How Nancy Cárdenas Pioneered LGBTQ+ Rights in Mexico

Like the smile that characterized her and with which she appears in numerous photographic records, Nancy Cárdenas' work in the cultural and political life of Mexico was formidable: not only was she an actress, but she also worked as a playwright, director of theater, critic, writer, screenwriter, poet, speaker and activist.

She dedicated a significant amount of energy to this last aspect of her life, since her passion as a creator and her profound interest in social justice ran parallel throughout her professional career. This inseparable combination of her quality as an artist is one of the reasons why Cárdenas herself came to describe herself as a “guerrilla disguised as an artist,” as recorded in a 1981 interview:

“As a student, I started from a strong social concern, as a member of the Communist Party, and it could have led to taking up a weapon, but I ventured into art. Yes, I admit it, I am aware that provocative theater is being performed, I am still an 'urban guerrilla' disguised as an artist”.

The rebellion that was typical of her and her interest in just causes were reflected in her far from passive political activity. From her interest in becoming the director of the student society of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, through her affiliation to the Communist Party and her participation in student movements, to her deep commitment to the homosexual liberation movement and feminism, Nancy Cárdenas demonstrated that for her the social and political were not separated from artistic creation, becoming a pioneer of activism for the rights of lesbians and homosexuals, and a director who faced a Mexican theater scene in which women They made their way into an activity historically dominated by men.

This closeness between her social concerns and her activity as a creator led to various theatrical projects that made clear her vision regarding the human rights of people of sexual diversity. One of them was the staging of The Boys in the Band, an adaptation of the famous work by Mart Crowley that was covered and directed by Nancy Cárdenas and staged in 1974 at the Teatro de los Insurgentes.

This staging was subject to censorship, since the delegate of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico City, Delfín Sánchez Juárez, prohibited its presentation, considering that the work could “harm people without judgment”. In the face of censorship, a letter was issued addressed to the then president Luis Echeverría Álvarez, and signed by nearly 200 figures from the artistic world, to demand the exercise of freedom of expression; In addition, a demonstration was held that started from the Hotel de México towards the Zócalo, and in whose ranks were figures such as Ignacio López Tarso, Carmen Salinas, Carlos Monsiváis, Tina Galindo, among others. Finally, after the regent of the then Federal District, Octavio Senties Gómez, responded to the demands for freedom of expression, the staging was presented.

The censorship of The Boys in the Band revealed the conservatism of a certain sector of the capital's society at that time, and added to one of the multiple chapters of the ideological struggles in which conservatives fought their desire to silence and make invisible those they considered different or immoral, but it also demonstrated Cárdenas's willingness to defend his ideals and to bring to the stage stories about the experiences and struggles of people of sexual diversity, stories that highlighted the ideological and moral change by the that Mexican society was going through in the second half of the 20th century.

“Lesbianism, homosexuality and in general, all minority movements are taking off because all these people want to assert their human rights to have their sexual preference respected […] They seem like wonderful events to me! Because I consider that without those struggles the 20th century would not be different from the 19th century in the moral issue”, Cárdenas said in an interview about these political movements.

In 1980, he staged The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a story that featured two lesbian women. In 1988, in the midst of the crisis unleashed by the beginning of the HIV pandemic, Cárdenas created Sida… Así es la vida, by William Hoffman, with which he sought to raise awareness about the discrimination faced by people living with HIV. In the early 1990s she staged Sexualidades, a play written by herself in which she once again used the theatrical stage as a sounding board for the vindication of the rights of people of sexual diversity.

But the provocation promoted by Nancy Cárdenas was not only from the theater stages or in the pages of her publications, but also from activism. Nancy Cárdenas is considered a pioneer of the LGBT movement in our country, as she became a fervent defender—and the public face—of its causes and demands. She came to call herself “The Lesbian of Mexico”, since her pioneering work and visibility as a lesbian woman contributed significantly to the birth of the homosexual liberation movement in our country.

