BURGOS — Villages and small towns are no longer what it used to be for LGBTQ+ people. A few decades ago, LGBTQ+ people could only move to a big city if they wanted to live openly or connect with other people like them. 'Sexile' refers to a person who has to leave the place where they live when the degree of persecution, harassment or discomfort is too much.

According to the Andalusian Observatory against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, the main problems that plague LGBTQ+ people in Spain's small towns are the constraints of heterosexuality and heteronormativity, societal control (gossip, denigrating nicknames, mockery...), a degree of overprotection because they are considered fragile or weak, internalized LGBTQ+ phobia, and self-esteem issues.

Paulino D., from rural Spain, is 75 years old and example of someone who suffered because of his sexuality.

"All my life I have lived in a village of about 500 inhabitants near Burgos, hiding the fact that I liked men," he said. "When I did my military service, they threw boiling oil on my back to make me a man. I had to go to the dive bars in Aranda to meet men, most of the time it was just quick kisses and the occasional fondling."

Paulino says life for a gay man in the countryside has left him with "the feeling of having been something foul, a pervert. That's why I decided to come to a nursing home, where at least I am taken care of."

But luckily, new stories are also being written in rural Spain.