Educación y derechos ciudadanos. La lucha de las diversas en Juchitán de Zaragoza, Oaxaca

Abstract

The participation of the muxe’ men in the planning of the public policies at the Istmo de Tehuantepec is formal and informal. At the municipal government there is a Council Department for Gender Equality and Human Rights that attends the needs of the most vulnerable groups in the municipality, mainly those of the LGBT community. The practices of the muxe’ are considered an alternative to the binary gender schema that prevails in the country [Mexico]. The muxe’ define themselves as men whose sociocultural practices may be those of either a man or of a woman, and thus their practices constitute a flexible alternative to the binary gender assignment. These men face a national society whose cultural sexual paradigm is binary and homophobic, but which at the same time provides them with spaces for expression at the mass media. Their self-identification with their muxe’ condition involves the recognition of an identity with an indigenous community and the religious catholic practice. The political parties and the processes of economic change that have taken place in the region represent a challenge for the organization, which is looking for alternatives to adapt themselves to the binary gender schema.