For a free and conscious sexuality
Recently, there has been an increase in violence against gays and lesbians in Mexico. In the following interview, a founder of the Mexican gay and lesbian rights movement, Yan María Castro, discusses the background to the current attacks and looks at the history of gay and lesbian organizing
International Viewpoint #245 May 1993
Currently, the Mexican state is selling itself to multinationals and for this it has to eliminate all opposition. The homosexual movement has always been a thorn in the side of the Mexican state, which it feels in her country. INTERVIEW — Los Angeles, March 10, 1993*
H OW did you get
involved in the lesbian and gay movement?
The first step was coming to understand how the world functioned according to Marxist philosophy. Another was to incorporate feminism as a component of this ideology. My direct and indirect participation in the workers, farmworkers, native peoples', women's anti-psychiatric and ecological movements led me to see the need for a socio-political struggle. I am not involved in the lesbian and gay movement because "I believe in" lesbianism or homosexuality but because I believe in a free and conscious sexuality which is only possible in a free and conscious society.
Myself and a friend founded the first lesbian group in the country in 1977 because we realized that there was nothing to protect us from social oppression.
Can you give us some background on what life is like for homosexuals in Latin America.
The Catholic Church and the culture of machismo are merely two parts of what the state is as a whole. The structure and existence of the state are the essential problem. The state responds to economic interests and institutions, including the church and machismo, and their impact cannot be understood without looking at the international economic situation.
Catholic Christianity is or was the prevailing form of religion in Latin America before the incursion of the Protestant churches. It remains the strongest church. The Catholic Church is rooted in feudal or agrarian economies whereas the Protestant churches are geared more towards capitalist or industrial development.
The Catholic church has served two important political functions. It has served to control the consciousness of the people and to control sexuality. The Third World is a source of cheap manual labour for the world capitalist economy. Religion serves to guarantee the type of sexual behaviour which will sustain this source of cheap labour.
Machismo is simply a part of sexism, which is a fundamental part of the state's programme. Sexual repression controls both men and women, but mostly women because the state must control their uteruses which produce the cheap labour. In general, sexual repression must be strongest where economic exploitation is also strongest.
What can you tell us about the murder of gay activists in
Mexico?
Murders of individuals from the homosexual community are very common in Mexico. They have been on the increase since the middle of 1991. And they have begun to specifically target people involved in the lesbian and gay movement - two leaders of the movement have been mur-
On July 12,1992, when Dr. Francisco Estrada and Xavier Rivero were murdered, there was a very weak response, partly owing to fear of making public statements. Then, Naftali Luis Ramirez — leader of the transvestite gay movement in Chiapas — was murdered. Eyewitnesses to that murder have suffered beatings and jailings.
It is a serious error to isolate the violence against lesbians and gays from the social reality in our country. As a lesbian with an open perspective, I am not exclusively concerned with the murders of homosexuals. There is a great deal of violence in the state of Chiapas, which is the southernmost point of Mexico where that country meets the rest of Latin America. There is terrible exploitation in that state and violent repression of farm workers and native peoples as well as exploitation of the thousands of Guatemalan refugees who live there.
harms the country's image.
There was some coverage of the murders in the US press. Does such publicity have any impact in Mexico?
International pressure does help to force local authorities to investigate these crimes but they agree to investigate, and then, in the following years they intimidate witnesses and friends and associates of the victims. At other times they simply create people to pin the crimes on. Large scale actions are needed to get world attention. We also need to set up a Latin American-wide lesbian and gay network to respond to violence and find a common political strategy.
Such a network would have to address the class struggle and anti-imperialist issues if it is not to be simply an association of lesbians and gays from the continent's privileged circles.
What has been the impact of the women's movement on the lesbian and gay struggle in
Mexico?
The space opened up by the feminist movement was essential to the development of the homosexual movement in Mexico. The feminist movement began in the early 1970s and initiated debates over issues of sexuality and sexual identity. It took a tremendous amount of effort to create these spaces. In 1978 a climate had been created in which the gay movement could surface, with strong support from feminists.
You have spoken elsewhere about two separate periods in history of the homosexual movement in Mexico.
The first period, between 1978 and * This is an abridged version of an interview conducted by David Paul Nelson and translated by Ildiko Tenyi, who is involved in efforts to build a Latin American gay and lesbian activist network. The group, La Red Latina Lésbica y Homosexual del Continente Americano, can be contacted by fax at their Los Angeles office at (213) 660-3566.
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MEXICO
International Viewpoint #245 May 1993
1984 was one of mass movements. This was followed by a grey area of decline in 198485. The second period after 1985 has been one of isolated, low-profile groups. During the first period, the movement was "out" but this is not the case in the second period.
