Queer Tourist Paradise and/or Homophobic State: Exploring Conflicting Perceptions of Queer Mexico in Activist Networks, 1975–95

Mexico, particularly coastal cities such as Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta, became destinations for gay and lesbian tourists in the last decades of the 20th century. Historians discuss how tourism from the U.S., Canada, and Europe to Mexico created opportunities for the exchange of cultural ideas, including those about gender and sexuality and facilitated the formation of transnational networks. At the same time, Mexican LGBTQ+ activists were creating and working within transnational activist networks. Advertisements for tourism in Mexico in queer periodicals emphasized all the enticements of a tropical paradise with the addition of sexual attractions, including the racialized sexual otherness of the locals. The same queer periodicals were simultaneously publishing content about the violence and oppression Mexican LGBTQ+ people faced. LGBTQ+ tourism transformed over the course of these three decades as Mexican LGBTQ+ activists became more involved in transnational networks and the HIV/AIDS crisis caused moral panics about the danger gay and lesbian tourists posed to locals. Tourism and activism often collided in transnational encounters such as conferences and Global North activists visiting Mexico for the dual purposes of activism and pleasure. Mexican activists negotiated the interwoven threads of racism, economics, sexual tourism, nationalism, and LGBTQ+ activism. Using queer periodicals, organizational records, advertisements, records of personal vacations, correspondence, and oral histories from Mexico, Canada, the United States, and western Europe. This paper explores the tensions between the perceptions of Mexico as a homophobic oppressive state and perceptions of Mexico as a queer paradise for foreign tourists. These conflicting perceptions not only influenced how activists from the Global North viewed Mexico, but also how Mexican activists interacted with activists from the rest of the world. Understanding the influence of gay and lesbian tourism on LGBTQ+ activism can illuminate new dimensions of the power dynamics within transnational LGBTQ+ activist networks.