Mexico City. A total of 800 thousand people flooded the streets of the capital, since noon dozens of contingents departed from the Angel of Independence to the Zocalo square in the 47th edition of the Pride March, in which LGBTIQ+ Pride Day was commemorated.
The Secretariats of Government and Citizen Security pointed out that last year, this march had an attendance of 260 thousand people, so the 2025 edition tripled the number of participants without any incident reported.
The capital authorities highlighted the implementation of a security operation, which included 2 thousand collaborators from various ministries, who provided accompaniment, as well as the deployment of 260 elements of Traffic Control of the SSC, 21 patrols, 10 motorcycles and five cranes, as well as 28 paramedics who were sent to strategic points of the mobilization route along with two ambulances and two motorcycle ambulances.
Original text published in La Jornada on June 27th, 2025.
“If Zapata were alive, he would be walking with us.”
On Sunday, June 22, 2025, a couple hundred of people marched through the streets of San Cristóbal de las Casas to visibilize the struggle of the LGBTIQA+ community. The march left at 11 am from the esplanade of the Administrative Unit, traveled through the main streets of downtown, and ended at the central park.
With shouts, banners and LGBTIQA+ flags, the marchers denounced the heteropatriarchal violence exercised by the binary and cisgender system, which naturalizes and legitimizes transphobia, homophobia and lesbophobia.
Joy and humor were also present during the march where protesters could be heard shouting slogans such as “If Zapata lived, he would be wearing heels” or “Those peeping toms are also fags.” Militant joy is also a way of claiming rights, as demonstrated by the creativity of the slogans, explains Mexican transfeminist philosopher Sayak Valencia. According to Sayak, the colorful glitter, the choreographies, the performances, the green handkerchiefs, the purple color and the songs are part of the feminist and transfeminist lexicon.
The bodies, from the transfeminist activisms, reflect rebellion and joy, despite the collective mourning.
During the march, trans people who have been victims of hate crimes were commemorated. It is worth mentioning that in the last year, 68 transfeminicides were registered in Mexico, a figure on the rise compared to previous years. In addition, two years after the murder of the non-binary judge Jesús Ociel Baena, his case remains unpunished, another example of the complicity of the institutional system with hate crimes against the LGBTIQA+ community.
They were murdered for proudly affirming their gender identity and for being an outspoken and politically active person. Their activism in favor of the visibility of non-binary people and the defense of the rights of the LGBTIQA+ community was bothersome. Ociel Baena promoted avant-garde initiatives such as, for example, the addition of a gender definition option, beyond the male or female binarism, in the voting credential.
From an intersectional and decolonial perspective, we remember that racialized, disabled or low-income trans people are victims of racist, classist and classist violence, which are intertwined with gender discrimination.
In the face of the multifaceted violence exercised by the capitalist system against the LGBTIQA+ community, the call for collective care was one of the demands of the march participants.
Protesters demanded the approval of the gender identity law in Chiapas, shouting slogans such as “Same taxes, same rights.” Chiapas is one of the ten states in the country that does not have a law that allows the change of name and gender in official documents such as birth certificates.
The approval of the gender identity law is a fundamental legal instrument to advance towards equality and fight against the discrimination that trans and non-binary people suffer on a daily basis. We must move towards a questioning of our legal apparatus, where laws are biased by heteronormativity, aimed at cisgender and heterosexual people, and erected by the mandate of masculinity.
Original text and photos published by Comunidad Planetaria Junax and Sylvie Argibay on June 27th, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.