A Critical Approach to Gender Identities in the “Muxe” Case

Abstract

This paper provides an interdisciplinary approach to the Muxe collective, a sexual diverse community rooted in the millenary Zapotecan culture, located in southern Mexico. The muxe subjectivity is portrayed in some interviews, based on the focal life history methodology. As a critical approach to gender issues, this analysis emphasizes the fluidity of the sexual and gender subjectivity of the muxeidad with ethnical, ethical and communitarian dimensions. The social context is considered from the concept of necropower, coined by the African thinker Achille Mbembe. The experiences of violence and oppression in the muxes’ lives are analyzed, as well as the tactics and strategies of resistance that they have developed over recent years. Muxes have an extraordinary resilience that translates into bountiful spirituality. The dimensions through which they express their identities, practices and political options are quite symbolic and diverse. The values, beliefs and spiritual practices result inextricably linked to the muxe subjectivity, allowing us to understand that this community is a sign of change of world, as a theological reading in which their resilience may reflect a Messianic anticipation of the Kingdom of God. An analysis of these resistances in the case of some muxe individuals and collectives demonstrates the crucial importance of dismantling the sacrificial religion that justifies the segregation and scapegoating of the muxes. The original wound of being human is transformed here from fragility to resilience, into what can be considered an eschatological anticipation of the messianic temporality. In conclusion, this paper asserts that the muxe collective portrays a glimpse of another kind of intersubjective paradigm.