The Other Sex

February 6, 2006

Oaxaca also brought sex to the forefront. Not just gender, sex. The picture today in La Jornada, Mexico’s left-but-not-too-far leaning daily newspaper, was of Marcos with a group of sex-workers, who spoke at one of the assemblies in Orizaba. Bellinghausen reports on the meeting:
“Magdalena, representative of a group of organized prostitutes, the organization, stated their denunciations: ‘The authorities harass us, they take our money, they encourage our clients to mistreat us. In the hotels we are forced to pay for condoms from the Secretary of Heath, which are supposed to be free, and the sheets are dirty. And I have to maintain my children with my work.’ Claudia, a transsexual with a large scar across her face, states that she is in the “other Campaign” because ‘sexworkers fight against discrimination,; we also have citizen rights.’ Marcos declared himself honored to have these women as comrades.”

The Other Campaign’s embrace of difference—in which sexual difference has been repeatedly emphasized—in the January 2 discourse in San Cristobal, the meetings with sex workers, male and female, in Orizaba, flourishes as well in the people’s own representations of their support. At the town meeting in Juchitan, Oaxaca, a drag queen, naked except for a tiny g-string, high heels, and wrapped in clear plastic, heavily made up and quite frankly stunning, strolls through the town square with a sign that says, “$$ PRI, PAN, PRD, Information here $$” The plastic is covered in brand logos, making it clear that these letters (the three principal political parties in Mexico) are as easily bought and sold as the McDonald’s French fry cut-out that (barely) covers the crotch of his/her plastic dress. It is a clear, and clearly different, act of support for the Other Campaign.