Last Saturday, during Carlos Monsiváis’ wake at Museo de la Ciudad de México, a group of young people unfolded a gay flag and put it on the writer’s coffin. Someone tried to take it away, but the group insisted and placed it right between Mexico and UNAM flags. So far, only one journalist has talked explicitly about Monsiváis’ sexuality and his links with the Mexican LGBT community.

A similar episode (link in Spanish) took place again during the wake in Bellas Artes. This time, it was the Mexican journalist Jenaro Villamil who put the rainbow flag on the casket despite the negative reaction of Consuelo Sáizar, president of the National Council for Culture and Arts (Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes).

A third episode of awkwardness was described by Andrés Duque, when musician and LGBT activist Horacio Franco not only played the flute right next to the casket, but also confirmed the rumors about Monsiváis’ sexuality in an interview with a LGBT website.

Carlos Monsiváis was one of the most influential intellectuals and writers in Mexico. He was a prolific author who also learned how to use radio and TV in order to disseminate his opinions about the PRI, the Catholic church and the conservative groups that dominate the Mexican government under the PAN’s rule.

Carlos Monsiváis' wake at Bellas Artes, via La Jornada

Above all, Monsi, as many of his fans called him, was considered the undisputed chronicler of Mexico City, where passers by could recognize him on the street—a privilege that very few intellectuals have, given the separation between academia and so-called popular culture in Mexico. Monsiváis was born and brought up within a Presbyterian family in San Simon Ticumac, a poor neighborhood of Mexico City, a fact that other intellectuals of his same generation with well-to-do backgrounds despised, making Monsiváis something like an outcast within the Mexican intelligentsia.

As an activist, Monsiváis was part of the 1968 movement that ended in the massacre in Tlatelolco, he supported the Zapatista movement in 1994, and labeled the elections of 2006 that took away the presidency from López Obrador a “fraud”.

As any other controversial character, Monsiváis had his flaws: His colleagues and close friends considered him a misogynist, and despite his close links with the feminist and LGBT movements, he never came out of the closet publicly. Like Juan Gabriel, one of the many pop icons that fascinated Monsiváis, he kind of choose to follow the principle of lo que se ve no se pregunta, while defending LGBT rights in Mexico and pointing out the homophobia and double standards with which the Catholic church attacked the LGBT community and, more recently, same-sex marriage in Mexico City.

It is kind of ironic that Monsiváis was outed during his wake, posing questions about the right to live (and die?) in the closet and the power of visibility for the LGBT community. But if you think about it, the gay flag made it to Bellas Artes, the most prestigious place where someone can have her or his wake in Mexico. To give some idea of how important is this, Frida Kahlo‘s wake was in that building. The fact that the LGBT community claimed a place in this ceremony speaks to a new generation that wants to publicly acknowledge the not-so-short history of Mexico’s LGBT community. It talks about the importance of sexuality when it comes to define an identity that, like in Monsiváis’ case, was shaped by being Mexican, attending the UNAM, and being a gay man.

We’ll never know how Monsiváis would feel about this forced outing, but it is certainly sad to read “Monsiváis never married and had no children” as if that could define his personal life (and happiness) at all.

If Monsiváis’ death means the end of an era, let’s hope for a new generation that embraces all the different aspects that shape human beings, including sexuality, and the joy that comes along with it when it is accepted as part of life.

Gutiérrez García has been following Arce closely: in the last Encuentro de Diversidad Sexual in Oaxtepec, Morelos he denounced the “Matutino Express” as a space where words such as puñal (faggot) or depravado (degenerate) were used to talk about gay men. The issue is still in process, so we don’t know how it will be solved yet.

Some people in Facebook have expressed that the whole issue will give Arce higher ratings, instead of helping the GLBT community to defend our rights. Well, we all know how powerful language can be, and how it can drive people to commit unmentionable atrocities.

Meanwhile, Arce’s reaction has been to deny that he is homophobic: “I never imagined that there would be such controversy, and I don’t care, here [in his program] I say what I think, and I don’t take the time to see if people agree or not.” “I’m not homophobic, I have my opinion… I respect human life, to young guys and the others (homosexuals) do as you want, I don’t care. But yes, what is natural is man-woman, nothing else”.

