"Juchitan: Queer Paradise"

In Juchitan there is a legend of how God meant to spread homosexuals around the Americas; however, as He traveled over Mexico, the journey became tedious and harsh and he broke his back, spilling the rest of the queers in Juchitan.

I recently attended a public screening of Juchitan: Queer Paradise. This movie chronicles the queer visibility in Juchitan, Mexico. In this city, there is a very strong localized and native culture. The city has, of course, been affected by globalization; however, the local morals and ideas remain intact due to conscious rejection of the English language and global hegemony. As a part of this local culture, women retain a high position in society. Women control local business and economy, while men do the farming. There is also a high percent of acceptance for sexual deviance.

Muxe (mU-she) is the word used to describe homosexuals. This word is slang for "woman" or "weak," yet seems to not hold any derogatory connotations. There is an abundance of respect for homosexuals in this area. They are allowed to express themselves freely, and even receive high positions in the local society. As one man was quoted: "What makes gays different is that they work harder than we do. They work as both men and women. They are forward thinking." The respect extends not only to the people, but even to their sexual acts: "If you've never done a fag you're not a complete man."

However, despite this respect and tolerance, there is not 100% acceptance. Heterosexuality is preferred, especially by parents (even among gay parents). The concept of gays needing to work harder, and life being harder also applies here. Though there is a lot of respect for these hardships, such as the man quoted above, nobody actually seems to want to extend these hardships onto their own young. Many parents, especially of transgendered and transsexual "male children, often make attempts at an early age to reinforce "manliness."

Even in the acceptance sexual deviance, there is not necessarily an acceptance in the multiplicity of gender. Muxe are seen as "half man and half woman." The conflict for homosexuals, thus lies not in "coming out" but in the contradiction that comes from gender expectations and religion. Muxe are still confined to the definitions of "man" and "woman," being forced to choose one role or the other and are in constant conflict with the Catholic expectations of morality.

At the end of the movie, I was left with a few questions:

1. Are there actually more homosexuals in Juchitan than other places, or is there more visibility due to a higher level acceptance?
   Visibility is a key issue to queer studies. Just because something is not seen does not mean that it is not there. The whole concept of "coming out" irks me for this reason. In Juchitan, coming out is not the issue, it is the tensions between gender identities and how this interacts with their religious views and sense of community. Because of this, they are more visible as "recognizable queers," yet their strife is different. In other areas, most of the conflict remains in "coming out" and "passing." For that reason, people who are passing as heterosexuals to avoid conflict do not have the same sense of visibility as the queer population in Juchitan, but that is because of a different sense of conflict
2. Is the community really accepting the people, as they really are, or accepting their actions?
   The inability to recognize the multiplicity of homosexuality and gender identity indicates a disconnect between acceptance of identity and actions. The external display of gayness is accepted (this also relates to what I said above about the conflict being differently located then the general idea of coming out). However, once identified as queer, and their sexuality is accepted, their strife to have a personal gender is contested daily. They are forced to either maintain a female role, or a male. Because of this, the notion of monogamy is working for queers in Juchitan (though it was noted that this is true for heterosexuals as well. As a gay professor, Eli commented: "marriage is far more depraved than prostitution"). The role playing is constantly conflicted, leading people to be in constant conflict.
3. Does globalization bring about the concept of the "global gay" and human rights? Or does it really bring about a globalized homophobia?
   The fact that Juchitan is consciously rejecting global culture, and their acceptance of homosexual presence is higher due to the integration of homosexuality and local culture, leads me to the conclusion that globalization is not carrying basic human rights. Instead, I see it spreading global phobias, such as homophobia. This is exemplified in the fact that the poorer areas of Juchitan are more accepting than the more globalized rich elite of the community. The wealthy are more affected by the notion of heteronormativity, which plays a greater part in global culture than this specific local culture.

http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/Juchitan.htm

February 28, 2003

Documentary

65 min.

Patricio Henriquez

Macumba Inc. International

Robert Cornellier, Patricio Henriquez, Raymonde Provencher

Patricio Henriquez

Poem of Transgression

I recently ran across a blog that had an ode to transgression. In this ode are listed many forms of transgression with the hope of appealing to people’s sentimentalities and including everyone within these acts of transgressions. The list also equates all of the transgressions as being equal in sociological disturbance; something rarely seen and a pleasant surprise.

