In Mexico, Pride is a dance away from death

Photo from the Pride March in Guadalajara in 2022 © Ricardo Balderas.

Opinion • Ricardo Balderas • June 28, 2024 • Leer en castellano

On Monday, Nov. 13, evening turned to dawn in the blink of an eye. Two of us had gone out to party because earlier that day we learned that people applying for a position in the Morena Party through Affirmative Action would be recommended for appointments. My friend, who is an activist with the party, wanted to celebrate.  

We had gone to one of those bars in downtown Mexico City where the LGBTTTIQ+ community gathers to sort out its lives amid the din of Amanda Miguel songs and the taste of tinny beer. A lot of gay men and some lesbians and transgender folks frequent this place. It is a place where no one really cares with whom they break bread and drink wine—a little oasis with no emergency exit in the Zona Rosa where it is easy to go unnoticed. It was exactly what we needed. 

It was still that strange early morning hour when it is not clear whether to say "good morning" or "good night," but also so late that it no longer matters. As things were winding down and we were heading home, my friend received a message saying that the lists for Affirmative Action had been finalized. 

For a passing moment, we felt that something had been achieved, at least within Morena. But the phone call he got minutes later changed everything. It showed us that we cannot and should not believe that things will work out.

A close friend called who had just spoken to the mother of magistrate Ociel Baena. They did not know for sure what had happened, but it was clear from the tone of the voice coming through the phone, and in my friend's face, that our lives would change from that moment onward. 

Everything turned upside down

It only took a couple of hours to confirm the terrible news. Baena, the first non-binary person to become an electoral magistrate in Latin America as part of the Electoral Tribunal of the State of Aguascalientes, was found dead inside his apartment, as was his partner Dorian Daniel Nieves Herrera. Baena was 38–years old. 

Speculation flooded the news media. Even news outlets that usually claim to be the bearers of absolute truth tirelessly repeated the narrative of events advanced by a couple of public prosecutors and also shared a video clip that didn’t prove anything at all.

Many regarded this video, in which Baena did not hold his partner's hand, and the presence of a knife at the crime scene, as grounds to accept the Aguascalientes police’s claim that this was a “crime of passion.” You already know the rest of the story.

From that moment on, life changed for my friends and me. We are forced to see and understand each other as perpetually on the defensive. Winning electoral seats, leading municipalities or appearing in the media does not guarantee anything. The organization Letra S, which tracks hate crimes in Mexico, has shown how common attacks on the LGBTTTIQ+ community are: there were 66 killings in 2023, the vast majority against trans women. We continue to inhabit bodies and embody experiences that mean we are in danger.

Baena's murder brought back difficult moments for me, from childhood fears that I thought I’d dealt with to my own worries about being attacked, as I embody a reality similar to theirs. My fears stem from similarities in ways that our identities have played out in public, our common causes, our experience growing up in cities where the church keeps hateful groups in power, and our mutual friends. The murder of Ociel and the security apparatus that was deployed in Aguascalientes in the wake of the crime motivated us to actively seek out spaces where we could again talk collectively about what is taking place. 

And the Pride march is one of these spaces. Yes, that parade, which politicians were ashamed to endorse or appear in just a few years ago. We all know that in cities like Guadalajara organizers have had to change march routes so as not to disturb the morals of the gossip mongers (like the ex-cardinal, Juan Sandoval). In those cases, we often just turn the other cheek and march along officially designated routes.

But, even with this discrimination against the LGBTTTIQ+ community, the Mexico City Pride march draws 250,000 people, or at least it did so last year. It is a pilgrimage of sorts for those of us who choose to take to the streets and dance death away.

Let's talk about pride

I met Kenlly Pacheco in 2019 at the first meeting I attended as a volunteer of the organizing committee for Mexico City’s Pride. Young and politicized, he is in charge of organizing the march, which will celebrate its 46th anniversary on June 29. He invited me to join the March’s traffic-control team. For him, as for me, marching is a matter of survival. 

"We’re still in survival mode, and I’m not just talking about those who are kicked out of their homes for openly expressing their sex-gender dissidences," said Pacheco. "It’s about how we experience constant violence, from imperceptible slights like being mocked on the sidewalk or glared at in the street or at home." 

Pacheco says he wants to get the whole community involved in the march so that it will continue to grow. For him, taking over the streets means more than simply celebrating that we are alive, that we refuse death and exist despite our differences. The goal is also to create a space where he and others can celebrate the utopian possibility of a world in which our differences are a reason to come together. 

The importance of continuing to take to the streets for Pride also emerges from the classroom. I spoke with Sayak Valencia, a queer woman and academic who specializes in violence and necropolitics. She emphasized the relevance of a "joyful revolution" in which conservative ideals cannot negate our existence. 

"We have made our revolution a joyful revolution. A revolution that includes everyone and that not only celebrates our sexuality but makes it clear that the struggle against oppression is important," Valencia said by phone from her home in Tijuana. "This is a day to express our rejection of all oppressions, including those that lead to genocide, like the one happening in Palestine."

Valencia, who works at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, sees Pride as a space of resistance. It is an opportunity to connect through the differences that unite us; a place where we can express our deepest desires for peace and revolution; a space that transcends political parties, corporate sponsors, and the pinkwashing of conscience. 

Getting home safely

We must also consider the voices and actions of those who took to the streets before us, those who lived through crises, persecutions and institutional homophobia. I checked in with my friend Javier Cuétara, who lives with his partner in what appears to be enviable calm and who works as a linguist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. 

For him, taking to the streets means everything: the opportunity to be able to get home safe from work and live his life. His hope is that Pride won’t be the only day of the year that our lives matter.

I met Kane Martinez during a drag show in Aguascalientes. She is one of the most beautiful people I’ve met in her "pueblo quieto" [quiet town], as she calls the city and state where she lives, and where Ociel Baena worked. She’s courageous, intelligent and deeply sensitive to our collective obligations. She believes that there’s an urgent need to cede spaces to trans people in our communities, for collective education, and to acknowledge the challenges of growing up queer in a city like Aguascalientes.

Martínez is also pushing for the creation of safe spaces for children in our marches. Her concern for queer childhood is very moving. "More and more children and young people are joining us. We have to make sure not to disrespect them or make them uncomfortable in any way,” she told me when we spoke a few days ago. “We need them to feel that they are in a safe place, which is something that we all seek and haven’t always had." 

Martínez helps her friends find themselves, amid wigs and heels. She’s always dishing out advice on how to wear the most extravagant outfits with a grace won through experience. She recently opened a beauty salon in Aguascalientes, where she tries out techniques that she learns at night in dimly lit clubs and in heels that are not always her size. 

She says that it is important that the march continues because it is a crucial moment for dialogue with younger generations. "They have to know that it's okay to be different," Martinez said. "That we’ll always be here to take care of each other." 

I will be in the streets on Saturday, June 29. I will march because it will be the first national Pride without Ociel, because we have to occupy public space, because there are people from our community among Mexico’s more than 100,000 disappeared who also didn’t return home. And I march for those in rural areas who still do not have a Pride month or even a day. 

We’ll be in the streets, on Reforma Avenue, protesting the Palestinian genocide, in which queer people are being slaughtered. Because if we can't fuck, it's not our revolution.