The June Revolution. Precursors of the struggle for liberation and sexual diversity

The struggle to claim the rights of people with sexual orientation or gender identity outside the moral and social norms that imposed heterosexuality (heteronormativity) began to take shape in Mexico in the early 1970s in the capital of the country.

Activist groups inspired by movements born in various parts of the world emerged from what happened on June 28, 1969 in New York, United States when homosexual people were repressed by local police and responded to conditions of long-standing oppression. This was combined with tendencies for greater sexual freedom typical of the counterculture.

Along with Nancy, other representative figures such as the writers Carlos Monsiváis and Luis González de Alba joined the Homosexual Liberation Front, who wrote what is considered the first manifesto entitled Against the practice of the citizen as police booty, published in the Magazine Siempre in August 1975. The document called for the liberation of homosexuality as another form of social emancipation. 

The FHAR also expressed solidarity with the collective actions to vindicate the repression of October 2, 1968. The surprise of a politicized homosexual group joining as a new sector seemed unusual. However, the ideals of the front identified it with manifestations of discontent in the face of the economic, social and political inequalities in force at the national and global levels.

This was part of making visible the problems of exclusion of people with sexual preferences other than heterosexual ones. For these reasons, this type of group began to be monitored by the government surveillance and repression apparatus: the Federal Directorate of Security (DFS).

The FHAR focused on achieving a significant transformation of the ways in which society linked and categorized homosexuality. Through various writings addressed to the political class, the media and the hierarchs of the Church, acts of discrimination and exclusion by the institutions were denounced. Such is the case of a protester in 1980 with a banner denouncing the links between repression, machismo and capitalism.

The Oikabeth group  stood out for mixing politicization and Mexican cultural roots. The name of their group is an acronym in Mayan of Olin Ikis pan Katuntah Bebezah Thoth, which in Spanish means 'warrior women who make their way by shedding flowers'.

In the collectivity only women militated and its foundations were lesbo-feminist and it is considered as the first public organization of lesbian, feminist and socialist women.  

Among the slogans defended by the Lambda Group was the need to make both homophobia and sexism visible. He sought to break the isolation of the homosexual community and end the repression of sexual diversity in Mexico through debates he organized within union organizations of university workers such as the UNAM or the UAM, as well as coexistence, marches and rallies in favor of the movement.

The Lambda Group stated that both homosexual and heterosexual women were oppressed by patriarchy. Therefore, in the face of resistance from the feminist movement to include lesbianism, she sought dialogue with feminist groups to obtain a conviction of her inclusion by appealing to the argument of the right of women to decide about their bodies.

In June 1979, the first gay and lesbian pride march, which we know today as the LGBTIQ+ march, was held after incorporating a wide range of identities and sexual diversity. Then, members of the FHAR, Oikabeth and Grupo Lambda organized a mobilization that was scheduled for the last weekend of June.

It was the first time that these groups committed to the struggle for homosexual and lesbian liberation led the cause in a vindictive way as the numerous blankets allow us to look at.

The march had more than a thousand demonstrators and departed from the Independence Column towards Carlos Finlay Square. The planned route was to pass through Paseo de la Reforma, but was diverted by the police because the then Department of the Federal District denied them authorization to march along such an important road in the city.

These groups were the main promoters of the movement that gave rise to the struggle for the fundamental rights of people with sexual orientation or gender identity other than the heteronormative framework.

Although they gradually disappeared throughout the 1980s, with their critique of the norms and values in force around the body, sexuality and gender sowed the foundations for a progressive homosexual and lesbian liberation in Mexico that has remained alive for many years.