Coverage of Mexico’s First Gender Reassignment in Spanish Newspapers

Martha Olmos Romero (1933-1972) underwent the first modern gender reassignment procedure in Mexico in 1952-1954. This paper explores how newspapers in Spain covered this, given the lack of formal diplomatic recognition between both countries. The paper explores how Spanish editors outlined national gender ideology and contrasted it with Mexico’s scientific achievement. Despite the official enmity between Mexico and Spain, Olmos Romero’s transition elicited curiosity some three decades before gender reassignment treatments were permitted in Spain. I explore how until the 1930s, Spanish scientific discourse influenced the training of medical personnel in Spain’s ex-colonies in the Americas, but the rise of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1939-75) ended Spanish medical supremacy in Mexico. Instead, the U.S. and Western Europe influenced Mexican scientific advancement in the ‘40s and ‘50s, when Mexico developed corticosteroids and oral contraceptives. Franco’s regime penalized homosexuality and gender variance, and state clinics did not offer gender-affirming care; transwomen traveled abroad—and resorted to prostitution—to finance their transitions. While Francoist Spain jailed or institutionalized transgender Spaniards, the Mexican state regarded transgenders as exemplary of the country’s scientific advancement. The paper is based on press coverage and government archives.