Ciudad De Mexico Orgullo (Mexico City Gay Pride), June 30, 2007

Even at the Cathedral in the Zocalo (the centre of Mexico City) "The Vogueing Bishops" made us feel on Gay Pride Day that the Church was on our side!
At Pride in Mexico City, I found two police with little rainbow bands displayed on their uniforms. I was arrested by their welcoming good looks.
These Aztec Warriors know how to kiss! So, the gringo section of the parade gets blocked by Drag Mariachi Nacionalistas. (Click on any photo to enlarge)
Mexico City Pride is not for the faint-hearted or the red-headed, but I wore plenty of sunscreen. Rachael is hoisting the flag in most of the pictures. She's our "Angel de Orgullo." (Click on photo to enlarge)
And there are the usual (or unusual) drag queens. I had to talk loudly to be heard by this fella. Click on photo to enlarge)
Mexico City must have the greatest variety of drag queens on earth! It was a schmorgasbord of butch to femme to camp to Penelope Cruz lookalikes.
These indigenous people of Vera Cruz protested against what they saw as corruption in land reform law in that state and wore pictures of the Gobernador on their groins to draw attention to their right to protest against corruption. (Click on photo to enlarge)
The Cetlalic Language School of Cuernavaca had a banner which we held before us as we chanted "Si, Se Puede, Habla en Espanol!" to the delighted ears of the city dwellers

No, we are not in the state of Madras, India for the Hindu feast of "Holi." This young man (his mother and younger sister looking on in amazment, though I think his mother doubts the pure motives of the body painter) is a walking rainbow. The carefree nature of Mexico City Pride was delightfully infectious and festive.
Are these handsome young men not the perfect ambassadors for the cause of same-sex marriage?



