Muxes, Gender Diverse Communities, and The Power of Language

by Zoe Skigen

Introduction

While diverse gender identities seem unprecedented in contemporary Western society, queer societies have existed for millennia. A more contemporary third gender group often compared to the hijras are the muxes located outside of Oaxaca, Mexico–similarly, the impact of colonialism persists as the subversion of muxes and other queer communities prevails. The coloniality of gender explores the intersection between colonial domination and the subjugation of non-dominant gendered communities. As queer societies continue to exist to this day, the question of whether they are subverting or “queering” the Western gender binary, remains prevalent. As Western academics become more tolerant of the queer community, they look to study queer-friendly and embracing societies to frame queerness in an attractive manner. Subsequently, the queer struggle is lost in their appraising research, and focus towards appraising sentiments overrides the systemic, historical, and contemporary oppression queer communities, specifically the muxes are faced with. As muxes and other queer communities face the repercussions of a post-colonial Latin America, they are faced with the task of maintaining their cultural values in a largely uneducated, impoverished community, thriving in the face of systemic intolerance, and distinguishing themselves from Western conceptions of queerness.

The hijras in South Asia are considered one of the oldest gender queer communities in the world, spanning back over 2000 years.^[1] Often, hijras are biologically male but present themselves as feminized. Indian society and most hijras considered themselves to be a third gender^[2] while others, often outsiders, refer to them as transgender. The most defining characteristic of hijras is when they leave home to live in an exclusive hijra community–removed from broader society. Following a guru, a young hijra, or chela,^[3] will learn the traditional hijra lifestyle. Hijras are expected to perform dances, songs, and blessings at births and weddings of Hindus; A hijra’s blessing bestows fertility, prosperity, and a long life on those who receive them. But, hijras can curse someone or their family if they are disrespectful, for example, by not paying for their blessings; curses are only done in extreme circumstances, but nonetheless have instilled fear in the Hindu community.^[4] British colonialism in 19th and 20th century India diminished the hijra’s reverence. In 1871, the British classified all hijras as criminals and they were arrested on sight if confronted. Although the law was eventually repealed after Indian Independence Day and hijras still have maintained their traditional rights and culture, currently, they are largely subordinated against–struggling with economic and educational disparity. But, progress is being implemented as in 2014, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh legally recognized third-gender people as “citizens deserving of equal rights,”^[5] and in 2015, the first hijra mayor was elected in Raigarh. While the hijras are not the focus of the essay, it is essential to look to other gender-deviant groups to emphasize their prevalence worldwide and that they are not a new phenomenon.

Theoretical Framework

The discrimination muxes and LGBTQ+ people face in Mexico and beyond is traced back to European colonization, which imposed an oppressive, Capitalistic system of power that ultimately erased pre-colonial views of gender and sexuality. To describe and explore this phenomenon, which Maria Lugones calls the “coloniality of gender,” she combines two analytical frameworks, primarily focusing on the “coloniality of power,” introduced by Peruvian sociologist Anibal Quijano.^[6] To contextualize, the coloniality of power relies on recognizing the political framework of “intersectionality.” As coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, American Civil Rights Activist and law professor at UCLA and Columbia University, intersectionality is the intersection of racial and gender-related discriminatory issues.^[7] Exemplified by her 1989 paper, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” Crenshaw examines three court cases that dealt with racial and gender discrimination and argued that “in particular, courts seem to think that race discrimination was what happened to all black people across gender and sex discrimination was what happened to all women, and if that is your framework, of course, what happens to black women and other women of color is going to be difficult to see.”^[8] With this information considered, Quijano underscores how power is subjected over social actors in relation to domination, exploitation, and conflict when they fight over “the four basic areas of human existence: sex, labor, collective authority and subjectivity/intersubjectivity, their resources and products.”^[9] Although Quijano’s scope of the influence of colonialism on conceptions of gender is narrow, the coloniality of gender, as presented by Lugones, provides a broader approach that considers contemporary queer struggles and can better relate to muxes’ desire to challenge assumed roles and knowledge that are false.

