Mexica law punished sodomy with the gallows, impalement for the active homosexual, extraction of the entrails through the anal orifice for the passive homosexual, and death by garrote for the lesbians.
Some authors state that these strict laws were not used in practice and that homosexuals were relatively free. For example, they cite Spanish chronicles that speak of widespread sodomy that included children of up to 6 years or of children dressed like women to practice prostitution.
The chronicles also speak of religious acts in which sodomy was practiced. In spite of the puritanism of the Mexica, the sexual customs of the people conquered by the Aztec Empire varied to a great extent. The Toltecs, elsewhere, were extremely tolerant of homosexuality. Since the first contacts of the Spanish with the indigenous people there was established the equivalence of Indian, cannibal, and sodomite. He spoke of the Carib custom of capturing young men to those who removed all the masculine organs.
These developed "feminine characteristics and the Caribbeans employed them for the practice of sodomy in a manner similar to that which the Arabs enjoy their young people like eunuchs and two-spirits. A time grown men, the Caribs kill them and eat them. In , Peter Martyr d'Anghiera published his De orbe novo decades , with the information that he was able to get about the first explorers thanks to his friendship with Isabella I of Castile.
D'Anghiera continues his story saying that the indigenous people's "natural hate for unnatural sin" drove them so that, "spontaneously and violently, they searched for all the rest that they would know who were infected". After all, D'Anghiera mentions that "only the nobles and the gentlemen practiced that kind of desire. The] indigenous people knew that sodomy gravely offended God. And that these acts provoked] the tempests that with thunder and lightning so frequently afflicted them, or the floods that drowned their fruits that had caused hunger and sickness.
It has given them instructions to sacrifice their fellow men, to extract their hearts and to offer the hearts, as well as the blood taken from the tongue, the ears, the legs and the arms, all to the idols". Finally, he comments that "all the inhabitants of New Spain and those of other adjacent provinces ate human flesh, all commonly practiced sodomy and drank to excess", comparing some of the customs of the indigenous people with those of the ungodly saracens.
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We saw many amarionados, although taller and sturdier than the other men. Many of these men practiced the sin against nature. Isabella of Portugal , wife of Charles V, possibly driven by these accounts, banned in the planting or use of maguey for the fermentation of pulque. The queen thought that it caused "drunkenness and drove the Indians to carry out" human sacrifices and unspeakable sin.
These and other accounts were converted into an authentic literary genre, circulated to the whole Peninsula , and were used to justify the idea of Empire; it was another "just cause" for the domination and occupation of the West Indies. Francisco de Vitoria , despite knowing that the indigenous people were right and that as such the emperor did not have law over them, thought that "the heathens that committed sins against nature, such as idolatry, pederasty or fornication, all those offenses to God, could have been stopped by force".
Among those sins against nature was naturally sodomy, the sin against nature par excellence. The legislation was based on the different culture and its customs, among the most notable: Thus the circle was closed with the relationship of Moor, sodomite, Indian. De las Casas considered the "beastly vice of sodomy as the worst, the most detestable of any human wickedness".
He denied with passion the reports passed on by the conquistadors and explorers, who had "defamed the Indians, having accused them of being infected with sodomy, a great and wicked falsehood" and thought that they observed "abstinence towards the sensual, vile and dirty affections", although he admitted that in a country so big there could be isolated cases of particular people in particular cases, attributed to "a natural corruption, depravity, a kind of innate sickness or fear of witchcraft and other magic spells", but in no case among the converts to Christianity.
De las Cases gives for example the mixe who cruelly set fire to the sodomites discovered in the temple. Garcia attributed the cases of sodomy to the fact that the "miserable Indians act like that because the Devil has tricked them, making them believe that the gods they worship also practice sodomy and therefore they consider it a good and lawful custom". Indigenous writers did not delay in joining De las Casas to defend American culture. The colonial administration imposed the Spanish laws and customs on the indigenous peoples, which, in the case of sodomy, was facilitated by the existence of similar laws in the Aztec Empire.
The punishments for sexual sins tended to be fines, penance, public humiliation, and lashing in the most serious cases. In Felipe II officially creates the tribunal of Mexico City, [5] but in the Viceroyalty of New Spain only civil law took charge of judging the unspeakable sin. The first known burning of sodomites in Mexico was in , when they burned on the Caltzontzin pyre for idolatry, sacrifice, and sodomy.
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In the Viceroy of New Spain , the Duke of Albuquerque , wrote to Charles II about a case of unspeakable sin in Mexico City in which he had "nineteen prisoners, fourteen of which [were] sentenced to burn". Lucas Matheo, a young man of 15 years, was saved from the bonfire thanks to his youth, but suffered lashes and six years of forced labor by cannon.
Among the documents sent to the king is a letter from the judge of the Supreme Court of His Majesty, Juan Manuel Sotomayor, who describes sodomy as an "endemic cancer" that had "infested and spread among the captive prisoners of the Inquisition in their individual cells and the ecclesiastical officials have also begun their own investigations". The letter from Sotomayor reports that between and they have investigated and sentenced individuals, whose names, ethnicities, and occupations he lists next.
The Viceroy as much as the Magistrate bases his rejection of sodomy on the Bible and religion , although they use stories sui generis , like Sotomayor, who writes "as some saints have professed, that all the sodomites have died with the birth of Our Lord Jesus". The previous case allows us to catch a glimpse of the subculture of homosexuals in Mexico City in the first half of the 17th century, since many of the accused were more than 60 years old and took that life for more than twenty.
