Sexual and gender diversity in small cities: LGBT experiences in Girona, Spain

Abstract

Big cities have become the preeminent area for studies on sexual and gender diversity. Major Western cities dominate the panorama of stories, discourses and practices regarding sexual and gender diversity in urban studies. However, many LGBT people reside outside of large cities. This paper intends to challenge the hegemony of the ‘big city’ as the intrinsic center of production of discourse on what is meant by ‘LGBT’ and to analyze how social relationships among LGBT people emerge in the environment of a medium-sized city. To this end, ethnographic research, including interviews and participant observation, was conducted for my research. One of the main conclusions from this work is that, despite the fact that big cities play a dominant role in the construction of LGBT lifestyles, aspirations and desires, there are other LGBT narratives outside of big cities that deserve to be considered in order to provide a more complex and nuanced understanding of sexual and gender diversity. This research challenges the assumption that LGBT life outside the big city is associated with isolation, loneliness and discomfort, as we demonstrate that many LGBT people who live outside the big city are content about their everyday lives.