`The only fight we lose is the one we abandon’: Mexico’s first openly lesbian MP on LGBTI rights and people’s power
By Rachel Evans
May 21, 2009 -- Coyacan, Mexico -- I interviewed Patria Jiménez in Coyacan’s normally bustling markets. The onset of the swine flu crisis had emptied the streets and enforced a stiffness into Mexico’s normally effusive greetings tradition. No kissing hello or shaking hands was encouraged. Jiménez ignored swine-flu protocol and greeted me warmly.
In 1997, Jiménez made history by being elected the first openly lesbian member of Mexico's Chamber of Deputies. Representing an alliance that included the the Workers Revolutionary Party (PRT) and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Jiménez was also the first openly lesbian candidate to be elected in Latin America. She is standing again within a coalition, Salvemos a México (We Will Save Mexico), for the July 2009 federal elections.
In 1997 the PRD had won control of Mexico City, opening up significant space for left-leaning projects. Jiménez's election was based on decades of campaigning around lesbian, gay, feminist and Indigenous people’s rights, and her work gathered her international recognition. She was nominated in 2005, along with another 11 Mexicans, for the Nobel Peace Prize, inside the Project 1000 Women for Peace.
Born in San Luis
Potosí in 1957, Jiménez’s political
activism began at high school, around the issues of lack of resources in
secondary schools.
Politics and
coming out
``When I discovered I was a lesbian, I went to night
events but they contained drugs and alcohol with risks and dangers. You see, I
was never in the closet’’, she recounted.
Jiménez left home so her parents wouldn’t try to take her to a
psychologist or psychiatrist. When she did leave she was campaigning in the
streets, marching and proclaiming who she was. ``The first demonstration I went
to I unfurled a poster at the Iranian embassy, because they were killing women
who took off their veils. It was a big sign saying: `Mexican Lesbians Against
the Assassination of Iranian Women’.’’
``I always liked to go out to lesbian and gay social
events but they were ghettos, we just didn’t have other possibilities to meet.
Then in 1979, I was invited to a meeting in
Continuing, Jiménez noted, ``I was very interested
because they talked about feminist politics, about the lesbian movement. So it
was from this meeting that I began my activism, within the feminist movement
and, at the same time, the gay and lesbian movement.
``In
In 1992 Jiménez
co-founded a lesbian
rights organisation, El closet de
Sor Juana (The Closet of Sor Juana). ``We always
took the opportunity to forthrightly declare that we were lesbians protesting
this or that. Because I believe it is very important to get involved within
social movements as lesbians, homosexuals and bisexuals, and to work within
them, like the Indigenous movement in
A student of psychology at Mexico Autonomous National
University (UNAM), Jiménez recalled that ``the first women I spoke to at
university was Jan Mariela Castro, a very well-known comrade painter who has
always had a radical line and is a Marxist-Leninist. With her, I hurled myself
into, and understood, Karl Marx's Capital. These were my years of study,
and that which I did not learn in school, I learnt in my first years of activism.
Those studies of Marx’s theory were more interesting because they were more in
accordance with reality; they were understood in the field of action, hence
more easily grasped.’’
At this time, Jiménez reflects, ``The movement was so
intense, so interesting; every day there were things to do. So much so, I did
not finish my schooling at UNAM. In 1982, the Workers
Revolutionary Party (PRT), a Trotskyist group, was very supportive of the
gay, lesbian and feminist movements and achieved electoral registration, so a
committee was formed to assist the campaign for the first female presidential
candidate, Daniela Rosario Piedra Ibarra. In my opinion, the PRT was the party
that helped the gay and lesbian movement the most. Daniela the mother of a
disappeared political activist, Jesús Piedra Ibarra. Jesús was kidnapped in
Battles of the 1980s
``Therefore, in 1982, we had a committee to help
Daniela stand for president. The PRT also gave us some space for candidates
taken from the gay movement -- it helped us with electoral registrations for
candidates.
``We assessed we would not necessarily win, but that we
would be able to spread the ideas of the movement. And so we had a platform
from the movement to popularise. At that time, the press was very much against
us. According to it, we were not gay candidates -- we were maricones [butterflies
– derogatory term used against homosexual men] or things like that. However,
when we entered the political arena for the purpose of spreading these ideas,
we began to change these terms within the press. Indeed, we protested against
the press in order have these terms banned’’, recalled Jiménez. ``We were able
to plant the idea that we are homosexual
men and lesbians, not weak or inferior. After some time, the press was
less aggressive, less derogatory.’’