Please, someone help this guy!

Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe after formalizing their union through the Ley de Convivencia in 2007, via La Jornada

Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe are a legendary couple in the history of Mexican culture and Mexican lesbianism. Rodríguez, a Mexican actress, playwright and social activist has a long career as an artist who experimented with opera, theater, cabaret, as well as other forms of popular theater such as a style of Mexican vaudeville called carpa. Felipe is an Argentinian singer and performer who has lived in Mexico as an exile after the dictatorship in Argentina began in 1976. She experimented with different rhythms such as tango and danzón, composing funny but witty songs about love and life between women.

During the nineties Felipe and Rodríguez opened El Hábito, a bar in Coyoacán, and the restaurant Teatro La Capilla, where protests against the government and the church in the form of cabaret always had a venue. Rodríguez and Felipe supported independent cultural groups and projects, and always committed themselves to political causes of national interest, but focusing in gender and GLBT issues. In 1991 they got married in a symbolic ceremony as a protest against the Catholic Church, and as a display of public support for Mexico City’s Leyes de Convivencia, the law that preceded this year’s gay-marriage bill. Unfortunately, Felipe and Rodríguez decided to retire in 2005. El Hábito is now run by a lesbian performance group, Las Reinas Chulas, under the name El Vicio.

Today Rodríguez and Felipe, after the good news of gay marriage in DF, wrote an open letter to La Jornada that Macha Mexico considers important to translate here:

Happy 2010 in a city that is a little bit more egalitarian!
Due to the lack of laws in this matter, we did not have other option than to live 30 years as simple lovers; but now that we finally have the same rights and obligations that every one else, Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe would like to announce our upcoming marriage in Mexico City.

We also want to adopt two homeless girls in order to give them the education that they never had, they are: Mariana Gómez del Campo and Gabriela Cuevas [homophobic members of the conservative PAN party]. In spite of how difficult it is to reeducate an adult, we think that with patience and love everything is possible.

To Onésimo Cepeda and company, we ask them: and the kids raped by Maciel, who will they call father, who will they call grandfather, who will they call saint pedophile?

To all those who have not done it yet, we wish you that you come out of the closet this 2010 and enjoy your life more fully.

Long live equality!

Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe

same-sex marriage = gay tourism = $$

Mexico City tourism minister Alejandro Rojas is planning for the increase in gay tourism that he says will result from the city’s recent decision to legalize same-sex marriage. Last Wednesday La Jornada reported that Rojas is looking forward to the influx of capital that will result from gay-marriage-related tourism and calls for greater tolerance from the city’s religious communities, suggesting that the Catholic Church has its own problems to deal with.  Rojas says that the city will be investing 100 million pesos into a new gay-friendly hotel in the Zona Rosa and will support the development of other businesses that cater to the GLBT market.

The article makes no bones about the economic motives involved, mentioning that increases in gay-tourism have been the natural result of legal gay marriage in other cities in the world, spawning gay-friendly “bridal” boutiques, wedding venues, beauty salons, and hotels. The author cites statistics claiming that 15% of global tourism is gay tourism. What do they call us again? D.I.N.K.’s: Dual Income, No Kids. So that‘s why we’re such a profitable subset of the population to tap into…

This all makes me wonder about the effectiveness, the limits, and the ethics of using gay spending power to open people’s minds about gay people and gay marriage, especially in the context of tourism from the “First World” to Mexico. Does politely taking the money of a white gay couple from north of the border translate into politely receiving your gay son’s boyfriend at a family dinner? And, as Anahí pointed out to me, the only gay people benefitting from this 100 million peso investment are those that can afford to stay at a luxury hotel in the Zona Rosa. I have always found Mexico City to be a very gay friendly city, but I say that as a white American who has never had to go to a local junior high school, hospital, or police precinct.

I hope that the passage of this same-sex marriage bill means that Rojas is correct, that Mexico City will become a truly “gay friendly” city, one in which all GLBT people can live and visit with safety, dignity, and joy.

