I used to be nonetheless in grade faculty, so I had my uniform on, however I used to be already carrying lipstick, nail polish, and clogs with picket heels; I used to be a hyperfeminine little boy, so after I walked previous this group, they observed me immediately, and one in every of them known as out, “Take a look at the little woman, la chiquilla, la jotita!” After which a number of others began calling to me, inviting me to return nearer. Feeling uncovered, I panicked and ran all the best way to the metro station.
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I’ll always remember that have: so many jotas—some carrying make-up and males’s clothes, some in attire and heels, some with brief hair, lipstick, and earrings, all of them flamboyant—laughing and calling to me in what appears to me at the moment like a scene out of a surrealist film.
Months later, I walked by the Zona Rosa for the primary time with my childhood buddy Karina and some different vestidas, as we known as ourselves. That day, Karina and I had been within the Glorieta de Insurgentes, a sunken plaza linked to the metro station bearing its title. Within the mid-Seventies, city tribes would collect there, heterosexuals mingling with individuals we all know at the moment as LGBT, no matter social class, some in teams and a few seated on the ring of concrete that encircled the house.
Some would sit in chairs on the cafés and eating places that existed within the plaza, turning the world into a gathering level for every kind of actions. On this event, Karina and I had been with a bunch of vestidas: La Georgette, La Claudio, La María Félix, Enrique La Galleta, and La Princesa Mérit, who was a minor like Karina and me, however she was already a vestida; that’s, she was already transfeminine, which was admirable again then.
I’ve met so many great individuals who haven’t solely challenged society in a method or one other however have additionally stood as much as the system.
At 13, I used to be awestruck by the expertise, by seeing so many vestidas collectively, queering round and speaking about numerous issues I didn’t perceive but. I do not forget that’s the place I met Miss Dior, Miss Clairol, La Licuadora, La Viuda, Katia, and so many different vestidas, a few of whom had been very femme, others who had been already on hormones, and others who had been extra masculine, like La Licuadora, the blender, whose actual title I by no means knew. These had been occasions of terrifying violence towards individuals like me, like us, individuals who dared to problem what we now name heteronormativity and the gender binary, to problem the classes of masculine and female.
In my case, I determine as a transfeminine individual, and it’s essential for me to say different individuals who dared to problem the gender binary in my time, individuals who paved the best way for future generations; we owe them recognition as a result of they managed to shift the best way society seen nonconforming individuals in that period. In my lengthy trajectory, I’ve met so many great individuals who haven’t solely challenged society in a method or one other however have additionally stood as much as the system and transgressed the norms imposed on us.
My contribution to the anthology México se escribe con J: una historia de la cultura homosexual (Mexiqueer: A Historical past of Homosexual Tradition in Mexico) is an essay titled “Jotas, vestidas, cuinas, locas y mariposas: Historias del movimiento trans en la Ciudad de México” (Jotas, Vestidas, Queens, Locas and Mariposas: Histories of the Trans Motion in Mexico Metropolis), during which I describe my expertise and speak concerning the figures who had an influence on my life, like Xóchitl and her princesses, whom I point out within the context of one of many events Xóchitl organized in luxurious motels and resorts exterior town. Here’s a paragraph from that essay, the place I speak concerning the significance of not forgetting them:
There have been too many essential individuals on the social gathering to depend. Marta Valdez-Pinos was there; she was the proprietor of a number of colourful watering holes like DeVal, an iconic nightclub again in these days. Additionally in attendance was Guillermo Ocaña, higher often called Camelia la Tejana; a revered occasion promoter and agent, rumor has it that he was additionally one of many founders of the well-known and elitist bar El 9. Camelia la Tejana acted because the grasp of ceremonies that evening. Mitzy Homosexual, who had only in the near past received the Miss Homosexual pageant, was there, too; he was simply beginning to make a reputation for himself on the planet of superstar trend, however he would go on to develop into a well-known designer in Mexico and the US and gown stars like Verónica Castro, María Félix, and plenty of extra. That evening, the present was courtesy of Francis, whose drag profession was on the rise, with assist from Xóchitl, after all; through the years, Francis would develop into a global star. Additionally current, naturally, was Naná, often called the Queen of the Zona Rosa for her magnificence and for being one of many few trans ladies in these days for whom doorways can be opened and visitors would actually cease.
Xóchitl, or Gustavo Ortega Maldonado, as her internal circle knew her, was a mystical one who stays shrouded in delusion and every kind of tales, a few of which is perhaps true and others made up. What’s indeniable, although, is that these of us who had the prospect to be within the presence of Xóchitl—queen, mom, and girl; the one and solely—will always remember her or the influence she had not solely on LGBT communities however on everybody round her, together with celebrities like movie and tv stars, writers, politicians, designers, promoters, and so forth, in addition to society usually. Xóchitl wasn’t simply somebody with energy who might pull strings with individuals in numerous social spheres—she was additionally somebody who challenged society with the best way she offered herself in public and who used her energy so others, together with many trans individuals, might get forward.
