For years, transgender activist Roshell Terranova protested in the streets and knocked on the doors of Mexico's สล็อตเอ็กซ์โอ Congress to make the demands of the country's LGBTQ community known. Now thanks to her efforts and an electoral rule change, Terranova is running for Congress in a first for Mexico.
Terranova will be one of more than 100 members of Mexico's LGBTQ community participating in Sunday's mid-term elections that will fill the 500 seats of the lower chamber of the Congress, as well as state and local posts across the country. It is the largest number of LGBTQ candidates in Mexico's history, according to Carla Humphrey, an official with the National Electoral Institute.
The likelihood of success of the candidates for some of the more than 20,000 posts in play Sunday remains unknown, but activists, analysts and members of the LGBTQ community say the sheer number of candidates is a victory. It signals a departure from a history of hiding sexual identity to pursue a political career.
The surge in LGBTQ participation follows an order from electoral authorities for political parties to include those candidates on their slates as part of their “affirmative action” efforts, which seek “to generate and open spaces to vulnerable groups,” Humphrey said.
“They must be made visible and have a voice and be able to influence,” Humphrey said.
Electoral authorities plan to track their progress as they have with women and other groups that have faced discrimination and benefited from actions to promote their participation such as Indigenous groups, Afro-Mexicans, people with disabilities and Mexicans who live abroad, she said.
Patria Jiménez, another activist and candidate to become a local lawmaker, was in 1997 the first federal congresswoman who was openly gay. She said the high level of participation this year is the result of a “social evolution” that the LGBTQ activists won protesting in the streets.
Marven, a transgender woman from the state of Oaxaca, is running for a seat in Mexico City's legislative body as a candidate for the small party Elige. “We have marched for many years to be taken into account,” she said. The name Marven is a combination of her two legal last names, which she was required to use on the ballot, because she has not legally changed her name.
But her ballot entry will also include her nickname “Lady Tacos de Canasta,” which she earned when a video circulated on social media in 2016 of her selling a specific kind of fried and steamed tacos from a basket during a gay pride parade.