The impact of the coloniality of gender is apparent, as Western, binary conceptions of gender are dominant. While historically and contemporarily there are individuals who identify outside of the gender binary, institutional forces, such as the oppressive legacy of colonialism, inform public sentiment that gender is an unambiguous binary paradigm in which all individuals can be classified as male or female.^[10][11] Gill-Peterson emphasizes in “Gender,” how John Money, a 1950s psychologist at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland introduced the concept of gender as a social structure, not a biological one, claiming that “the term gender role is used to signify all those things that a person says or does to disclose himself or herself as having the status of boy or man, girl or woman, respectively. It includes, but is not restricted to sexuality in the sense of eroticism.” Additionally, he analogized gender to a first language: once learned, it becomes almost impossible to lose, “and any languages learned after childhood would never reach the same level of natural fluency.” Money was not concerned with whether gender was biological, but rather the implications of social gender roles. It is important to emphasize this study, as gender deviant people, such as the Muxes, are subordinated due to this prevalent misconception. Additionally, the idea that gender is biological informs and fuels the misrepresentation of gender deviant groups, using language that is binary, and thus, inaccurate.

The language used to describe gender deviant people is often an inaccurate misrepresentation of their identities. Because European colonizers dominated and dictated ideas of gender to be patriarchal and binary, their legacy still dictates the language used to describe those who are gender queer. The language imposed on muxes, specifically by Western scholars who refer to them as a third gender, alternate gender, transgender, or gay, invalidates and is a misrepresentation of their indigenous cultural identities. To classify a muxe or other gender diverse individual as gay does not account for the cultural differences that exist regarding sexuality. As Padgug notes, different societies “share general sexual forms [does] not make the contents and meaning of these impulses and forms identical or undifferentiated. They must be carefully distinguished, and separately understood since their inner structures and social meanings and articulations are very different.”^[12] Transculturally classifying muxes as gay erases the reality that sexuality is more than an objective sexual preference, but rather has different cultural meanings depending on the time, place, and situation.^[13] Additionally, because muxes do not identify within binary structures of gender, the classification of them as gay implies same-sex relations of men who sleep with men; because muxes do not fit within this gendered paradigm as they are neither men nor women, the term is unwarranted. Similarly, the use of the terms alternate gender, third gender, or transgender in relation to muxes challenges their objective qualities. As the terms stem from the binary gender system in which muxes are distinguished, using them only reifies this system.

The Case: The Origins of Queer Terminology, Muxe Culture

The first recorded accounts of queer terminology and identities in pre-Columbian Latin America were developed by Bernardino de Sahagun, who arrived in Nueva España to evangelize the occupied indigenous people. After learning the Nahuatl language, the most prominent language in the region, he developed the Florentine Codex, considered the “biggest historiographic monument of the XVI century,”^[14] He discovered various terms to describe same-sex relationships, both derogatory and uplifting. The word “xochihua” directly translates to “the ones who carry the flower.” As described by Sahagun, “the xochihua dressed like a woman, spoke like a woman, corrupted, confused and deceived people, and possessed the flower.”^[15] Historian Pete Sigal has interpreted the symbolism of “possessing the flower” as being “one who has the sexual desire.” A different perspective offered by 16th-century historian Gabriel Soares de Sousa emphasized how flowers conveyed “a broad range of concepts and meanings, from potency, fertility, and (re) production to destructive aspects of illicit sexuality”.^[16]

A term describing male same-sex behavior in a derogatory manner is “cuiloni,” being translated by Sahagun as “puto, excrement, corruption, pervert, shit dog, mierducha, infamous, corrupt, vicious, repugnant, disgusting, effeminate, the one who pretended to be a woman, puto who suffers”;^[17] another possible translation could include “sodomite,” “homosexual or the one who receives.” Other words which describe female same-sex practice are “Patalachuia” or “patlache” which translates as an “unclean woman, a woman with a penis, who has an erect penis, who is with a woman, seeks out young women, who looks like a man, who does it with another woman.”^[18] On a different note, many gods and deities in Latin America transcended the gender binary, such as Tezcatlipoca. Still, Sahagun depicted and subordinated them as a “puto” to delegitimize their godly status. Guilhem Oliver, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico emphasizes the importance of recognizing the impact of colonization on oppressive sentiments toward queer individuals in Latin America. Catholic, essentialist, and universalistic understandings of the gender binary and sexuality repressed queer behavior and silenced, if any, positive sentiments towards queer people.^[19]

Although considered by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) to be one of the poorest and uneducated regions in Mexico, Mexico’s Isthmus remains a culturally rich haven for indigenous Zapotec culture and tradition for one of the few remaining matriarchies in the world. While colonization detrimental, oppressive impacts ingrained anti-queer attitudes in Latin America to this day, a small Zapotec community located in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec outside of Oaxaca, Mexico, holds individuals who defy Western structures of the gender binary, the muxes. Muxes, derived from the Spanish word “mujer” (woman), are primarily considered to be the Zapotec’s respected third gender. While being biologically male, muxes do not identify within the gender binary, although adopting stereotypically feminine attributes and social roles (Ramirez, Munar, 2021). Since European colonization, the Zapotecs have sought to preserve their indigenous culture by maintaining and emphasizing the importance of their language, festivities, clothing, and food. Muxes’ identity is not defined by subverting binary structures of gender but rather being the culture bearers of the Isthmus.