The Mexico City local assembly voted today to allow same-sex marriage, 39 to 20. The city had already passed a domestic partnership (leyes de convivencia) bill in 2007, but that was considered a symbolic victory at best, since it provided no more rights to same-sex couples than those already permitted under the law. This same-sex marriage law, which D.F. mayor Marcelo Ebrard is expected to sign into law, looks like a much more sweeping measure, and will allow gay couples to adopt children, be covered under health insurance plans, and to apply for bank loans as a couple.

The same-sex marriage law will only affect Mexico City, and no other states in Mexico, but it’s a start! I wish I was in Mexico City tonight. If you’re there, upload pictures of the festivities!

everyone's using this image, but how can I resist?

Special thanks to Monika Fabian for being the one to bring this to my attention.

The New York Times reports that the publication of Finding Frida Kahlo, a new book on the collection published by Princeton Architectural Press,  is the immediate cause of the controversy, as the Mexican government trust that runs Kahlo’s estate moves to attempt to block the sale of the book, claiming it is presenting these objects as something they are not. Handwriting experts, art historians, and others disagree on whether or not the collection is authentic.

Anyone who has been to Mexico (or to any Mexican-inspired “kitschy” shop anywhere else), knows that the image of Frida Kahlo is used to sell anything from shopping bags, to compacts, to ashtrays, to aprons, the emotional force of her self-portraits reduced to a souvenir. With that in mind, I appreciate the effort to maintain some sort of authenticity about her body of work and the objects she used in her own life.

Apparently the collection was authenticated by Rivera’s granddaughter several years ago, but there are many inconsistencies among the objects that don’t seem to add up. Based on the information in the Times’ report, I’m inclined to believe they are fakes, but what do you think?

Is this a real Frida Kahlo sketch?

Gertrudis Bocanegra as portrayed by Ofelia Medina

Gertrudis Bocanegra, known as “La Heroína de Pátzcuaro” was a criollo woman born to wealthy peninsulares (Spanish born parents) in Michoacan in 1765. Although her husband was originally a soldier in the Spanish army, when the War of Independence began they both joined the fight against Spain. She worked as a messenger, aiding communication between different fronts, but was finally captured in her hometown of Pátzcuaro. The myths around her execution include the claim that although she was tortured, she never gave up the names of her fellow rebels, and that she continued ranting against her executioners until she was shot by a firing squad. In the 1992 Spanish-language bio-pic Gertrudis, she was portrayed by Ofelia Medina, who also co-wrote the screenplay. A library named for her stands in Pátzcuaro, and contains a mural by Juan O’Gorman depicting Mexican history from the pre-Hispanic era to the Mexican Revolution.

Maria Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez

Maria Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, known as “La Corregidora” (the corrector), was a wealthy criollo woman born in 1768. Although her parents died when she was still a baby, she was raised by her older sister, and educated at the then-prestigious Colegio de las Vizcaínas. As an adult, she hosted secret literary salons to read and discuss works of Enlightenment philosophy banned by the Catholic Church. Although her husband had been appointed a corregidor (magistrate) in Querétero, Josefa Ortiz maintained close ties with rebel organizers. The rebellion wasn’t scheduled to begin until December, but Spanish Royal troops began searching Querétero in September, where Miguel Hidalgo was hiding. Already suspected to have sympathies with the rebels, Josefa was ordered locked in her bedroom during the search, but she managed to get a message out to the mayor of the town. A rebel supporter, he informed Hidalgo of the search, effectively moving up the start of the revolution by three months. As punishment, Josefa was incarcerated in a convent until the end of the war. After independence, when Agustín de Iturbide became the emperor of Mexico, Josefa was offered the position of lady-in-waiting to the empress. A total badass who supported a Mexican republic instead of an empire, she rejected the position, as well as the imperial title “woman of honor.” A sculpture of Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez stands in the Plaza de Santo Domingo in the Centro Historico.