All those involved came from the lower classes: There are signs that the wealthier classes were also implicated, but were not deemed affected thanks to their influence. The group met periodically in private houses, often on the days of religious festivities with the excuse of praying and giving tribute to the Virgin and the saints , but in reality they had cross-dressing dances and orgies.
The next meeting places and dates were mentioned in the previous parties or were disseminated by mail and messengers who belonged to the group. Colonial culture was similar to that of Spain and had and had prominent intellectuals among those born in America. In Mexico gained independence from Spain and began a new phase. Some researchers have emphasized that cultural practices, such as friendship and homosociality of some groups of leaders, and clergy, the army, and lawyers, among others, facilitated the development of homoerotic practices.
President Anastasio Bustamante , for example, used to have "young gentlemen" or "favorites" as hostesses, private secretaries, who lived and traveled with him for long periods.
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Fernando Bruquetas de Castro, in his book "Kings who loved like queens", states that Maximilian I was gay. It seems that the rumours of his homosexuality began in the court of Brussels , where his wife, the princess Carlota Amalia, came from. The conclusive breakup between Maximilian and Carlota was during a stopover in Madeira , where the future emperor made a famous escape for the homosexual underworld of the island. The French invasion introduced the Napoleonic code in Mexico.
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The code does not mention sodomy, for it had ceased to be a crime. Nevertheless, in the new Penal Code introduced "attack on morality and proper customs", a relatively vague concept whose interpretation was left to the police and the judges, and which was used against homosexuals.
The work of criminologist Roumagnac, for example, gives details of homosexual practices in the country's prisons. In the spring of , Manuel Palafox , secretary general of Emiliano Zapata , was accused by political enemies within the Zapatista camp of having leaked information through his homosexual relationships. Palafox died in without revealing his homosexuality. This relative permissivity ended in , when the mayor Uruchurtu closed all the city's gay bars after a triple crime.
The most famous scandal of the 19th and 20th centuries was known as the Dance of the Forty-One. The raid, executed on Calle de la Paz since renamed Calle Ezequiel Montes , was against a dance attended by 41 men, of which 22 were dressed as men and 19 as women. The Mexican press fed on the event, despite the Governor's efforts to cover it up, since the participants belonged to the upper echelons of society.
The list of the detainees was never published. On Sunday night, at a house on the fourth block of Calle la Paz, the police burst into a dance attended by 41 unaccompanied men wearing women's clothes. Among those individuals were some of the dandies seen every day on Calle Plateros. They were wearing elegant ladies' dresses, wigs, false breasts, earrings, embroidered slippers, and their faces were painted with highlighted eyes and rosy cheeks.
When the news reached the street, all forms of comments were made and the behaviour of those individuals was subjected to censure.
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We refrain from giving our readers further details because they are exceedingly disgusting. As a result of the scandal, the numbers 41 and 42 were adopted by Mexican popular parlance to refer to homosexuality, with 42 reserved for passive homosexuals. In Eduardo A. La otra mitad con su traje, Es decir de masculinos, Gozaban al estrechar A los famosos jotitos. Such was the impact of the affair that the number 41 became taboo, as described by the essayist Francisco L. In Mexico, the number 41 has no validity and is offensive The influence of this tradition is so strong that even officialdom ignores the number No division, regiment, or battalion of the army is given the number From 40 they progress directly to No payroll has a number Municipal records show no houses with the number 41; if this cannot be avoided, 40 bis is used.
No hotel or hospital has a room Nobody celebrates their 41st birthday, going straight from 40 to No vehicle is assigned a number plate with 41, and no police officer will accept a badge with that number. The precedent from the Dance of the Forty-One has been used since that time to continue constant raids, police blackmail, torture, beatings, shipments to jail and to the prison of the Maria Islands, with a simple mention that it concerned an "attack on morality and proper customs". Many homosexuals continued living in the family house, since their activities tended to be private or clandestine.
In the late 20th century and early 21st century, homosexuals continue to be discreet about their sexual orientation, many being in the closet , others living an open secret. The lower classes of Mexican society tend to preserve the Mediterranean model, in which homosexuals are divided into active and passive , the active ones being "masculine" and the passive ones being "effeminate" and "contemptible": There exists fear among active homosexuals of being penetrated, because they fear the possibility that they will like it and cease to be "men". Those who refuse to define themselves as active or passive are called "internationals".
Among many Mexican homosexuals there exists the so-called "phallic dream", which consists of seeing the U.
Acting accordingly, they try to make contact with foreign tourists as a springboard to the dream destination. However, many end up disillusioned in the dream destination when they have to face up to prevailing homophobia and racism. Until the late s, there were neither LGBT groups nor publications on the topic.
It was dissolved a year later. In she was the first Mexican to openly discuss her homosexuality on Mexican television. 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 As can be appreciated, the LGBT movement was very connected to leftist movements in the beginning.
In late June 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. But these groups and others have not had the necessary continuity. In the s, without ceasing to fight for the aforementioned issues, activists began to protest the murders of homosexuals, and to defend respect for sexual diversity. Homophobia is very widespread in Mexican society. Statisticians show that between and alone, persons have been murdered in homophobic crimes, as the Chamber of Deputies revealed in May , making Mexico the county with the second-highest rate of homophobic crimes in the world after Brazil.
According to the UAM study, the most frequent types of discrimination "were not hiring for a job, 13 percent; threats of extortion and detention by police, 11 percent; and abuse of employees, 10 percent". In only 4 families of those murdered in homophobic crimes, of a total of 26, offered to give information on the matter to a commission that was investigation.