Mexico Archives - Q Spirit

Dance of the 41 Queers: Police raid Mexican drag ball in 1901

by Kittredge Cherry | | Nov 16-30, Saints

Police arrested 41 people at a Mexico City drag ball known as the Dance of the 41 Queers in a notorious police raid on Nov. 17-18, 1901. Now the Dance of the 41 is being reclaimed by the LGBTQ community, and same-sex marriage is legal in Mexico City. Cross-dressing...

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Nun who loved a countess in 17th-century Mexico City

by Kittredge Cherry | | April 16-30, Nov. 1-15, Saints

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th-century Mexican nun whose critically acclaimed writings include lesbian love poetry. She is considered one of the greatest Latin American poets, an early advocate of women’s rights, and some say, North America’s first lesbian...

Gloria Anzaldúa: Queer feminist Chicana scholar of spiritual activism

by Kittredge Cherry | | May 1-15, Saints

Gloria Anzaldúa is an influential queer Latina feminist scholar whose spirituality often gets overlooked. She died on May 15, 2004 at age 61. One of the first openly lesbian Chicana writers, she grew up in Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border. In school she was punished...

Queer Lady of Guadalupe: Artists re-imagine an icon

by Kittredge Cherry | | Dec 1-15, Saints

Our Lady of Guadalupe brings a message of holy empowerment that speaks to LGBTQ people — and angers Christian conservatives. Queer art based on Guadalupe is shown here for her feast day today (Dec. 12). She is an Aztec version of the Virgin Mary that appeared to...

Transgender women asylum seekers: Detention led to death for Roxsana Hernandez and Johana Medina

by Kittredge Cherry | | Saints

Transgender women asylum seekers from Central America show the injustice faced by LGBTQ people trying to immigrate. LGBTQ refugees and asylum seekers from Ukraine and other parts of the world face hardships too. On the anniversaries of their deaths, transgender women...