Somos Mucho Más que Dos: Queer Health Activism in Mexico City, 1970s–2020

Centered primarily around the health needs of transgender people and people living with HIV, this paper examines how queer Mexican activists in Mexico City framed the health needs of their community to more effectively make demands upon the state throughout the late 20th century and early 21st. An important initial role was played by Colectivo Sol, which developed the initial community response and collaborated with domestic and international bodies to craft Mexican civil society's response to HIV. Furthermore, this paper examines transnational networks of queer Mexicans living abroad and the ways in which their tactics influenced and informed activism in the United States. As such, this paper gives us a new way to think of US-Mexico relations and interconnectivity. The presentation is based on research in the private papers of Mexican queer activists and the archives of queer NGOs.