The women of Juchitán, Oaxaca

Isabella Tree explores indigenous feminism
snip--
Zapotec Indians have dominated this region for centuries, controlling the Isthmus bottleneck, cashing in on traffic travelling north and south between the Americas. Despite the efforts of the Spanish—and before them, the Aztec Empire—to crush them, Zapotec culture remains supreme here, a unique life force undiminished. Here, women are so revered that if you’re not female, your best bet is to become an honorary one. “Better luck next time,” mothers soothe each other when one of them has the misfortune to give birth to a boy, “or perhaps he’ll turn out to be gay.” At least a third of Juchitán’s male population are homosexual. Here, unlike the rest of Mexico, where putos— faggots—are famously targeted, there’s no stigma attached to sexual preference. Sex is simply a matter of natural impulse. As one Juchiteca explains to me, “God puts the heat in different holes, that’s all.”

Dusk falls in Juchitán like a gauntlet. I’ve been invited to a transvestite party and the Juchitecas have insisted on dressing me for the occasion. I have a long, thick plait coiled around my head and a yellow satin rosette pinned above my ear. I’ve been lent a traditional huipil and a long colourful skirt by a woman three times my size, and plied with enough beer and tequila to banish any lingering remnants of British reserve.

While the transvestites (known as muxes) snake around each other in skin-tight mini-skirts and boob-tubes, loaded with bling, I find myself clinched bosom to bosom with a matronly Juchiteca, and we sail around the dance-floor like a Spanish caravel. I feel suddenly, liberatingly, androgynous. Sexual conventions, all the uptight social mores imposed on the Americas by Europeans, seem ludicrously neurotic and remote. The spirit of Mexico, pre-conquest, pre-Christian, pre-historic, pulses through the night like the Juchiteca’s heart-beat pounding against mine.

http://insidemex.com/people/lifestyle/the-women-juchitan

I posted this after reading thirtieschild post entitled, "Thanks to every one who came before" about her 8 yr. old grandson announcing he was gay.

I stayed in Juchitan for a few weeks. It was absolutely fascinating.

"Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore"

so blunt and funny at the same time....