It’s a incontrovertible fact that many individuals discovered success in numerous fields again then due to their connection to Xóchitl. I can’t consider one other icon who had as profound an influence on my life and the lives of the individuals I knew, no matter class, stigmas, or stereotypes. Xóchitl wasn’t simply an entrepreneur who managed brothels and arranged occasions, who knew individuals in politics and the humanities and had a manner of opening doorways for nonconforming individuals so we might have a spot in society, she was additionally a assist system for a lot of in my internal circle, like Naná and Raquel. Xóchitl inspired them and supported their improvement and productiveness; she made house for them, taking them beneath her wing like her daughters. For me, Xóchitl wasn’t solely the Queen of all Queens, she was additionally the Mom to all vestidas in these days.
In Mexico Metropolis, my beloved ex-DF, there have at all times been social justice actions; teams have at all times organized to specific their discontent and protest towards corrupt, oppressive governments. We can’t neglect the coed motion in 1968 and the bloodbath at Tlatelolco, the 1971 Halconazo that murdered and disappeared so many younger individuals, or, extra just lately, the compelled disappearance of forty-three college students from Ayotzinapa. All of those had been crimes dedicated by the state.
It was in 1978, on the tenth anniversary of the Tlatelolco bloodbath, {that a} contingent together with homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and trans individuals joined the march to present visibility to their battle and categorical their rage towards the system that oppressed, persecuted, and criminalized them for the easy reality of their sexual orientation, identification, or gender expression. Within the prologue to Voces del Otro Lado (Voices from the Different Aspect), the professor and my esteemed colleague Ernesto Reséndiz Oikión recounts this historic occasion and the motion it sparked, reminding us that when the Gay Entrance for Revolutionary Motion (FHAR), the Lambda Group for Gay Liberation, and the autonomous group Oikabeth took to the streets demanding sexual liberation, their motion catalyzed the creation of publications that later helped share details about these organizations.
The next 12 months, in June of 1979, these teams obtained organized, they usually organized the primary LGBT march in Mexico Metropolis to name for an finish to police harassment and extortion, and to demand that our rights as residents be revered. I keep in mind becoming a member of the march, which started on the Monumento a los Niños Héroes in Chapultepec and ended on the Alameda, proper in entrance of Bellas Artes, if reminiscence serves. It was the primary time that we trans ladies—nosoTRANS—dared to stroll town streets, many people in heels and lengthy attire, others in boots and miniskirts.
I keep in mind carrying a halter prime and shorts with high-heeled sandals and will definitely always remember the insults hurled at us, the cries of “jotos,” “maricones,” “putos,” and “degenerados,” amongst so many others. At one level, they began throwing issues at us, rubbish, I feel, even fruit and different waste. I’ll at all times do not forget that second of neighborhood empowerment, after we noticed that we had been, in truth, ready to withstand and problem an oppressive system that criminalized and harassed us.
I really feel an obligation and a accountability to not solely visibilize but in addition get better and vindicate the struggles of the LGBT motion.
A number of years in the past, I assisted Dr. Kris Klein Hernández, a historian and professor at a college in the US, with a analysis mission about a physician who practiced intercourse reassignment surgical procedures, or gender-affirming surgical procedures, in Mexico within the Nineteen Fifties. Supposedly, the primary trans individual to endure this surgical procedure was Marta Olmos, and it was carried out by Dr. Rafael Sandoval Camacho. Within the analysis course of, we found that Dr. Siobhan Guerrero McManus wrote in 2014 about this physician and the surgical procedures he carried out within the state of Veracruz.
We tried to discover a case that preceded Marta Olmos’s, even looking out social media and speaking with trans elders in Veracruz, however discovered nothing past the writings of Drs. Sandoval Camacho and Guerrero McManus. Lately, we uncovered one other article printed in 2023 during which Professor Ryan M. Jones from SUNY Geneseo confirms that, in 1954, Marta Olmos turned the primary trans individual in Mexico to endure what at the moment is named gender affirmation surgical procedure.
It was towards the tip of 2017 after I felt the necessity to get better and protect the historical past and memoirs of my trans siblings, however sadly, this has been a problem, since—given my exile in the US, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the truth that most trans individuals of my era have both died or disappeared—there are just about no historical past or testimonial accounts informed by trans individuals of earlier generations.
The system’s repression of LGBT individuals from the Sixties by the ’80s has not been adequately documented or made seen. Neither is there an official archive to legally doc all of the injustices dedicated towards trans individuals in these days. For this reason I really feel an obligation and a accountability to not solely visibilize but in addition get better and vindicate the struggles of the LGBT motion, irrespective of how tough.
Many years have handed, and the testimonies of trans survivors nonetheless haven’t been gathered inside a authorized framework as a way to foster historic reparations. It’s important that these tales be informed, that new generations study that the lengthy path to our civil and human rights was paved with the blood and struggling of our ancestors who fought for our proper to specific ourselves and to be trans, to withstand oppression as trans individuals, and to like ourselves and one another as trans individuals.
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From Tsunami: Women’s Voices from Mexico, edited by Heather Cleary and Gabriela Jauregui. Copyright © 2025. Accessible from Feminist Press.
