a year later, her husband died. Two years later, in 1845, she began to write her own poetry after reading the works of Carolina Coronado. She soon had her work published and befriended other poets in Badajoz, including Amalia Fenollosa, Manuela Cambronero and Rogelia León. She also became a regular participant in the Liceo de Badajoz alongside María Cabezudo and Carolina Coronado. She continued to write for many years and continued to organize writing groups, including ones in Campanario. She died in Campanario in 1877.
Estela Sevillano Esquivel is a lesbian from Extremadura who represents the experiences of other lesbians born in the 1990s and 2000s.
Sevillano Esquivel was born in 1996 in Azuaga. When she was a 4-year-old, she moved to Don Benito. Growing up, she never learned about homosexuality and that it was possible to like girls; she only knew about heterosexuality. She came out of the closet when she was 15-year-old by telling her gay brother. She then told her parents, who accepted her unconditionally though they were surprised as she did not conform to the stereotypes they had about lesbians. Her peers called her a fake lesbian for similar reasons, including that her taste in clothing meant she could not be a lesbian. She moved to Badajoz when she was an 18-year-old to do a double degree in LADE and Economics at the Universidad de Extremadura in Badajoz. Her lesbianism meant she was rejected by some of her peers, so she went back into the closet. A few years later, she came out again and started volunteering for Fundación Triángulo.
Read
Poesías by Carolina Coronado is a Spanish language 1923 reprint of a collection of poems by a Sappho inspired writer. There are several other editions and compilations available in Spanish. There are a few English language translations, but these editions are difficult to purchase. Collections of her poems were first were printed in Madrid in 1843. There were published in Badajoz in 2001, 2003 and 2017.
Carolina Coronado. Su obra literaria, a 1992 work by F. Manso Amarillo contains extracts of Coronado’s letters that mention the literary culture of Badajoz and her experiences as part of that culture.
See
Cementerio de San Juan, located at Carretera de Olivenza, is the largest cemetery in Extremadura, with more than 60,000 people buried in it. Romantic period Sapphic poet Carolina Coronado, who died in Lisbon on 15 January 1911, is interred in the cemetery.
Diputación de Badajoz, located at Calle de Felipe Checa, 23, is the building where the provincial government is located, moving into the area after the province was created in 1833. During the Carlist War, Carolina Coronado made an offer to the Diputación to embroider a flag for a volunteer unit. Her work on the flag was viewed as being done so well that it could have been done by a professional and was discussed in the 27 March 1838 edition of the Boletín de Badajoz.
The liceo de Badajoz played an important role in the development of a number of lesbian and Sapphic poets and novelists during the 1800s in the city. Created in 1844, the liceo was likely located at Calle Obispo San Juan de Ribera, 10, roughly where the Diputación de Badajoz is currently located. At the time, the Casino de Badajoz was located there, and the liceo was connected to the casino. On 22 November 1846, Encarnación Calero de los Ríos, Vicenta García de Miranda, Joaquina Ruiz de Mendoza and Robustiana Armiño became Socias de Mérito after a request by Carolina Coronado, who was already an established poet and vouched for their literary achievements.
Calle de Vicenta García Miranda is a street named after Vicenta García Miranda, a Romantic period Sapphic poet whose work had homoerotic overtones. She lived in the city for long periods.
Hospital Provincial de San Sebastián de Badajoz was located at Plaza de Minayo, 2 in the area that is now between Calle Sor Agustina and Plaza San Atón. It is signed and efforts have been made to preserve the building. It is here that María Cabezudo Chalons died on 19 July 1902.
Catalan ophthalmologist Luis Oliveres y de Boneu had an office at Hospital Provincial de San Sebastián, located on Plaza Minayo, 2. Opening his office in 1876, he was the first ophthalmologist to have an office in the hospital. One of his patients in late 1876 or early 1877 was Vicenta García Miranda, who had problems with an eye. The doctor told her the problem was not that of a cataract but instead posterior staph. Surgery was recommended, but the outcomes were poor and she went completely blind. She died later in 1877.
Calle Rosa Chacel is a street located in the town. It is named after the writer Rosa Chacel, who was born in Valladolid on 3 June 1898. A member of the Generación del 27, she would write her autobiography Acrópolis which discussed being a lesbian in Spain in the 1920s.
Calle Margarita Xirgu is a street in the city named after the early 20th century actress Margarita Xirgu. She was born on 18 June 1888 in Molins de Rei, Catalonia, went on to play an important role in the Círculo Sáfico de Madrid and served as a muse for Federico García Lorca before being forced into exile because of the events of the Civil War.
Avenida Carolina Coronado is a street in the city named after Carolina Coronado, one a handful of Spanish Sapphic writers from the 19th Century. She was part of the hermandad lírica, and was widely read at the time but later written out of history because she challenged patriachial norms of the era.
