We’re celebrating International LGBTIQA+ Freedom Day on Saturday, 28 June, a date for celebrating and affirming sexual, affective and gender diversity with joy, memory and pride.

On 28 June we mark the anniversary of the riots that started in the Stonewall Inn gay bar in New York in 1969, in response to a police raid. This was the first time that sexual and gender dissidents rebelled forcefully against the institutional and social repression they suffered. Headed by the activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the uprising is regarded as the start of the the struggles for LGBTIQA+ freedom.

In Barcelona, we also mark another event: 26 June 1977, a few days after the first democratic elections since the start of the dictatorship and eight years after the Stonewall riots in New York, the still-underground Gay Liberation Front of Catalonia (FAGC) organised the first demonstration in favour of sexual liberation in Spain, in La Rambla in Barcelona. Installed last July, an information panel created by Barcelona City Council and located in La Rambla remembers this historic event. 

Here at the LGBTI Centre we join in with these commemorations and reaffirm the memory of the struggles that opened up our path. We celebrate the progress in LGBTIQA+ visibility and rights, just as we did on our anniversary, when we shared a day of activities open to the neighbourhood and the general public on 31 May. 

We also continue to keep working and moving forward to meet the different needs of the LGBTIQA+ collective through our services offering information, support and specialised assistance. Over the course of the last six years, we have also become a reference point and meeting space for different LGBTIQA+ organisations and projects in the city.

We also offer a diverse, rich and open cultural programme in different city neighbourhoods and facilities. Every year we join in with the Pride programme organised in the city’s various districts and museums in June and July. Check out all the activities planned in the city and make some room in your agenda!