In Mexican culture, it is now relatively common to see gay characters represented on Mexican sitcoms and soap operas (telenovelas) and being discussed on talk shows. However, representations of male homosexuals vary widely. They often include stereotypical versions of male effeminacy meant to provide comic relief as well as representations meant to increase social awareness and generate greater acceptance of homosexuality. However, efforts to represent lesbians have remained nearly non-existent, which might be related to the more general invisibility of lesbian subcultures in Mexico.

Until the prominence of such openly gay luminaries as singer-songwriter Juan Gabriel, artist Juan Soriano, and essayist Carlos Monsiváis, gay life was safely closeted and officially unmentionable in the mass media. A Lesbian-Gay Cultural Week has been held annually since 1982 in Mexico City with the support of a cultural museum belonging to the prestigious National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) since 1987.Jiménez, De la Garza and Glockner, p. 14.

Cinema Exaggeratedly effeminate men representations date as far back as 1938 in the Mexican film La casa del ogro ("The Ogre's House") and continued to appear solely for comedic relief."El humor en el cine" (interview with Ricardo Guzmán Wolffer a Rafael Aviña) in La Jornada Semanal, 19 February 2006, accessed 2 December 2007. An example is the film Fin de la fiesta (1972), in which Doña Beatriz, the mother (played by Sara García), kills her gay son with sticks.

The first sympathetic portrayal of a gay character awaited "El lugar sin límites" ("The Place Without Limits"), a 1978 drama directed by Arturo Ripstein and based on the novel by Chilean José Donoso."El lugar sin límites" , in Cine Club Cine Mexicano, accessed 2 December 2007. Played by Roberto Cobo, the character of La Manuela emerges as a tragic figure who is at once desired and victimized by the typically macho characters in a Mexican village. A few years later, Doña Herlinda y su hijo ("Doña Herlinda and Her Son"; 1984)Fabián de la Cruz Polanco (2006): , in Filmweb, 1 February 2006, accessed 2 December 2007. featured the first same-sex couple in Mexican cinema, who struggled with family pressures to survive.

Films like Danzón (1991), by María Novaro; Miroslava (1993), by Alejandro Pelayo; El callejón de los milagros ("The Alley of Miracles"; 1995), by Jorge Fons; or Y tu mamá también ("And Your Mother, Too"; 2001), by Alfonso Cuarón, incorporate homoerotic subject matter as a secondary matter in their plots or in a hidden way.The technical specifications of these films can be found in Cine Club Cine Mexicano , a database specialized in Mexican cinema by the Institute of Technology and Higher Education de Monterrey. The 2004 film Temporada de patos ("Season of Ducks") featured a teenage boy who discovers his homosexuality.

Julian Hernandez, an openly gay film director, is known for his contributions to Mexican cinema. Hernandez directed critically acclaimed films Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo (A Thousand Clouds of Peace; 2003) and El cielo dividido (Broken Sky; 2006) allow viewers to observe relationships through the lens of gay desire. None of the film's characters approached the homosexual stereotypes that appeared in Mexican film for decades."Mil nubes de paz cercan el cielo, amor, jamás acabarás de ser amor ", interview with Julián Hernández, in Golem Producciones, accessed 2 December 2007.

In early 2006, Mexico's first-ever International Gay Film Festival took place in Mexico City and was attended by more than 5,000 movie-goers. According to its director, Alberto Legorreta, the event was born of a desire "to create spaces for dialogue, contemplation, and artistic criticism of gay subject matter in Mexico."

Recent films with LGBTQ themes include La otra familia,Loza, G. (Producer), & Loza, G. (Director). 2011. La otra familia [Motion picture]. Mexico: Rio Negro. Four Moons, I Promise You Anarchy,name=Morelia-Film-2015-Ficha> The Untamed, Do it Like an Hombre, I Dream in Another Language, This is Not Berlin, Dance of the 41 and Háblame de Ti.

Television Two private channels compete in providing national coverage, Televisa and TV Azteca. Matters of sexuality are presented occasionally, mainly on talk shows and journalistic programs. Mexican networks have a strong self-censoring attitude, and therefore homosexuality is usually not dealt with unless the program deals with HIV/AIDS.Donald James West and Richard Green. Sociolegal control of homosexuality: a multi-nation comparison. p. 91. Springer, 1997. .

Notwithstanding, in recent years it is now relatively common to include gay characters on Mexican sitcoms and soap operas. A lesbian character was the first to be included in a popular 1990s soap opera, Nada personal ("Nothing Personal"). In this TV Azteca-produced program, the positive image of homosexuality goes along with a major criticism of the Mexican political system.Haggerty, p. 590.

In 1999, another TV Azteca production, La vida en el espejo ("Life in the Mirror"), showed José María Yazpik playing a gay character, which was recognized by many critics as the first gay character portrayed with dignity in a Mexican soap opera. The same network produced similar gay characters played by actress Margarita Gralia in Mirada de Mujer (1997), actor Juan Pablo Medina in Cuando seas mía ("When You Would Be Mine"; 2001) and actor Juan Manuel Bernal in La heredera ("The Heiress"; 2004). In mid-2009, Televisa-produced soap opera Sortilegio softly dealt with bisexuality.