Leona Vicario

Leona Vicario was born to a rich criollo family in Mexico City in 1789, but was placed in the charge of her uncle after her parents died when she was a teenager. After he forbade her to marry insurgent Andrés Quintana Roo because of political differences, she fled to Tacuba, then a small down outside of the city, where she founded a group of women supporters of the independence movement. Later, she used her fortune to help fund the rebellion, and transmitted information to the rebels, acting as a spy through her connections in Mexico City, and co-founding a secret organization known as the Guadalupes. She was imprisoned in a convent for her involvement in the War of Independence until she was able to escape to Michoacán, where she was finally able to marry her husband. Her remains are easy to visit where they are interred within the column of the Ángel de la Independencia.

These are only three of the countless women who were no doubt involved in the struggles for Mexican indepedence, most of whom will never be recognized for their contributions. Of course, it’s no coincidence that the three most well-known women were wealthy and of Spanish (not mestizo or indigenous) ancestry. Additionally, it’s worth noting that although Mexico’s independence from Spain granted rights to criollos and some mestizo Mexicans, for poor and indigenous Mexicans, many of whom were still enslaved through indentured labor, things didn’t get too much brighter when “New Spain” became Mexico. In that spirit, I’ll be spending this Dia de la Independencia thinking about contemporary justice movements and whose voices continue to be erased.

American, Canadian, and European Union citizens must realize the tremendous privilege we have in being able to travel all over the world, often without restrictions or even a visa. Until a few years ago, Americans didn’t even need a passport to cross the Mexican border. The same is certainly not true for Mexicans trying to visit the United States. Indeed, several of my Mexican friends are unable to visit me in New York despite my enthusiastic invitation. Although they have no intention of immigrating, they can’t get a tourist visa because their jobs in Mexico aren’t considered “good enough” to prevent them from staying in the United States. Similarly, the privileges that American ex-pats living in Mexico experience, learning from living in a foreign country, earning money legally or picking up odd jobs here and there, don’t extend to Mexicans living in the United States, who face impossibly long waiting lists for green cards and other means of legal residency.

Any American who has ever bought a product made by inexpensive labor in Mexico or otherwise passively benefited from NAFTA should realize that “free trade” and the gap it has widened between Mexico’s rich and poor contribute to increasing immigration from Mexico. (For a good book about the blended economies of Mexico and the United States, check out Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration by Douglas S. Massey, which is available through Macha Mexico’s tiendita.) More specifically, any tourist to Mexico has to realize that much of what she enjoys about Mexico—the strength of the dollar against the peso, the picturesque “quaintness” of impoverished villages—is a part of the same economic landscape that forces many Mexicans to emigrate north.

In light of all this, I believe that any American tourist to Mexico should support reforming immigration laws in the United States to create more pathways to legalization. I feel particularly strongly that the queer people and women who make up the primary audience of this blog, who have themselves experienced what it is like to feel invisible, to feel underrepresented in the country in which you live, need to add their voices to the growing chorus of those calling for more just immigration reform.

Although I believe that the United States needs broad immigration reform across immigrant populations, as half of a bi-national lesbian couple and as the teacher of many undocumented high school students, I can recommend two good places to start: the DREAM Act and the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA).

For those who don’t know, the DREAM Act is a piece of legislation that would create pathways for undocumented minors to legalize their immigration status independent of their parents’ status.  In the years I have worked as a high school teacher, I’ve had the privilege of meeting many students whose immigration status prevents them from receiving the financial aid they desperately need to attend college, despite being some of the brightest and hardest working students I’ve taught. The DREAM Act allows undocumented young people who arrived in the United States before the age of 16 and who have been living there for at least five years to gain permanent resident status by finishing two years of college or military service, during which they can work through federal work-study programs. Although the DREAM Act has been slowly gaining support since it was first introduced (under a different name) in 2001, there is no guaratee that it will pass. To learn more about the bill and the issues at hand, as well as how your senator is likely to vote, visit the DREAM Act Portal, an online community for undocumented students. To get involved in helping pass the DREAM Act, visit dreamact2009.com.