``In the beginning of the movement’’, emphasised
Jiménez, ``there was lots of repression. Now, as a result of the campaigns we
have fought, that repression has diminished. To march was not a crime. There
was only one gay and lesbian, transgender, bi-sexual (LGBT) march where there
was fighting. The police sent a battalion against us, at the march in 1983.’’
Historically in
Early battles of the LGBT movement
``Before the movement rose in the late 1970s’’, Jiménez remembered, ``it was difficult to
leave the closet, but after the movement many more people began to be open
about their sexuality. In the middle of the 1980s in
``The sexual revolutions that took place in the
``A big issue was segregation -- there used to be very
little possibility of development of your profession, academic or otherwise,
when you were out of the closet in this early period of the movement. If you
were a doctor or teacher you were not able to be out of the closet’’, said
Jiménez.
``There also used to be a lot of hate crimes against
LGBT people -- assassinations, bodies just left in the streets and lots of
violence. The police were terrible, with lots of corruption. There were cases
where young gay and lesbian people were raped, and the police knew who was the
rapist was, but would say they knew nothing. In some cases, police would defend
the perpetrator. They would also extort gays and lesbians. There are still
cases like this today.’’
Early demands of the gay and lesbian movement
``The early demands of the gay and lesbian movement
were the right to work, to education and to housing. Under the labour laws,
health and public housing for working couples and married couples are provided.
Of course, within this, there was no inclusion of homosexual couples. Now there
is a private contract, a privatisation
of this contract. We believe not in more or less rights for homosexuals and
transgendered people, but campaign for the same rights that heterosexual
couples have’’, Jiménez stressed.
``In the 1980s, particularly in
1985, there were lynchings of gay men because of AIDS. Gay men had a strategy
in fighting AIDS from 1985-1989, and women and lesbians worked with gay men on
this strategy. It was very necessary. AIDS had a grave impact on the gay and
lesbian movement. Many, many male activists and gay men died. Many of the first
wave of activists died.’’
Party of Democratic
Revolution
Explaining the role of other political parties in
``The PRD’s birth was a combination of the social
movements and those expelled from the capitalist Institutional Revolution Party
(PRI). Many current PRD leaders were expelled from the PRI at this time. So a
large part of the PRD membership comes from the PRI, which also explains their
conservatism’’, Jiménez said.
``The PRD broke with the PRI, but conformed to power
politics. Others saw the PRD as a democratic front. This period of the PRD's
formation and reach into Mexican politics was from 1988 to 1998 -- slightly
before, and during, the rise of the Zapatistas. In 1994 the Zapatista movement arose,
and they too, were composed of Marxist-Leninists.
``Within and
around the PRD was the peasant movement, workers movement, gay, lesbian and
feminist movement, and the movement of petrol workers. Within the PRD too, there was and remains a Marxist current. As
well, a LGBT and women’s current. However, there are limitations with the PRD
Manuel López Obrador is commonly known as
``Frankly’’, continued Jiménez, ``there is no PRD
without Obrador. He is crucial to the politics of
``Marcelo Ebrard is the current PRD mayor of Mexico
City/District Federal and is the PRD leader who most uses feminism within his
political discussion. He is very much in favour of women’s rights, the rights
of single women. Under Ebrard, in November 2006, there was an advance for
homosexual couples. In much of the press there was an explanation that the
changes were about marriage and that the
Success in struggle
``Before this social
convenience law, within the 1st
article of the constitution, there were the right of `preference’ but no
mention of `sexuality’. This constitutional change was in 2001-2002 and is very
new, but very significant; there was also a civil code against discrimination
of gay people. But we still need to change and clean up the laws’’, stressed
Jiménez.
``We have had success with a campaign to delete
references to homosexuality within the Article 201 of the Federal Penal Code.
This was in relation to crimes of sexual practices that corrupted minors. The
campaign against Article 201 included the presentation of an ‘Initiative of
Law’ that also dealt with pornography and prostitution involving children; and
initiated reforms at different juridical levels to stop family violence.
