Homosexual Narratives in the Long 1950s: The Mexican Case

In studies of Mexico—like with studies of many other developing nations—issues of sexuality, and particularly homosexuality, are often considered secondary. In addition, those academic studies that do exist present only a partial picture of the complexity and richness of homosexual experiences during the 20th century. This paper addresses these limitations by opening new terrain for the study of Mexican sexualities during the long 1950s. In particular, I utilize the myriad of documents collected in a series of police case files and periodical articles from the 1940s-1960s that present not only the official view towards homosexuality, but also a variety of experiences as told by homosexuals themselves. I argue that rather than being a time of only repression, as the received narrative states from both scholars and activists, the long 1950s in Mexico was a vibrant period of homosexual expression, community building, and identify formation. Bars, cantinas, and cabarets catered to homosexual patrons; parks served as popular cruising grounds; and drag balls continued despite police pressure. Moreover, during this period, the nascent militant identities of homosexual activists were born, as homosexuals openly contested their incarceration and the police abuse they received through legal means. The resultant crackdowns in the late 1950s resulted in not the disintegration of the homosexual community, but its retrenchment into homophile circles that would spawn the homosexual liberation movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. As part of this panel, this paper investigates the conduits through which “the foreign”—embodied in immigrants and tourists—provided Mexicans both access to transnational homophile and homosexual communities in Latin America, Europe, and the United States—which were crucial to the formation of networks and communities—as well as an opportunity for governmental crackdowns against sexual difference.