The other piece of immigration legislation that is close to my heart is the Uniting American Families Act, which, if passed, will allow American citizens and permanent residents to sponsor their same-sex partners for visas, the same way heterosexual people do for their spouses. Even though some states allow same-sex marriage, because of the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government (including the Department of Homeland Security, which handles immigration) defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, leaving bi-national gay couples in an unfortunate position. This is an issue which has received a lot of press recently, such as the feature article in this month’s issue of the Advocate, and the well-publicized case of Shirley Tan, the California mother of two who has had her deportation delayed only by private emergency bill. (Tan’s testimony in front of the senate judiciary committee can be read here.)

Organizations such as Immigration Equality (formerly the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Rights Task Force) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have done a lot of excellent work pushing for the passage of the UAFA (as well as advocating for GLBT people in many other areas of immigration, including assylum cases and the recent repeal of the HIV travel ban). Making a donation to either of these organizations is one way to show your support for bi-nation gay families (like ours).

However, there are many other ways to get involved. Currently, New York senator Chuck Schumer is drafting comprehensive immigration reform legislation, which he says will be finished by Labor Day. It would be a wonderful thing if the Uniting American Families Act were included in this comprehensive legislation. Now is an excellent time to write to senator Schumer as well as your local senators and representatives and express your support for bi-national gay families. A good template for writing your letter as well as more suggestions for how to get involved can be found on the Immigration Equality website.

Of course, neither of these specific bills deals with the larger issue of immigration reform, which is desperately needed as neo-liberal policies (as well as domestic economic policies, such as farm subsidies) continue to undermine the economies of developing countries such as Mexico. I encourage those readers with the privilege to travel the world and reap the benefits that globalization has offered them to educate themselves about the causes of immigration and to use their voices to support fair immigration reform.

Agustín Estrada Negrete, moments before the cops took him to a basement. Foto: José Hernández, via La Jornada.

The worst nightmare for a queer person became reality for Professor Agustín Estrada Negrete last May 7th. He was arrested and beaten by the police in the State of Mexico, and then taken to the federal maximum security prison, Almoloya de Juárez, where he was sexually abused.

Estrada Negrete’s story began a year ago, when as a director of a school for children with disabilities, Centro de Atención Múltiple (CAM), he was invited by the Human Rights Coordination in Ecatepec to celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia. Professor Estrada Negrete wore a red dress, emulating a character from the movie The Birdcage, walking along with his mother, Guadalupe Estrada, during the parade. The image appeared in  local papers, which prompted some teachers to denounce Estrada Negrete as a dangerous person for the children he taught at the CAM.

A few days later, Ernesto Monroy Yurrieta, undersecretary of Elementary Education in the State of Mexico, offered Estrada Negrete a one-year-leave. During that year, parents and students organized 17 rallies asking the authorities to reinstate Agustín Estrada Negrete as director of the CAM.

As a result of the protests, Deputy Secretary General of State, Luis Felipe Puente Espinoza, scheduled a meeting to resolve the issue. Estrada Negrete arrived, followed by his lawyer Jaime López Vela, a LGBT activist, as well as parents and students that support the professor. At the same time, police corps arrived in order to stop any attempt of the group to talk to the governor in front of the TV cameras that were already placed in front of the municipal building.

Nervous about the presence of Enrique Peña Nieto, governor of the State of Mexico, Puente Espinoza tried to deter the protesters, and allowed entrance only to Estrada Negrete. When Estrada asked for the presence of his lawyer, parents and students suddenly realized that the lawyer/activist was already being beaten inside a patrol car. Estrada Negrete tried to run towards the vehicle, but several cops stopped him and beat him and other protesters–among them, mothers and children.

Estrada Negrete was taken to the basement of the building of the Ministry of Justice., where he was tortured by police. His lawyer received the same treatment, although separately. After an entire day of physical assaults, Estrada Negrete was taken to Almoloya de Juárez, a maximum security prison where drug cartel leaders, kidnappers, and murderers share space. There, the torture and humiliation continued, until an anonymous con man handed a phone card to Professor Estrada and informed him that other prisoners were planning to kill him.

Fortunately, Professor Estrada could call his sister. On May 8th, Estrada Negrete stepped out of Almoloya, after paying a $2000 fine. When he tried to formally complain about the sexual assault, authorities in charge said “We are not allowed to take any declaration from you”.

