History

In 2013, women without male partners, namely lesbians and single women, faced the most barriers in trying to access reproductive assistance in Madrid, Asturias and Andalucía.

2019 saw a decrease of LGBT hate crimes, down 24 from the previous year. While 248 of the 321 reported incidents took place in Madrid capital, the city recorded 4 cases, tired for fourth most in the region alongside Alcobendas. 19.4% of the victims across the whole of the region were lesbians, the second largest group behind gay men at 68.1%.

Women

Danielle Nicole Mboume is a lesbian from Cameroon. She was one half of the first undocumented lesbian couple to marry in Spain.

Mboume was born in Douala, Cameroon into an affluent family that was a member of the Sawa tribe. Her father was a government minister but died when she was a 3-month-old. Her paternal grandfather owned most of the city. Her mother though was poor and from Nigeria. Despite this, her mother’s family had good contacts and were able to arrange the marriage as affluent men often liked to marry poor women whom they viewed as more docile. She has a sister, who also turned out to be a lesbian.

By 14, she realized she was a lesbian and did not bother to hide this fact. Following the discovery of this by her family and their attempts to force her into an arranged marriage and having been sent to conversion therapy at a boarding school, she fled the country at the age of 16. She met her future wife, Ingrid RM from Guinea, soon after leaving the country. In her journey to Spain, she took many difficult jobs, was raped, was beaten, was forced to sleep with people smugglers as a means to continue her onward journey to Europe. Several times, she was approached by people who said they could bring her to Europe to work as a prostitute, an offer she always rejected. Her experiences were so traumatic that she attempted suicide. She finally arrived in Ceuta on a boat on 21 July 2010, applied for asylum on 9 August 2010 and was soon recognized as a refugee. Once in Ceuta, Mboume was offered in France which she took, only to return to Ceuta after finding it was actually a hostess position and traveling to 7 different European Union countries and finding only similar “opportunities.” Upon her return, she continued her education and eventually became a humanitarian aid reception technician for the NGO CEPAIM. In 2012, she married Ingrid Rosselyne M from Guinea whom she met in the Congo on her journey towards Spain in Ceuta. At the time, the women were living in Getafe and both were 21-year-olds. They had been transferred by the government to Getafe to escape discrimination from other immigrants in the city. Their marriage made national news as they were the first undocumented African lesbian couple to marry in Spain. As of 2018, they remained the only African women to marry. In 2018, she published a book about her experiences.

See

Plaza Victoria Kent is a plaza in the city named after Victoria Kent, a lesbian and one of the first of three women elected to the Congreso de Diputados in the Second Spanish Republic. She was also the first women in the world to represent someone before a military tribunal. Unlike some of her contemporaries, she gained fame for opposing universal suffrage because she believed women’s votes would be too easily swayed by men in their lives.

Calle Rosa Chacel is a street located in the city. 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 town 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.

Centro de Acogida Juan José Rodríguez Ugarte, located at Av. Juan Carlos I, is an immigration reception center that houses around 150 refugees and asylum seekers. Among the lesbians to stay there are Danielle Nicole Mboume and Ingrid Rosselyne M.

Routes

• None yet