“Mexico”
By:Stephen O. Murray
Murray, Stephen O. “Mexico.” An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, & Queer Culture, Glbtq, Inc, 17 Mar. 2004.
As an entry for An Encyclopedia of LGBTQ Culture, Stephen Murray chronicles a history of preconquest, colonial, and post-colonial Mexico. He focuses specifically on the history of homosexual expression as it was affected by the influences of religion and culture.
This article provides a comprehensive history of homoeroticism in Mexico. The author begins with Mexica, or Aztec, culture. Murray explains that though the Mexica were sexually reserved in everyday life, their public and religious sexuality was highly erotic. They worshipped a deity, Xochiquetzal, that was both male and female. Xochiquetzal’s female expression was the goddess of recreational sexuality, and its male form was the god of male homosexuality. The Mexica people acknowledged and seemed to accept both gender fluidity in the form of a third gender, as well as same-sex sodomy. The Spanish conquest of Latin America immediately stifled homosexual expression as a way of communion with the gods, as Christianity wholly condemned homoerotic expression. Homosexuality in the inquisition period is only acknowledged through its use as a justification for the conquest of the indigenous Latin Americans and the legally documented killing of sodomites. With Mexican independence came the adoption of the French legal code that decriminalized sodomy. However, a thick gray area of police prejudice left the LGBTQ population vulnerable, as Murray explains. Drag balls and gay bars would appear, only to be shut down or raided. There was a widespread belief that gay men were submissive and effeminate, and as a result, they were attacked for not upholding the deeply rooted machismo standard in Mexican culture.
In a commentary and reflection, Murray reviews the constructs of homosexual expression throughout Mexican history. He maintains that the dominant view in Mexico, as well as throughout Latin America, is that homosexuality is being sodomized, not necessarily the act of penetration even if performed on the same sex. Homosexuality is seen as a very black and white, active/passive dichotomy, in which the active is socially acceptable and the passive is not. Therefore, there is a deep fear of being penetrated, and therefore being ‘maricon’ and all the stereotypes and marginalization that comes with the label. However, the author highlights a transition towards more open secrets of sexuality, less strictly dichotomized sexual roles, and a broader positive connotation of homosexuality growing in the middle and upper classes of modern Mexico. Overall, while staying mostly fact-based and unbiased in his presentation, Murray does skew hopeful for a modern shift towards greater LGBTQ acceptance in Mexico.
I found “Mexico” an informative historical account of homosexual expression highly relevant to my bibliography topic of Latinx LGBTQ families. Though the font choice was a bit unprofessional, this article was well structured and thoroughly researched. My biggest complaint is the simple lack of data on historical LGBTQ expression. That is no fault of the author, solely a tragic loss of culture due to the utterly decimating Spanish conquest and Christian inquisition that had no respect for the rich history of the indigenous peoples. I would have appreciated if Murray had gone further in depth on the actual homosexual practices and customs of ancient Latin America. Unfortunately, there is not much information that survives. In addition, I wish he had gone more in-depth into the role of the gender-fluid in Mexican culture; however, there is again little reliable information available. There is much more available on the berdache, or two-spirit. These are the gender queer peoples of ancient North American natives, but the Mexica culture was a separate society with its own set of cultural norms. I chose to include this article because even though there is very little surviving information on Mexica LGBTQ communities, they did exist. Queer people have always existed; being intolerant of queerness is a colonialist tradition. Just because LGBTQ acknowledgment is something relatively new to modern Latin America does not mean it did not exist before. Queerness was once accepted; it can be again.