According to John McGowan in Postmodernism and Its Critics, "The philosophical tradition, at least from Plato on, has always favored the same;" thus, to be different, especially in relation to the deeply embedded social notion of gender, is to be horrid. There is a lot of social pressure to be at peace with your gender, mostly meaning that you have to come to terms with society and what they view as your gender. Riki Wilchins makes this point well in Queer Theory, Gender Theory, “If people can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl, they feel uncomfortable and/or angry, and you feel humiliated and embarrassed." The linguistic devices keeping differential genders as a socially unacceptable reality also keep people from confronting them. "It's hard to rally people to a cause with which they're embarrassed to be associated" (Riki Wilchins, p. 26).

This ode speaks out to that:

I am the guy who came out to the entire school in his senior speech and got a standing ovation for his courage.

I am the girl who kisses her girlfriend on the sidewalk and laughs at those who glare.

We are the couple who planned and studied and got a damn good lawyer and BEAT the state that wanted to take our child away.

We are the ones who took martial arts classes and carry pepper spray and are just too dangerous to gay bash.

I am the transgender person who uses the bathroom that suits me, and demands that any complaining staff explain their complaint to my face in front of the entire restaurant -- and shares with my other trans friends which restaurants don't raise a stink.

I am the mother who told her lesbian daughter to invite her girlfriend over for dinner.

I am the father who punished his son for calling you a fag.

I am the preacher who told my congregation that love, not hate, is the definition of a true follower of God.

I am the girl who did not learn the meaning of "homosexual" until high school but never thought to question why two men might be kissing.

I am the woman who argues (quite loudly and vehemently) with the bigots who insist that you do not have the right to marry or raise children.

We are the high school class who agrees, unanimously, along with our teacher, that love should be all that matters.


If you agree, repost this. Do it. You don't have to be afraid. You can handle it. You're stronger than you think.

I am making a difference. Hate will not win

http://www.livejournal.com/users/jadedsaphire/59300.html?view=147620#t147620

Fitting In to Pee

When most people got to go, they just go. They run to the bathrooms and either turn right or left into their respective restrooms. Pretty simple. Quite hassle free.

What about the TransGENeration (intersex, transgender, transsexual, gender queer); which bathroom do they go into? For these people, going to the bathroom can be a potentially traumatizing experience. People who don't fit into the culturally recognized gender binary are simply attacked due to their intrusion into purely feminine and purely masculine spaces.

This conflict does not only present them with the issue at hand: rude stares, derogatory comments, security personnel, and forceful removal from restrooms. The actions of others present an even more complicated dialectical situation: to follow the legal definition of their gender by going into a restroom that complements society's judgment of their genitals, chromosomes, and/or hormones; or should they follow their personal definition of gender, entering into either a masculine or feminine restroom depending on which caters best to their particular needs?

Though both seem to be plausible solutions, neither rectifies the problem. TransGender people, excluding some transsexuals, do not always deem themselves one "normal" gender or the other. For some, they experience a mixing of the two, placing themselves in a sort of gray area. Others can't even compare their internalizations of gender to one category or the other, and feel as though they are a completely other gender category.

For this reason, the TransGENeration truly requires and deserves to have access to non-sexualized lavatory. A simple single-room bathroom, such as a handicap restroom, can offer a safe and non-denominational space to conduct their business.

The problem is that there is not always access to spaces such as this. At American University, in the Ward building located on the northern side of campus, there are no general use bathrooms. This building is one of the most heavily trafficked buildings on campus, offering large classroom spaces on the terrace and a multitude of modern and high-quality classrooms on the upper levels, making it a central location to academic life at American University. This centrality makes it even more necessary for a safe restroom environment. However, fulfilling the legal requirements of the District, AU needed to convert all of its single-room lavatories into feminine spaces in order to achieve the mandated proportion of male to female restrooms.

This ordinance has thus changed a building layout with potential gender ambiguous spaces into a fully gendered area. Hmm… reinforcement of the gender binary, what a surprise?

http://www.bodieslikeours.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-498.html

Welcome

Gender. It's in immutable fact of life. Or is it?

As Third Wave Feminism and Postmodernism is building its place in society, the realization that gender and sex might simply be a social construct, something created for humans, by humans, and integrated into culture. Gender is the first question that we ask when a baby is born - "is it a boy or girl?" Why is it that important to us?

This page is going to:

• Deal with issues surrounding gender and its close companions, sex and sexuality.
  
• Interact with recent mainstream (and underground) news relating to gender issues.
  
• Construct arguements about the very nature of gender, using current theory as well as history as a guide.