The history of LGBTQ people in Mexico dates back to pre-Columbian times.
History
The history of LGBTQ people in Mexico can be divided into three separate periods, coinciding with the three main periods of Mexican history: pre-Columbian, colonial, and post-independence. The data on the pre-Columbian people and those of the period of colonization is scarce and obscure. Historians often described the indigenous customs that surprised them or that they disapproved of, but tended to take a position of accusation or apology, which makes it impossible to distinguish between reality and propaganda. In general, it seems that the Mexica were as homophobic as the Spanish, and that other Indigenous peoples tended to be much more tolerant, to the point of honoring Two-Spirit people as shamans. The history of LGBTQ people in the colonial period and after independence is still in great part yet to be studied, but include the 1658 executions for sodomites and the 1901 Dance of the Forty-One, two great scandals in Mexican public life.
Community and culture
The visible center of the LGBT community is the Zona Rosa, a series of streets in Colonia Juárez in Mexico City, where over 50 gay bars and dance clubs exist. Surrounding the country's capital, there is a sizable amount in the State of Mexico. Some observers claim that gay life is more developed in Mexico's largest western city, Guadalajara.Dynes, Johansson, Percy and Donaldson, p. 807. Other large cities include border city Tijuana, northern city Monterrey, centrist cities Puebla and León, and major port city Veracruz. The popularity of gay tourism, especially in Puerto Vallarta, Cancún, and elsewhere, has also brought more national attention to the presence of homosexuality in Mexico.Herrick and Stuart, p. 145. Among some young, urban heterosexuals, it has become popular to attend gay dance clubs and to have openly gay friends.
Since mid-2007, the government of the Federal District and Cuauhtémoc, D.F. — in whose territory the Zona Rosa is found — have placed operatives in some seedy nightclubs of the Zona Rosa, with the purpose of freeing this tourist zone of problems such as illegal drug trade and prostitution, as well as reducing the incidence of crimes such as theft. Other targets of the program are those sites of cohabitation that lack safety measures for the users — mainly emergency exits. LGBT groups have denounced the action as a form of homophobia.
Pride In 1979, the country's first LGBT Pride Parade, also known as LGBT Pride March, was held and attended by over one thousand people in Mexico City.González, p. 92. Ever since, it has been held every June without interruption under different slogans with the aim of bringing visibility to sexual minorities, encouraging consciousness about AIDS and HIV, denouncing homophobia, and demanding the creation of public policies such as the recognition of same-sex civil unions and same-sex marriages and the legalization of LGBTQ adoption, among others.Jiménez, De la Garza and Glockner, p. 10.
According to organizers, in its latest edition, the XXXI LGBT Pride Parade was attended by over 350,000 people, 100,000 more than its predecessor. In 2003, the first Lesbian Pride March occurred in the country's capital.Jiménez, De la Garza and Glockner, p. 20. In Guadalajara, well-attended LGBT Pride Parades have been held also every June since 1996. LGBT Pride Parades have continuously occurred in Monterrey,González, p. 94. Tijuana, Puebla, Veracruz, Xalapa, Cuernavaca, Tuxtla Gutiérrez,Jiménez, De la Garza and Glockner, p. 16. Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Chilpancingo, and Mérida.Jiménez, De la Garza and Glockner, p. 19.
Economy
The pink market (called "LGBT market", or mercado rosa) in Mexico is calculated at 51,300 million pesos (some US$3,891 million). The group of LGBT consumers, ignored until the present out of homophobia or fear of critics, is being discovered. In 2005 the Gay Expo in Mexico was created, which claimed to know the companies and services of the LGBT community, and the companies of the division have been united into the Union of Companies and Service Providers to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community (Unegay).
A study by the agency De la Riva on the behavior of the LGBT consumer shows that the habits of gay men and lesbians are distinct. While gay men prefer brand names and a riskier lifestyle, lesbians tend to be educated and don't tend to pay attention to brand names. Gays respond to advertisements that make knowing winks to the community but reject advertisements with openly gay themes because they fear being identified through the product.
Tourism
Pink tourism, especially from the US, has one of its favorite destinations in Mexico, and especially Puerto Vallarta, where it is even possible to see men taking a walk hand in hand in the Zona Romántica. Another favorite destination is Cancún, which has tried to attract the LGBT public with events like the Cancún Mayan Riviera Gay Fall Fiesta and the Cancún International Gay Festival. LGBT tourism focuses not on sun, beaches, and Mayan ruins; it is more diverse. For this public there exist two specialized travel agencies, Opta Tours (since 1991) and Babylon Tours.