On Saturday, June 30, at 10:00 a.m. six gay and Lesbian students, Ken, Tim, Eric, Eric, Rachael, and Fergal, along with two instructors, Francisco and Leti (from Cetlalic Progressive Language School in Cuernavaca) set out from the Hotel Gillow in the "Zocalo" of Mexico City to the subway on our quest to march as the first Mexican Spanish language school in the 29th Annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Pride (Orgullo) parade. We took the remarkably clean and reasonably priced subway to the "Insurgentes" station in the "Zona Rosa" (pink zone) of the city, noticing with each stop more and more GLBT celebrants enter the train, so that when we arrived in the clean, well-kept station, we were a mob ascending the steps to the plaza above. Throngs converged from every direction filling the plaza and streets around the monument. The march was about to get under way when we arrived, so we watched the various groups of drag queens in their creative outfits. Two delightful young men (see picture below) looked ready for nuptuals, each in white: one wore the costume of an angel with great wings, the other a traditional white strapless wedding dress. We spoke with them, asking when the march would begin. They told us that this year's march didn't have enough organizers to get the parade in order. They turned out to be right. The first floats began to march down the wide avenue, the "Champs D'Elysses" of Mexico City, called Paseo De La Reforma, towards the "Zocalo," a route about four miles long, past great statues of Mexico's heros, and memorials to the dead in various battles against Spaniard and Gringo alike. We unfurled our banner and began to march after watching ten or twelve floats go by decked out, sadly (like many North American gay pride floats) a motley assemblage of drag queens and muscular disco boys flaunting their attitude gym-obsession to the adoring masses. Loud speakers on the floats blasted dated arias from Madonna to Cher, but I was encouraged to note some more culturally thoughtful floats with transgendered Mariachi bands playing and drag queens all dressed as Frida Kahlo with a bad hangover. The humor was not lost on the thousands who lined the streets and cheered the mexican themed floats. One tableau spoofed the sacred image of the Aztec warrior posed pieta-style with of the beautiful young indigenous woman limp in his arms as he ascends the mountain, learning from the eagle that is perched on his shoulder that this holy place was destined to become the Zocalo of Mexico City. There were several other interesting politically themed floats. Francisco Lopez Obrador, the more leftist Presidential candidate, edged out of his seat by a dubious margin of votes, inspired several floats with enthusiastic supporters urging gay pride celebrants to join in what was to be an even greater gathering in the zocalo the following day, the one year anniversary of the election in which Calderon won by a few hundred votes that many Mexicans feel were recorded fraudulently. Their yellow flags and large photos of "mi presidente" reminded all gringos gathered of the 2000 election in our own fair land to the north. The difference being that here, the people took to the streets in all cities in their millions.
We joined in the parade and arranged ourselves behind our banner which displayed in bright rainbow colors the motto of Cetlalic School. Not until we reached the first great monument along the route, the "Angel of Independence" monument, a large round pillar, topped by a huge gilded statue of the Angel herself, did we begin to get the sense that this parade was not going to turn out to be like any we'd seen before. In the distance, I began to make out the hundreds of dancing brown bodies arranged around the plinth of the monument, and I began to me more sure that they were all male and naked. As we drew nearer several teenaged boys and men, naked except for slip flops or hiking shoes, held out hats to collect money for their cause, the recognition of the rights of the indigenous people of Vera Cruz by their governor, who is apparently selling off native land to rich developers to make way for multi-millon dollar homes in the resorts along the state's coast. As gringos, we were stunned by the sheer number of fully naked men, ranging in age from teens to octagenerians, all posing for photographs by press and marchers alike, some holding their genitals up for closer inspection. (Can you imagine the Future Farmers of America or the Brooklyn Dock Workers' Union joining the Gay Pride march to bring attention to their cause????) Our instructors noted that the men were most likely not gay, but glad to get support, and in this machista culture, ironically willing to let the gays get a look at their precious jewels. Louder cheers from marchers urged the nude protesters on and in return, we got more vigorous dancing and genital gyration from the dancers and their percussive band who played various drums, cow bells, gourds and maraccas. Some of the protesters wearing only Sombreros played mariachi tunes to us further along the route. The cool mexican morning quickly warmed to a sweltering heat in bright sunshine in the most populous (estimates range from 20 to 26 million) high altitude city on earth. As we passed the elegant Museo de Belle Arts, (pictured here) the march split up into four great columns along the narrower streets in the city center that led to the great square in the center of the city, the zocalo. This is where Fergal went off to find a bathroom, and lost the other marchers. They reported a new chant for the route at they marched sans Fergal: "Donde Es Fergal?" The truth is that Fergal had stopped to buy a bottle of water to replace that which he had just released, and the vendor had not the change of a two hundred peso bill and went off for fifteen full minutes in search of change. I was reminded of "Irish time" in Donegal - that's one of the many cultural attributes that Mexico has in common with Ireland. A water seller will take fifteen minutes to go and get change. Once in Ireland, on the bus between Derry and Buncrana, the driver stopped in Burnfoot to deliver and live chicken to a woman up a dirt lane. We sat in the bus for twenty minutes while he causually chatted with the woman at her door way. We have a different sense of time than people in the U.S.. Meanwhie, as we continued along the route, the taller buildings and narrower streets intensified the booming drums and PA systems, marchers chanted louder for equal rights for all people. Citizens from windows high above poured glitter and confetti on the marchers below; it began to feel like an old fashioned New York City ticker-tape parade. My hair glistened with brightly colored streamers and glitter. The drums beat louder and the chants of the marchers grew more vociferous and political. It began to feel more like a G8 march than a Pride parade, and the response of my fellow students was approval, since the political authenticity of the marchers added to the intensity and spirit of the event. Where was Bono? Where was Bob Geldoff? We were struck by how few police officers were visible along the parade route. The few who stood guard received jeers and spit from some of the marchers, especially the drag queens, who complained of too many police in the city's cruising parks harassing gay men, and not enough police protection in the Zona Rosa, where they are needed. The police, carrying menacing uzis and armalite rifles, did not respond to the spitting, thank goodness, for some of them looked to be no more than sixteen years old, armed with enough ammo to take down an entire column of marchers.
The last of the marchers, by now in a frenzy of excitement and relief that they'd reached their destination, arrived at the Zocalo at around 5:30 p.m. Some marchers complain that poor organization caused great gaps between marching groups and floats, slowing down the parade. The local newspapers, on Sunday morning put the numbers of marchers and on-lookers at 20,000; another paper estimated 50,000. But when the entire zocalo was teeming with dancing celebrants, it was clear to our language instructors that this was the largest Mexico City Pride to date, and said that the crowd could not have been fewer than 200,000. We retired to our hotel to snap more photos from our room and rehydrate. That night we all had a wonderful dinner out funded by Cetlalic Language School. Thanks to Eric Kearsley, Nancy Barron and Senora Leti for the photos.