Antonio Palacios, the Transvestite Movement in Querétaro (Mexico) in the 1970s and the Pioneering Visibilization of Non-Hegemonic Masculinities

Abstract

This article arises from the observation that, to a large extent, gender studies in the State of Querétaro, Mexico, have focused on post-globalization events, but very little research has been done in relation to the previous years. Therefore, based on the ethnographic method, several interviews were conducted with Antonio Palacios, a survivor of the transvestite movement that promoted, in the late 1970s, the visibility and civil recognition of male homosexuality in the city. With the information provided by Palacios, newspaper articles from the Querétaro State Historical Archive were used to corroborate the tensions that arose when the bar and former brothel La Iguana obtained its first license from the government to operate as a gay meeting place. In this way, it can be demonstrated that not only in Querétaro, but also in most of Mexico, the transvestite movement of the seventies laid the foundations of social struggles around non-hegemonic masculinities, a situation that was made invisible because were part of the post-abysmal bloc and were relegated due to class issues. This paper aims to address the transvestite movement of those years and highlight their contributions to the post-globalization queer generations