“Somos contra la ‘queer-ificacíon’”/“We reject the queer-ification of lesbianism”: lesbian political identity and anti-queer politics among Mexican lesbians and queer Chicanas-Latinas

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay provides a critical personal reflection contemplating a 2006 Mexico City-based cross- border dialogue in which sharp divisions emerged between a set of Mexicana lesbianas—declaring their pro-lesbian feminist and anti-queer politics—and a set of queer Chicanas- Latinas—pronouncing their queer women of color politics. The vexing exchange occurred on the eve of the 3rd annual Marcha Lésbica, an explicitly radical lesbian feminist political gathering and at the time the largest public action of its kind to be held in Latin America. I draw new insights about key historical and contemporary lesbian political identity issues by reviewing how Mexican lesbian politics informed by feminism and critiques of neoliberalism produced challenges to the U.S. based participants. I reframe the value of the lesbian Mexicanas’ “anti- queer” proclamation, an affective statement especially unpopular in that period given the provincializing glance at lesbian politics and identity in the U.S. Finally, I revisit this difficult moment to historicize how lesbian remains a freighted category of political identity for Chicanas-Latinas who abide by women of color and trans coalitional politics, while it also opens up affinities for meaningful though precarious cross-border identifications. This multilayered reflection argues for a situated understanding of the meanings that can be ascribed to lesbian identity and politics, which are highly contingent upon spatio-temporalities. Thus, the category “lesbian” is replete with instructive energies whether as an affective critique of queer epistemologies that move along a Global North to Global South axis, or as a reminder of the limits of coalitional politics built across nation-state borders.