In the early 1970s, Nancy Cárdenas's house became the site of the first meetings of homosexual people seeking to organize politically. Enthusiastic about the revolts that had broken out as a result of the repression of homosexuals at the Stonewall bar in New York in 1969, the woman from Coahuila opened the doors of her apartment in San Pedro de los Pinos in Mexico City to host weekly meetings in the that books and documents on homosexual liberation were read. These meetings would end up forming the Homosexual Liberation Front, considered the first organization in favor of the rights of people of sexual diversity in our country.

In 1974, she was invited to participate in the popular program 24 Horas, hosted by Jacobo Zabludovsky, to comment on the news of a man who had been fired from his job for being homosexual; In her speech, Cárdenas defended the right of homosexual people to live their sexuality freely, and argued against ideas that equated homosexuality with a disease. This fact, considered historic due to its lack of precedent, was described by the writer Carlos Monsiváis in the following way:

“You accepted Jacobo Zabludovsky's invitation and went to comment positively, for the first time on television, on the rights of minorities, responsible homosexuality, the characteristic of free choice so opposed to the notion of 'disease'. Millions watched the show (in disbelief, I suppose) and I witnessed in a restaurant the number of those who came up to you and congratulated you. For them, you inaugurated something in Mexico: the civil value in terms of sexual options”.

Likewise, in 1975 he signed the manifesto Against the practice of citizens as police loot, a text written by Carlos Monsiváis and published in the pages of La cultura en México, a supplement to the magazine Siempre that was directed by the writer himself. The main objective of the publication was to denounce the criminalization of homosexuality, as well as to put an end to the repression and police violence that homosexual people commonly faced. In addition to Cárdenas, the document was signed by other important intellectual figures, artists and writers, such as Juan Rulfo, Elena Poniatowska, José Revueltas, Manuel Felguérez, José María Pérez Gay, among others.

On October 2, 1978, Nancy Cárdenas was part of a contingent of homosexual people who participated in the commemorative march for the 10 years of the repression of the student movement of 1968. This demonstration is considered a preamble to the first LGBTI pride march in our country. country, which took place just a year later.

Just as Cárdenas was a fervent defender of the rights of people of sexual diversity, she was no less so with feminism. For her, feminism was “the consciousness that women acquire when they realize that they have always been historically subjugated”. And as a process of consciousness-raising, for Cárdenas feminism was a kind of “enlightenment,” as he wrote in Of feminist consciousness as an uncomfortable treasure, an essay published in the inaugural issue of Fem magazine in 1976. Among other arguments, In this text, she supported the links between the homosexual liberation movement and the feminist movement, while exposing the approach of some of her theatrical works from the idea of feminist consciousness.

“Feminist consciousness never comes as a gift. It is rather a gradual illumination that takes over a person without them being able to do anything to prevent it unless they are furiously trained for submission”, wrote the theater director.

As we saw, the political and artistic work of Nancy Cárdenas could be described as versatile, hyperactive, consistent, consistent with various social causes, inexhaustible and, above all, tireless. Her life in the art world began at a very young age and since then, she has not stopped: she studied a master's degree in Dramatic Art at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters; She studied at Yale University as a result of a scholarship awarded by the OAS; She collaborated in various magazines writing about culture and politics; she published two books of poetry titled Vuelo agreed (1971) and Cuadernos de amor y desamor (1994); she directed Cuatro at 11, a theater program broadcast on Televisa; She collaborated as an actress in the prestigious theater group Poesía aloud; She created and hosted the program Cinema and Criticism on Radio UNAM; She dedicated herself to radio production and even appeared in fotonovelas. In addition to working as an actress in multiple plays, she worked as a playwright and director, staging works such as The Effect of Gamma Rays on Marigolds, Ah What Women!, What the Butler Saw and Pedro Paramo, to name just a few. some.

It remains to do justice to Nancy Cárdenas through the exercise of memory: that her name, her contributions to the LGBT movement, her defense of feminism, her poetry, her work for culture and her formidable work in Mexican theater are not forgotten and that remain in memory as a work that paved the way for future generations.

Full Citation: Secretaría de Cultura. “Nancy Cárdenas, guerrillera disfrazada de artista.” gob.mx, http://www.gob.mx/cultura/articulos/nancy-cardenas-guerrillera-disfrazada-de-artista?idiom=es. Accessed 1 Feb. 2024.