Among the local community, muxes traditionally hold occupations such as being dressmakers, huipil designers, clothing designers, decoration makers, hair stylists, and merchants”^[20] also making costumes and ornaments for parties, baptisms, communions, quinceañeras, and weddings, an integral part of the local economy.^[21] By Western standards, these occupations may be considered feminine work. Still, in Isthmus Zapotec society, “lighter work” in the arts and music is classified as “men’s work,” while women’s work is considered to be heavy work, working in the market and event planning.^[22] Muxe’s participation in these fields is highly respected within their community. Then what is the significance of it in their context? Are their work considered “masculine” or “non-gendered”?

Because of the integral role muxes play in their community’s culture, muxes, on a local level, are generally revered. Muxes, from a young age, according to interviews conducted by Mirande, from community respondents, are regarded as gifted, highly intelligent, and hardworking.^[23] Thus, muxes are expected to be caretakers for their elderly parents and often do not marry or have long-term relationships.^[24] Beyond the matrifocal familial structure that is generally accepting of muxes, unlike the other Christian and Evangelical Churches in Mexico who express sentiments how “Juchitán is full of sinners [muxes] who are degenerated and then we have drunk people. We hope that God will help them find the right path”;^[25] the local Jutichan Catholic Church is accepting of muxes and says, “God created woman and man, but he also created human nature.”^[26] Many muxes are deeply committed to the Church by participating in Las Velas “the crown jewel of Oaxaca traditions, where people remember and practice indigenous festivities that date back 3,000 years to honor their ancestors, the first rains, and the maize.”;^[27] their acceptance of muxes both allows for muxes to feel personally accepted within their community and for community members to accept them.

The acceptance of muxes does not extend outside Jutichan, as they disproportionately are impacted by gender-based violence and work discrimination. In 2020, Mexico documented 229 murders of LGBT + people and five muxes.^[28] An example of this violence is Oscar Carzola’s murder, an advocate of muxe rights as one of the founders of Vela de las Intrepidas (Vigil of the Intrepids), a 3-day vela celebrating muxes. Carzola was assassinated in 2019 in his own home, but the specific circumstances of his murder remain unknown.^[29] Additionally, elderly muxes suffer economic discrimination; they cannot maintain the pace of work expected of them and are subject to a patriarchal view of inheritance and rarely considered to be heirs to their family’s property or savings.^[30]

Analysis: The Power of Language and Autonomy

The tendency to misrepresent muxes and other gender deviant groups is common among Western academic scholars. As Western societies are advancing LGBTQ rights and there is more public acceptance and consciousness on behalf of these issues, Western scholars look to esteem international gender deviant groups to challenge the Western phenomenon of transgender and queer discrimination. Gill Peterson highlights in “Gender,” how the nascent field of transgender studies critiques queer theory’s tendency to use trans people as figures to theorize “the instability and subversion of the gender binary rather than paying attention to the material oppression faced by trans people or their own experiences and theories of gender.”^[31] As Western academics look to Indigenous groups to highlight their acceptance of queerness, they are inadvertently glorifying their experiences which invalidates the oppression (gender-based violence, economic discrimination) they face. Framing muxes’ lives idyllically, often to non-queer audiences, has a tendency to use familiar, Western language to refer to them, analogizing them to make them more appealing.^[32] But without considering the colonial forces that imposed the binary sex and gender system on Indigenous communities and deemed any alternatives as nonnormative, the praise becomes negligible as it is perpetuating an inaccurate representation of them that relies on the norms of Western society to make them appealing.