Today, Agustín Estrada is in a hidden place, where he has received some help from the United Nations. Even though the UN accused the government of the State of Mexico of homophobia, torture, and sexual abuse, the action seems useless in face of a goverment that holds the second place for homophobic crimes in the whole country.

Agustín Negrete is now making public the names of the “authorities” who permitted his torture: Gerardo Dorantes Mora, general secretary of government, Luis Felipe Puente Espinoza, Norma Alejandra Sandoval Márquez, current director of the CAM 33 y 34, Óscar Mañón, chief of the police office, and Óscar Hernández Suárez, public ministry agent.

If you want to know more about this painful case, click here for a radio interview with Estrada Negrete, and here for more information in English.

Much of the information included in this post was taken from an article written by Óscar Daniel Balderas Méndez.

Very few people within Mexican pop culture deal with scandal like Gloria Trevi, or La Trevi, as many of her fans call her with some love.

She first appeared on stage  as part of a group called “Boquitas Pintada” (Painted Little Mouths) when she was 15 years-old. The group was not successful, but La Trevi managed to climb her way up to stardom, which she met in 1989 with the song “Dr. Psiquiatra.” This quick hit on Mexican billboards was part of the album “¿Qué hago aquí?” (“What am I doing here?”), which characterized her as a rebellious female maverick. She was strong enough to fight against school and her parents, and was also willing to talk openly about her sexuality–on her own terms.

On stage, Gloria Trevi sang with a husky voice, wearing ripped tights, short skirts, and a messy hair. As a regular part of her show, La Trevi would invite a guy from the audience to dance with her, ending up straddling him, for the amusement of the audience, who would see the guy totally astonished by this uncommon, powerful woman.

In 1998 fortune turned its back to La Trevi. Sergio Andrade, her manager, was accused by his former wife of luring teenage girls into a web of sexual slavery, promising them help to become superstars. The story was published in the book De la Gloria al Infierno (“From Glory to Hell”), that named Gloria Trevi as one of the main agents and participants who helped Andrade to achieve his atrocities. After the book was published, La Trevi, along with her manager and lover, went on the lam, fleeing Mexico for Spain, Argentina, and finally, Brazil, where they were caught. The Mexican and Brazilian governments negotiated for a long time whether the couple would be extradited to Mexico or would remain in Brazil. In the meantime, La Trevi became pregnant in jail.

In December 2001, La Trevi was finally extradited to Mexico, and her baby sent to live with his grandmother. At the same time, there were speculations about other baby that supposedly was born and dissapeared in Brazil while Andrade and Trevi were fugitive. To make a long story short, La Trevi was finally released from a Mexican prision in 2004, after she protested with a hunger strike.

Right away after her release, Gloria Trevi’s came back to the stage with a new album called Trevolución. The magic of media and marketing transformed La Trevi from being an ostracized character to a beloved star who had triumphed after an unhappy childhood, gossip, and above all, the mean mistreatment of her macho manager. At this point, Gloria Trevi’s renaissance overwhelmed her fans, who immediately forgot about the rumored dead baby, her ties to the teen prostitution ring, and the bizarre way  she came out of jail.

Once La Trevi reappeared as a triumphant diva on the stage, it seems as if her story was entangled with a series of tragic women such as Judy Garland  or Joan Crawford. In the context of a macho culture, it’s up for debate whether La Trevi was the agent of machismo or its victim. Either way, she has been capable enough to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, reborn as a gay icon.

As part of the celebration of her return, La Trevi promised to appear like a fallen angel in the Gay Parade in 2005, elected by the organizers as queen of the event. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it, due to the “advanced state of her pregnancy”. However, laid out in a sparkling dress and as much make up as she could wear, the video of her song “Todos me miran” (“Everyone looks at me”) remains as one of the gayest anthems of the Mexican queer community. Thanks to this song, and her story, La Trevi even made it to the Latino stage at the San Francisco Parade in 2006.

Allegedly, she had the original the idea and was co director of the video. The message is, in her own words, “an expression of triumph over oppression”.