Tefía Becomes the First National Memory Site for the LGTBI+ Community

“Tefía was the symbol of a fascist regime, rotten with white heteropatriarchal supremacy,” declared Minister Ángel Víctor Torres during the ceremony. The Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory has officially designated the former Agricultural Prison Colony of Tefía as the first Democratic Memory Site in Spain dedicated to the LGTBI+ community.

The former Agricultural Prison Colony, located in the interior of Fuerteventura, is no longer just a name linked to silence. It is now the first Democratic Memory Place in Spain honoring the LGTBI+ community, a state‑backed recognition of those who were interned and punished for their sexual orientation under the dictatorship.

The declaration was formalised on Friday in a televised ceremony broadcast live by La 2 and Canal 24 Horas of RTVE. The event featured the Altihay Fuerteventura Foundation and a series of historic figures and activists who have fought for LGTBI+ rights, all receiving well‑deserved acknowledgment.

Historical background

The Tefía colony operated from 1954 to 1966 as a forced‑labour camp. In 1954, the Franco regime amended the Law of Vagrants and Delinquents to include “sexual deviants,” equating them with pimps and thugs. The law defined homosexuality as a “dangerous state” and authorised the internment of these individuals in agricultural colonies, separating them from the general prison population.

• Around one hundred people passed through Tefía during its twelve years of operation.
• Sentences ranged from one to three years.
• Inmates worked from sunrise to sunset to turn arid land into cultivable terrain, enduring isolation, hunger and violence.
• The remote desert location made escape virtually impossible; a massive wall was unnecessary to keep them confined.

The declaration concludes a process announced in 2024, on the 70th anniversary of the inclusion of homosexuals in the Law of Vagrants and Delinquents. Minister Torres was accompanied by Fernando Clavijo, President of the Government of the Canary Islands; Lola García, President of the Cabildo of Fuerteventura; Anselmo Pestana, Government Delegate in the Canary Islands; and Fernando Martínez, Secretary of State for Democratic Memory.

Ángel Víctor Torres

“Tefía was the symbol of a fascist regime, rotten with white heteropatriarchal supremacy”

During the ceremony, Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory Ángel Víctor Torres stated:

“Tefía was the symbol of the shame of a fascist regime, rotten with white heteropatriarchal supremacy, in a suffocating and complacent Spain where freedom could not flourish.”

He argued that sites like Tefía must be preserved so that the atrocities are not erased by time, emphasizing the need to educate especially young people about this dark chapter. Following Tefía, the next Canary Islands Memory Site will be the Masonic Temple of Tenerife, already under investigation and set to join the national network of declared memory sites.

Torres also highlighted the broader progress for LGTBI+ rights in the islands:

“Our Trans Law was approved unanimously by all political forces represented in the regional Parliament.”

He warned that, at the time of the original repression, the far‑right had no representation in the Canary Islands Parliament.

In his speech, Torres praised the honorees:

“Their stories and lives are our fuel—lives dedicated to expanding rights, exemplary and irreplaceable, that helped us reclaim the democracy that was stolen from us overnight, with blood and fire.”

The declaration of Tefía as a Democratic Memory Site marks a historic step in acknowledging and reparating the suffering endured by LGTBI+ individuals under the Francoist regime, and it paves the way for further recognitions across Spain.