Revolution in the Sheets: The Politics of Sexuality and Tolerance in the Mexican Left, 1919-2001

Tolerance is considered foundational for a multicultural society to defuse tensions over race, religion, and sexuality. However, critics of tolerance point out that its reliance on the consent of the majority to extend equal rights to a minority, along with its liberal method of individualizing prejudice, does not result in equality. This project historicizes tolerance by examining the trajectory of its adoption by leftist political parties in Mexico to address concerns over sexual identity and difference. It demonstrates that the embrace of tolerance was not only a political strategy for electoral gain, but also a method to maintain a masculinist party. By endorsing a policy of tolerance through the expansion of the principle of private life, leftist parties claimed solidarity with the feminist and sexual liberation movement rather than engage with their criticisms of the heterosexism of leftist militancy.

Issues of sexuality, particularly homosexual and reproductive rights, were in an uneasy, if not antagonistic, relationship with the revolutionary politics of left-wing organizations such as the Mexican Communist Party (PCM) since their foundation. However, between 1976 and 1981, leftist parties shifted their stances. Adopting a policy of tolerance, party leaders hoped to reconcile the growing lesbian, gay and feminist movements with their rank and file because these social movements provided the potential votes that could launch the Left out of electoral obscurity. Revolution in the Sheets traces the limits and outcomes of this strategy. Tolerance did little to stem homophobia or sexism among leftists in Mexico. Furthermore, militants rejected the tolerance policy because sexual politics were the primary outlet for rank and file leftists to dispute intra-party tensions, vocalize intimate grievances, and distinguish themselves from one another for political gain. In the end, the shift to tolerance – a defining feature of the conflicts over the cultural turns that marked the last decades of the twentieth century – was a contingent product of intimate feuds, electoral strategy, and interpersonal relationships.