While the muxes have a unique Zapotec sexual/cultural system, it is beneficial to explore them within the framework of other indigenous traditions, rather than through the Western gender binary. Although Epple claims that gender queer groups should be examined as independent entities^[33], to avoid conflating these groups, the similarities and differences between muxes and Two-Spirit people, one of the most famous gender deviant groups, should be examined. Before the term two-spirit emerged, early anthropologists used the term “berdache,” a variation of bardaje, which was used by French explorers to “signify a boy kept for unnatural purposes” to describe gender nonconforming males among numerous Indigenous communities.^[34] In the twentieth century, Berdache tradition in Academic writing was used to examine “devi­ant” sexual practices, “notably among gender transitive males who had sexual and domestic relations with men in tribal societies.” Additionally, they were first seen as “failed” or incomplete men and women who had “weird desires or could not conform to the norms of their gender.”^[35] According to Alfredo Mirandé, Two Spirit, or “two-spirited,” is an English term that “refers to gender con­structions and roles that occur in many indigenous communities outside the Western gender binary as well as to Native people who are now reclaiming and redefining these roles within their respective communities.”^[36] While the social roles of muxes and Two Spirit people are similar, as they both physically adopt feminine attributes, identify their gender status during childhood, and excel at artistic creation, both groups prioritize their Indigenous autonomy, culture, and truth, above all else. Two Spirit people sought to challenge anthropological authority to define indigenous truth in the field of academia by rejecting the term, berdache. Similarly, muxes seek to distinguish their identity from non-indigenous, binary conceptions of gender, prioritizing Zapotec tradition and culture as a means of identification. While the groups are distinguished from each other, examining these similarities brings light to the strategies that best uplift these communities.

Because of the disproportionate gender-based violence, economic discrimination, and lack of health care muxes are subjected to, they must partake in activism to defend their rights and wellbeing. A significant accomplishment of muxe activism and organizing was the establishment of the“Dirección de Diversidad Sexual” [Sexual Diversity Directorate] in Juchitán.^[37] The Directorate’s primary goal is to “promote tolerance and nondiscrimination against individuals, including all sexual orientations, ensuring their integration in society.”^[38] Additionally, they are trying to combat the healthcare crisis among muxes; a muxe interviewee emphasized this by saying “currently, we have high rates sexually transmitted diseases, especially syphilis and HIV/AIDS; therefore, we have implemented rapid test days in upper secondary schools in collaboration with different nongovernmental organizations.”^[39] This form of activism is ideal for advancing muxe rights as it is an autonomous practice that is directly aligned the demonstrated needs and desires of the muxes. An alternative form of activism that is not aligned with muxe values is when the muxe community was invited to participate in the Mexico City Pride Festival in 2000.^[40] While the invitation was benevolent, the muxe community did not feel a need for such a festival, particularly one predominant in Western traditions, when they already have autonomous methods of demonstrating pride towards their identity within Zapotec culture, such as through velas. This autonomous form of activism aims to secure muxes’ status and rights on their own terms, but also partner and connect with LGBTQ+ organizations worldwide. But ultimately, it is in the best interest of muxes to practice activism in a way that reflects their culture and community’s needs so they can be most accurately represented.

Conclusion

As muxes and other gender deviant groups continue to navigate a postcolonial world that reinforces the binary structure of gender, it is important to be familiar with the specific ways they prefer to be addressed to avoid subjecting them to Western standards of gender. Often people who are socialized under the Western lens fail to see its detrimental impacts and the importance of using correct terminology may seem insignificant. Unfortunately, they easy may assume there is a universalized gender system and use its terminology to refer to queer groups worldwide; doing so erases Indigenous culture which actively tries to define itself as an autonomous entity beyond the gender binary. That is why it is crucial for influential figures in Western academia to correctly refer to muxes and other similar groups; if we propagate inaccuracies, we will continue to erase Indigenous culture and contradict their decolonial values.

Academics must expand beyond framing indigenous queerness as idyllic and they must highlight the oppression they face due to the ever-present influences of colonialism. Muxes already have self-empowering festivals and practices that uplift their beauty and traditions. Therefore, framing their existence as unproblematic erases the ongoing struggles they face. If a Western academic wants to showcase the beauties of the muxes as a way to destigmatize queerness to a nonqueer audience, they must do so in a manner that is not in the easily digestible, uncontentious, and safe fashion it is now.

Drawing upon different gender deviant groups worldwide, such as the Hijras or the Two Spirits is helpful for identifying strategies for advancing their autonomy. Because these groups should not be seen as the same and their differences should be recognized, as all groups subjected to European colonialism need to be recognized, it also may be worth considering the benefits of mutualistic solidarities between the groups. The realities of trying to unite geographically distant groups are difficult, so further research is necessary. On one hand, they may be sacrificing their individuality by uniting as one collective force. On the other hand, the ability to advance social justice is always easier and more effective with allied partners.