page_title: LGBT history in Mexico
section_title: LGBT movement
hierarchical_section_title: LGBT history in Mexico / LGBT movement
caption_attribution_description: Patria Jiménez addressing the Latin America plenary of the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights in Montreal, 28 July 2006
context_page_description: The study of homosexuality in Mexico can be divided into three separate periods, coinciding with the three main periods of Mexican history: pre-Columbian, colonial, and post-independence, in spite of the fact that the rejection of homosexuality forms a connecting thread that crosses the three periods.
  The data on the pre-Columbian people and those of the period of colonization is scarce and obscure. Historians often described the indigenous customs that surprised them or that they disapproved of, but tended to take a position of accusation or apology, which makes it impossible to distinguish between reality and propaganda. In general, it seems that the Mexica were as homophobic as the Spanish, and that other indigenous peoples tended to be much more tolerant, to the point of honoring Two-Spirit people as shamans.
  The history of homosexuality in the colonial period and after independence is still in great part yet to be studied. Above all, the 1658 executions of sodomites and the 1901 Dance of the Forty-One, two great scandals in Mexican public life, dominate the scene.
context_section_description: Until the late 1960s, there were neither LGBT groups nor publications on the topic.  The first LGBT groups were formed in the early 1970s in Mexico City and Guadalajara.  On August 15, 1971, the Homosexual Liberation Front was formed, the first of its kind in Mexico.  It was dissolved a year later.
  One of the first LGBT activists was Nancy Cárdenas.  Cárdenas, writer, actress, and theater director, inspired by the LGBT movements in Europe and the United States, began to direct gatherings of LGBT writers.  In 1973 she was the first Mexican to openly discuss her homosexuality on Mexican television.  In 1974 she founded the Homosexual Liberation Front (FLH), the first LGBT organisation of Mexico.
  On July 26, 1978, the first LGBT march took place, in favour of the Cuban Revolution.  The march was organised by the Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action (FHAR).  On October 2 of the same year, the groups FLH, Lesbos, Oikabeth, Lambda of Homosexual Liberation, and Sex-Pol, among others, marched in the demonstration to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the movement of 1968.  In 1979, FHAR took to the streets again in favor of the Nicaraguan Revolution.  As can be appreciated, the LGBT movement was very connected to leftist movements in the beginning.  In late June 1979 the first demonstration in favor of homosexual rights took place, coinciding with the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.  Demonstrators demanded freedom of sexual expression, and protested social and police repression.  Since then, an LGBT march is celebrated annually on June 28.  But these groups and others have not had the necessary continuity.
  The LGBT movement found itself paradoxically driven by the AIDS crisis, which is believed to have reached Mexico in 1981.  LGBT groups were focused more on the fight against the infection, carrying out prevention and safe sex campaigns with information on the disease, but also led their fight against the social prejudices of the more conservative sectors, which considered AIDS a divine punishment.  The demonstrations, which had become annual, asked for the end of social discrimination against AIDS patients, especially in employment, hospitals and health centers, and prevention measures, such as the promotion of condom use.
  In the 1990s, without ceasing to fight for the aforementioned issues, activists began to protest the murders of homosexuals, and to defend respect for sexual diversity.  In 1992, Patria Jiménez and Gloria Careaga-Perez created the lesbian organization "El clóset de Sor Juana" (Sister Juana's closet), one of the country's most important LGBT organizations.  It was accredited as an NGO by the United Nations for the Fourth World Conference on Women.
caption: Patria Jiménez, on 28 July 2006 in Montreal
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