Another battle was to change radio, television and printing laws in order to protect
the identity of the victims of sexual crimes.
``Another campaign that was very strong when I was a
deputy was the ‘Justice for Nadie’ campaign. A young woman, Nadia Ernestina
Zepeda Molina, was condemned to jail in May 2004. She was charged because she
resisted rape by the Public Security police. In September 2005, Nadia Zepeda
won her liberation.
``Another issue taken up was the brutal assassination
of 25 transvestite men between 1991 and 1993. They were executed, one by one,
in the state of
Running in elections,
victory in 1997
``So I ran with the Workers
Revolutionary Party (PRT) in the 1989 elections, and it was thanks to the PRT
that I eventually won the position in Congress in 1997. I was put forward on
the LGBT and feminist list for the PRT to then decide upon. I was high up in
the list because of the work I had done for the gay and lesbian movement. I was
a very public lesbian.’’
Jiménez was part of an
alliance in 1997 that included the PRT and the Party of Democratic
Revolution, Convergencia and the Workers Party (PT). She ran for the
PRD-PRT alliance in the 1997 elections, and won.
``In the 1997 election, I was not discreet about my
sexuality -- we campaigned with the slogan `Safe Sex, Save Vote -- Make the
Future Yours!’. We had public meetings in a dozen different cities and I went
through
To understand this victory, it is important to explain
In 1997
Jiménez became one of 200 ``plurinominal'' legislators in the
500-member Chamber of Deputies. Each party appoints certain number of
such candidates to represent a several-state region, based on the
percentage of the vote the party receives in the region.
To win, in Jiménez’s case, according to Rex Wockner in ``Interview With Latin America's First Openly Gay Congressmember’’, taken just after she was elected, ``the PRD needed 16 percent of the vote in the states around Mexico City to put her in office -- as she was listed at number 12 on the PRD's proportional-representation candidate list. To everyone's surprise, the PRD captured about 36 percent of the vote in those states and won the mayor's seat in Mexico City -- stunning the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had clung to power for 68 years amid routine allegations of electoral fraud’’ (see http://www.qrd.org/qrd/world/americas/mexico/interview.with.1st.openly.gay.congressmember-08.05.98).
From 1997, Jiménez served her term in Congress, then in 2006 spent time in the Senate, substituting for senator Demetrio Sodi of Tijera. For the coming July 2009 elections, Jiménez has been selected by Convergencia to stand on its plurinominal list for a Mexico City (Federal District) position.
Zapatistas
Jiménez
eagerly reflected on her time in the Zapatistas. ``From 1994,
I lived for seven years with the Zapatistas, and was involved in the campaign
with Subcomandante Marcos. There was great participation of gays, lesbians and
feminists within the Zapatista movement. My name was very connected with the
Zapatista process, through the daily Mexican newspaper La Jornada. There
was a great amount of internal discussion within the Zapatistas about gay,
lesbian and feminist issues. They very publicly included bi-sexuals and
homosexuals, and Subcomandante Marcos was one of the first organisers of the
Zapatistas to openly include and support gays, lesbians and feminists. Inside
the Zapatistas we weren’t simply incorporated into the process in a
paternalistic way. For three years, the LGBT community participated in the
great debate about elections within the Zapatistas’’, recalled Jiménez.
``Then in 2006 there was massive electoral fraud. There
were millions protesting in the streets, but even still, I would consider the
Zapatistas the biggest movement in
LGBT movement today
``Currently, the gay and lesbians rights movement is
building for a march on
Jiménez added, ``I am helping organise marches that
take place in other states, where it is harder for LGBT people to be out of the
closet. We still need to fight for equality, for all sectors to be equal. The
LGBT activists are the ones that work very hard, in all sectors.
``Internationally, there are many advances. Young LGBT
people are not in the closet. For maximum strength we need to have the cities
full of LGBT people out of the closet. And throughout the entire South American
continent there are LGBT social movements.’’
``In the upcoming
Asking Jiménez
for final comments, she smiled and in a considered fashion said ``the only
fight we lose is the one we abandon. We have to force the government to provide
equal treatment, stop discriminating, respect the right to health care and
provide jobs for gays. In order to exercise these rights, we have to demand
them.’’