Guadalajara and Acapulco were common vacation destinations for gay men and lesbians from Mexico City and, especially, the United States and Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. Since that time, Puerto Vallarta has developed into Mexico's premier resort town as a sort of satellite gay space for its big sister Guadalajara, much as Fire Island is to New York City and Palm Springs is to Los Angeles.Lionel Cantú, Nancy A. Naples, Salvador Vidal-Ortiz. The Sexuality of Migration: Border Crossings and Mexican Immigrant Men. NYU Press, 2009. 245 p. (101 p.) . Puerto Vallarta is now considered the most welcoming and gay-friendly destination in the country, dubbed the "San Francisco of Mexico."Howard L. Hughes. Pink tourism: holidays of gay men and lesbians. CABI, 2006. 234 p. (110 p.) . It boasts a gay scene, centered in the Zona Romántica, of hotels and resorts as well as many bars, nightclubs and a gay beach on the main shore. Puerto Vallarta has been cited as the number one gay beach destination in Latin America.Sara Lieber, Liza Monroy, Ann Summa, Jeff Spurrier, Rachel Tavel. MTV Best of Mexico. Frommer's, 2007. 722 p. (56 p.) .
Sport The Mexican gay soccer team, known as El Tri Gay, is the first of its kind in the country. Team member Eduardo Velázquez was quoted saying,
In 2007, Mexico participated for the first time in the Gay World Cup, which was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina. However, according to team members, they have been discriminated against by Mexican official soccer organizations, such as the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) and the National Commission for Physical Culture and Sports (CONADE), that have refused to support them because the Gay World Cup is not recognized by FIFA. The team also participated in the 2008 Gay World Cup held in London, UK, and in the 2009 World Outgames held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The team fully participated in the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) "LOVE Condoms Campaign", all getting publicly tested.
Rights
The LGBTQ community has been gaining some rights in the first years of the 21st century. On 29 April 2003, the Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination was passed. The law, which has been criticized as insufficient, gives rise to the creation of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación, CONAPRED), which is in charge of receiving and settling cases of discrimination, as well as "develop[ing] actions to protect all citizens from every distinction or exclusion based on ethnic or national origin, sex, age, disability, social or economic condition, conditions of health, pregnancy, language, religion, beliefs, sexual preferences, marital status or any other, that prevents or annuls the acknowledgement or the exercise of the rights and the real equality of opportunities of persons".
In November 2006, the Law for Coexistence Partnerships was enacted in the Federal District. Called "gay law" in the mass media, this legal arrangement is not orientated exclusively to the homosexual population. The law, in effect since its publication in the official newspaper of the capital city government on 16 March 2007, gives almost the same rights as a married couple within the limits of the Federal District, with the exception of adoption.
The first Mexican state to legalize same-sex civil unions was Coahuila on 11 January 2007, under the name of "civil solidarity agreement". The Coahuilan congress modified the civil code to introduce the new form of cohabitation. The law allows similar rights to marriage but prohibits adoption by same-sex couples. On March 4, 2010, Mexico City's law allowing same-sex marriage took effect, despite an appeal by the Attorney-General of the Republic, making Mexico the first Latin American country to allow same-sex marriage by non-judicial means. On 12 March 2010, Mexico City held its first same-sex wedding, which will be recognized throughout the Mexican territory.
In spite of these advances, in 2006, the Mexican population was primarily against same-sex marriage. In a survey by Parametría, 61% of those surveyed responded "no" when asked if they supported an amendment to the constitution to legalize gay marriage. Only some 17% responded affirmatively, and some 14% did not give an opinion. In the same survey, some 41% were against the possibility of giving the same rights enjoyed by a married couple to a registered same-sex couple, and only 28% supported this possibility.
Rights movement LGBTQ people in Mexico have organized in a variety of ways: through local organizations, marches, and the development of a Commission to Denounce Hate Crimes. Mexico has a thriving LGBTQ movement with organizations in various large cities throughout the country and numerous LGBTQ publications, most prominently in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Tijuana, and Puebla. The vast majority of these publications exist at the local level, with national efforts often falling apart before they take root.Padilla, p. 208.
Societal prejudices and terminologies
Anthropologist Joseph M. Carrier suggests that, unlike the U.S., in Mexico, a man's masculine gender and heterosexual identity are not threatened by a homosexual act as long as he plays the inserter's role.
The terms used to refer to homosexual Mexican men are generally coded with gendered meaning drawn from the inferior position of women in patriarchal Mexican society. The most benign of the contemptuous terms is maricón, a label that highlights the non-conforming gender attributes of the (feminine) homosexual man, equivalent to sissy or fairy in American English.Carrier, p. 541. However, to most Mexicans (gay or straight), the term maricón is highly offensive and is more an equivalent to the Canadian or American term "faggot". Terms such as joto or puto, on the other hand, speak to the passive sexual role taken by these men rather than merely their gender attributes, according to Carrier.
However, to the average Mexican, "joto" or "puto" is highly pejorative and has nothing to do with sexual roles (top or bottom). "Puto" can also refer to a guy who sells himself for money. They are more derogatory and vulgar in that they underscore the sexually non-conforming nature of their passive/receptive position in the homosexual act. The invective associated with all these appellations speaks to the way effeminate homosexual men are viewed as having betrayed the Mexican man's prescribed gender and sexual role. There are also some regional variants such as leandro, lilo, mariposón, and puñal, among others.Haggerty, p. 910.