Spanish teacher and fugitive Elisa Sánchez Loriga was BOTD in 1862. Born in A Coruña, Galacia, little is known about her early life. She trained to be a teacher at the Escola Normal de Mestras in A Coruña, where she formed a relationship with fellow student Marcela Gracia Ibeas. Marcela’s parents became concerned about the women’s friendship, and sent her to Madrid to complete her studies. After graduating, Ibeas returned to A Coruña to work as a teacher in Calo while Loriga worked in the neighbouring village of Couso, eventually living together in Calo. In 1901, they resolved to get married. To achieve this, Lorigo adopted a masculine appearance, calling herself Mario Sánchez, and inventing a backstory to justify her lack of a baptismal certificate. They were married in the Catholic church of San Jorge in A Coruña and spent their wedding night in a boarding house. Loriga’s true identity was quickly exposed by neighbours and reported to newspapers, becoming a national scandal. Both Loriga and Ibeas lost their jobs, and were threatened with excommunication and arrest. As part of the Church’s excommunication proceedings, Loriga was examined by a doctor, claiming that she was a hermaphrodite. The couple fled to Porto in Portugal, where they were arrested and imprisoned, but released two weeks later following community protests. Following their release, Loriga took an oath before a judge that she was male. After further medical examinations, doctors concluded that she was female and she was forced to wear female attire. Loriga and Ibeas were put on trial in Porto, though were acquitted of their charges. Nine months after their marriage, Loriga gave birth to a daughter, though historical records are unclear as to the child’s parentage. Public support for their relationship was bolstered by Felipe Trigo’s book La sed de amar, which became a national bestseller. Facing extradition back to Spain, the couple boarded a ship to Argentina in 1902. Settling in Buenos Aires, they worked as maids to support themselves, but quickly sank into poverty. The following year, Loriga, now identifying as “María”, married Christian Jensen, a wealthy Danish immigrant 24 years her senior, moving Ibeas and their daughter into Jensen’s home (posing as Loriga’s widowed sister “Carmen”). Loriga’s refusal to consummate the marriage infuriated Jensen, leading him to discover that they were the famous Elisa and Marcela. In 1904, he brought a lawsuit to annul the marriage. The courts concluded that their marriage was valid because it was between a man and a woman. Little is known of Loriga and Ibeas after the court case. In 1909, an Argentinean newspaper published a report of Loriga’s suicide, though little evidence suggests to support this. Their Spanish marriage certificate was never annulled, making them Spain’s first same-sex married couple. Now hailed as LGBTQ heroes, the city council of A Coruña named a street “Marcela and Elisa” in their honour. Their story was dramatised in the 2019 film Elisa e Marcela, starring Natalia de Molina as Loriga and Greta Fernández as Ibeas.