In this period, people have basically worked in the homosexual communities, with little participation or presence in Mexican society at large. In the first period, we had no funding while now most of the groups depend upon funding and do not
In the first period the movement was deeply political. We wanted to take power, not only of the institutions but also of our own minds and sexuality. Now, we are reduced to providing public assistance of
This entire discussion is limited to Mexico City and the surrounding district and there is a big archive there on the history of the homosexual movement in Mexico.
The first period was created from nothing. Groups influenced by the German sexual theorist William Reich and also by ideas produced by the feminist movement played a role. But we had to create our own model for action in a Third World context.
Nonetheless, the intitution of many of the movement's leaders with roots in the left or union activities enabled us to organize a demonstration of 5,000 people in 1980. Our intuition led us to participate in many other social movements in public and national struggles.
This opened up social spaces, we were connected to society. We may have been looked on as odd or rare, but we were visible. Indeed, we ignored certain gay spaces because we were opposed to being isolated.
How did other groups respond to the movement?
Obviously, thousands of years of political oppression cannot be erased in a few years. But the fact is that when we supported other struggles people accepted us even if they hated us in the beginning. The mere presence of a fag or dyke was repulsive and shocking in Mexican society - the equivalent to the devil turning up in the flesh. But since we were there and remained there and they saw us fighting alongside them, little by little they accepted us. The process was interrupted in 1982 and has not continued and Mexican society sunk back into homophobia.
An important moment was when several lesbian and gay groups entered one of the country's main churches with banners for a memorial service for Oscar Romero, the murdered archbishop of El Salvador. 28
What has been the reaction of priests influenced by liberation theology?
Relationships were built up with some members of that movement, but many were severed after 1982. Now a gay church has appeared which confines its activities to prayer and spiritual pursuits and does not want to get involved in politics - doing the same as churches everywhere.
Why did the movement die out in 1982?
That year there was a fall in oil prices and the Mexican economy depends on oil income. There was also a big cut in budget for federal services. Small and medium enterprises began to fold and many people working in federally subsidized industries lost their jobs.
The state therefore began to step up repression to avoid massive explosions of popular discontent. Some movements were snuffed out completely and others were bought off. Many of the lesbian and gay movement's activists became unemployed and had to devote all their energies to survival while leaders abandoned the movement fearful of losing their jobs.
What is the attitude of Mexican political parties to lesbian and gay issues?
When I left the country, neither Cardenas nor his party, the main opposition party, the PRD, had made any mention of lesbian and gay issues. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is a dictatorship with civilian characteristics. Its only principle is money, corruption, power so it can transform itself into anything. If, for example the PRI felt that the PRD was in some way defending freedom of sexual choice as part of its democratic programme, the PRI attempt to coopt the homosexual movement and might possibly create some systems of tolerance for certain sectors of the homosexual community.
The Mexican right is represented by two political parties — the PRI and the ultra-right PAN, which represents the most traditionalist parts of Mexican society. PAN does not accept many of the PRI's more liberal proposals such as sex education, including those dealing with AIDS and HIV. They detest women's liberation because it threatens the family. Their line is that the only way to avoid AIDS is not to have sexual relations with anyone other than your husband or wife. Like the church, PAN's outlook fosters violence against lesbians and
Although I am not a Trotskyist, I value the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT — Mexican section of the Fourth International) for its consistent support for our movement. The PRT was the first party to declare its support for the lesbian and gay movement and it has continued to put forward their demands in its programme with or without pressure from the homosexual community. What role did members of the Mexican gay and lesbian movement play in the changing of attitudes in Cuba toward gays and lesbians in the early 1980s?
1980 was a significant year for the lesbian and gay movement in Mexico. It was so powerful that political parties were forced to recognize it as a political force. Therefore, the leftist parties which had ties to Cuba and the Cuban Communist Party influenced the Cuban government so that it would show some interest in the lesbian and gay movement.
We began to pressure these parties so that we might engage in talks with the Cuban government - but all these attempts were frustrated and halted in 1982, with nothing to show for our efforts. There were some informal talks between members of the Mexican movement and some mid-level bureaucrats from within the Cuban government, but nothing official.
To those reactionary sectors of the movement which constantly attacked socialism, citing the Cuban example, we replied that we recognized that there is repression against homosexuals there - and that we fight this position of the Cuban government - but that we are willing to defend the Cuban revolution with our lives. How do you believe the lesbian and gay movement in Mexico should develop?
There is a great danger that the lesbian and gay movement might be reduced to simply devoting its energy to human and civil rights issues. If it accepted this limitation, not only would it no longer present a danger to the state, but it would be useful to the state.
I feel that the lesbian and gay movement must unite with other social struggles. I have always been opposed to a movement that is isolated from other social struggles. The lesbian and gay movement must be within all struggles against all forms of oppression, exploitation or segregation. A sign of the possibilities was seen in Mexico in 1980 when different union groups of lesbians and gays came together to work out a programme for their unions. *