Teatro López de Ayala, located at Pl. Minayo, s/n, hosted I Muestra de Cine Gay Lésbico de Extremadura in 1998. This was the first gay and lesbian film festival to be hosted in Extremadura. The first film screened at the festival was El Celuloide Oculto. By the festival’s fifth edition, it would be known as FanCineGay.
Badajoz was home prison, located in the building Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo now uses, located at Calle Museo, s/, for homosexuals men and possibly transsexuals during the Franco period. There may have been a women’s prison attached but it seems unlikely. The prison in Badajoz was for more passive homosexuals, compared to the one in Huelva, which was for active homosexuals.
Fundación Triángulo Extremadura, located at Calle Museo 3 – 1ª in Badajoz, is the regional headquarters for the national organization. Fundación Triángulo Extremadura was founded in 1997. Its purpose was to advocate politically in defense of LGBT rights in the region.
In 1999, Fundación Triángulo Extremadura successfully lobbied to have the blood donation rules by Servicio Extremeño de Salud be changed to no longer exclude homosexual and bisexual men just because they are homosexual and bisexual. This did not impact lesbian and bisexual women as they were not viewed as being at elevated risk to donate blood to begin with.
Silvia Tostado became the president of Fundación Triángulo Extremadura in 2019. This was a significant moment because of the first time in the region’s history, the two main LGBT organizations in it are led by lesbian women.
The foundation has hosted events that featured lesbians, including an August 2021 exhibition titled, “Stories of resistance.” Among the stories told was that of Kathy Sánchez, a lesbian who fled El Salvador for Spain because of persecution based on her sexual orientation. The I Jornadas de Visibilidad Lésbica de Extremadura were held in 2008. The event was organized by Fundación Triángulo and Extremadura Entiende.
Extremadura Amable, a project by Fundación Triángulo Extremadura and Turismo de Extremadura, began in 2010 to promote the region as an LGBT friendly tourist destination. It was based out of the headquarters for Fundación Triángulo Extremadura, which is located at Calle Museo 3 – 1ª. The project continued to be active into 2022.
Casa de la Mujer, located at Calle Federico Mayor Zaragoza, 181 but previously at Calle Padre Tomás, 2, is a service of IMEX that provides physical and mental health services to women who have been victims of domestic violence. It also has publicly meeting space for topics related to women. On 24 May 2018, Fundación Triángulo Extremadura, Las Safistas Badajoz and Hay una lesbiana en mi sopa hosted a round table discussion about feminism and the LBT movement at Casa de la Mujer. In 2019, IMEX held an institutional act there in honor of Lesbian Visibility Day. The theme of their 2019 celebration was making visible older lesbians and lesbians in rural areas.
Centro Extremeño de Reproducción Humana Asistida, located at Calle de la Violeta, 4, is a reproductive assistance center located inside Hospital Perpetuo Socorro. Both are public facilities run by Servicio Extremeño de Salud. They have provided reproductive services to lesbians in Badajoz and other parts of Extremadura after refusals by other doctors in public health to offer IVF to single women and lesbians.
PSOE de Badajoz, located at Calle Ramón Albarrán, 36, is the city headquarters for the local branch of PSOE. The party published a manifesto in honor of Lesbian Visibility Day on 26 April 2020. It mentioned the triple discrimination faced by lesbians, but offered no demands for improving the lives of lesbians in Badajoz or Extremadura and then went on to situate the needs of lesbians as being the same as the needs for the rest of the LGTBI collective and the same as women in general. Their 2018 statement was almost exactly the same, though they did call the invisibiliation of lesbians a form of violence visited upon lesbians. For 2017, they did not publish a manifesto but instead just made a general post on their social media platforms. Their statement published for Orgullo 2016 made no specific mention of lesbians or any other member of the rainbow as a specific class with specific concerns that needed to be addressed.
PSOE Provincia de Badajoz, located at Ronda del Pilar, 25, is the headquarters for the provincial branch of Partido Socialista Obrero Español. They have posted statements on Lesbian Visibility Day that mirrored that of PSOE de Badajoz in 2017, 2018 and 2020. Juventudes Socialistas Provincia de Badajoz also posted similar statements in some years.
VOX Badajoz, located at Calle Esribano, 26, is the local branch of the right wing political party Vox. On 15 July 2016, they shared a statement on their social media platforms by Carolus Aurelius Caldito Aunion criticizing the introduction of the gender ideology and LGBTI education in schools in Madrid by Partido Popular’s Cristina Cifuentes. Lesbians were included as part of the people they were condemning but only as part of the rest of the collective.
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La Tahona de María Torremejia, located at Calle Almendralejo, 2, is a bakery. They have been around since at least 2015. In 2019, unrelated to any other event like Orgullo or Lesbian Visibility Day, they explicitly marketed themselves as offering wedding cakes for gay and lesbian couples.
Barcarrota is a town with a population of around 3,600 people. It is most famous for being the hometown of a number of Spanish Conquistadors including Captain Gómez de Tordoya, Juan de Acosta and Francisco de la Bastida.
España Sáfica 
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