A couple months later, Los exitosos Pérez ("The Successful Pérezes"), an adaptation of Argentine comedy-drama soap opera Los exitosos Pells ("The Successful Pellses"), was launched in Mexico. The TV show revolves around whether homosexuals should come out of the closet or not. Actor and protagonist Jaime Camil criticized Mexican television for censoring his kissing scenes with male co-star José Ron.

Anthology dramas such as Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real, Como dice el dicho and La rosa de Guadalupe have at various times featured LGBTQ themes in their episodes.

More recently, the soap opera Mi marido tiene familia and its subsequent spin-off El corazón nunca se equivoca successfully featured a gay teen couple which received acclaim from the audiences.

Cable television shows tend to be more open when dealing with LGBTQ issues. Aside from American TV shows, such as sitcom Will & Grace, drama series The L Word, drama series Six Feet Under, reality Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and several MTV productions, Televisa-affiliated music videos network Telehit has continuously produced TV shows targeting the LGBTQ community since the early 2000s.

Desde Gayola, broadcast from 2001 to 2006, was a Mexican sketch comedy TV series that criticized the reality on the Mexican society, dealing with diverse topics such as politics, religion, sexuality, and show business, among others. Produced by Horacio Villalobos, Desde Gayola featured many LGBTQ characters, including Manigüis (Carlos Rangel), a stereotypical gay male living in the city; Supermana, a transgender superheroine, played by transgender actress Daniel Vives, who deals with women's problems; La Tesorito, played by transgender actress Alejandra Bogue, a parody of TV host and actress Laura León; Pita Amor, played by the actor Miguel Romero, and Mama Mela, played by actor Javier Yepez.Desde Gayola , official website.

Another prominent Telehit-produced TV show is Guau! ("Cool!"), currently hosted by Alex Kaffie, Lorena Fernández, and Sergio Téllez. Launched in late 2005, Guau! is often considered the only fully gay, Mexican TV show.

Web shows that have been successful on YouTube include the drag reality competition La Más Draga and Con Lugar.

Streaming television Mexican shows featuring LGBTQ themes and/or characters include The House of Flowers, The Club, Monarca, Dark Desire, Control Z, Rebelde, Who Killed Sara? and High Heat.

On June 22, 2023, the first season of the Mexican version of the famous reality show RuPaul's Drag Race, called Drag Race Mexico premiered.

Literature

The field of literature in Mexico has been particularly propitious to the dissemination of the themes of homosexuality and to the inscriptions of gay and lesbian sensibilities in aesthetic terms.Marina Pérez de Mendiola. Gender and identity formation in contemporary Mexican literature. p. 107. Routledge, 1998. . El diario de José Toledo ("José Toledo's Diary"; 1964), written by Miguel Barbachano Ponce, earned recognition as the first novel in Mexico to openly inscribe homosexuality in literature.Marina Pérez de Mendiola. Gender and identity formation in contemporary Mexican literature. p. 108. Routledge, 1998. . Rosamaría Roffiel, an openly lesbian self-taught journalist and writer, wrote the book Amora (1989), which is credited with being the first lesbian novel published in Mexico - that is, the first novel that openly discusses lesbianism and places it in the foreground.María Dolores Costa. Latina lesbian writers and artists. p. 18. Routledge, 2003. .

Despite societal prejudices, some LGBTQ people were able to live fairly open lives and still become successful, especially in the fields of literature and arts. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695), considered the greatest lyric poet of the colonial period (1521–1821), was a Mexican nun presumed by many to be a lesbian because of the passionate love poems she addressed to her benefactress Leonor Carreto, wife of Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo, and her scathing critique of male abuse of power against women.María Dolores Costa. Latina lesbian writers and artists. p. 10. Routledge, 2003. .

Salvador Novo (1904–1974) was a poet and member of the avant-garde group Los Contemporáneos, who wrote Nuevo amor ("New Love"; 1933), considered as one of the best collections of poetry ever written in Spanish.Robert Aldrich, Garry Wotherspoon. Who's who in gay and lesbian history: from antiquity to World War II. p. 391. Second Edition. Routledge, 2003. . His close friend Xavier Villaurrutia (1903–1950), another prominent member of Los Contemporáneos, was a poet and playwright, considered as one of Mexico's finest modern writers and major film and art critics. His Nocturno de los ángeles ("Nocturne of the Angels"; 1936) is one of the monuments of gay writing in Latin America.Daniel Balderston, Mike Gonzalez. Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean literature, 1900–2003. p. 598. Routledge, 2004. .

Luis Zapata (b. 1951) has become Mexico's most celebrated gay writer over the past decades, whose first two works helped usher in the 1980s boom of gay literature in Mexico. His literary trajectory is one of increasing personalization and self-exposure, of his own coming out.Haggerty, p. 968.

Anthologist and journalist Carlos Monsiváis (b. 1938), one of the most highly respected authors in Latin America, is best known as a writer of chronicles and an essayist, mixing both genres in order to describe and explain the complexity of contemporary Mexican society, especially that of the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. Within these parameters, Monsiváis acknowledges his gay identity, although it is not the center of his chronicles. In some of his works Monsiváis criticizes a patriarchal and homophobic society that tends to ignore, to view with prejudice, and to harass the Mexican gay community and its manifestations.David William Foster, Emmanuel S. Nelson. Latin American writers on gay and lesbian themes: a bio-critical sourcebook. p. 243. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994. .