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75 3 In this chapter, I examine the ways in which laws fail to recognize the rights of transvestite sex workers in Xalapa, Veracruz. On the one hand, the normative model of sexuality inherent in the laws is based on dichotomized categories linked to gender. In these laws, the gender system is presented as consisting of two mutually exclusive categories (women and men), often with complementary roles. Transvestites (and all persons who do not conform to an exclusively heterosexual model of sexual orientation) fall outside the dichotomized vision of society found in most Veracruz state laws. On the other hand, although sex work is not illegal in Mexico, the lack of up-to-date legislation regulating the trade leaves sex workers unprotected with regard to their rights and obligations as workers. Moreover, the existing laws on prostitution, procurement (pimping, on which see also Szasz, this volume), and child prostitution indirectly criminalize commercial sex work. Thus, transvestite sex workers’ rights remain doubly unprotected by Veracruz state legislation. The ethnographic data presented here shows that transvestite sex work is widely understood as something practiced by an abnormal, perverse male who assigns himself a gender that is not his, takes a subordinate position that does not belong to him, and engages in an activity associated with crime and vice. This social perception makes transvestites vulnerable to human rights abuses. Activists have claimed that abuses cannot be fought without changing existing legislation. Legal recognition of a variety of sexual orientations is a first (although not a sufficient ) step to help transvestites and activists fight against ideas that feed into the social imaginary on homosexuality and transvestism—ideas such as abnormality, perversion, and dangerousness. Legal recognition of commercial sex workers could help dispel myths surrounding the perception of sexual services as a dishonorable activity linked to crime and addiction to alcohol and drugs, and provide tools to protect these individuals from the violence they are often subjected to. The Realm outside the Law Transvestite Sex Work in Xalapa, Veracruz ROSÍO CÓRDOVA PLAZA Chap-03 4/7/07 10:55 AM Page 75 The fieldwork presented in this chapter was gathered as part of a broader anthropological study of male sex work in the city of Xalapa, carried out over periods between the years 2000 and 2003. In the course of the research, I conducted field observation as well as countless nonrecorded conversations and eleven in-depth interviews with transgendered sex workers (known as transvestites or vestidas), and two interviews with consumers of their services.1 Transgendered Individuals and the Law The Mexican Constitution fails to recognize alternative sexual orientations in general and transgendered individuals in particular. Article 1 states clearly that no one may suffer discrimination for any reason: “All discrimination motivated by ethnic or national origin, gender, age, ability, social condition, health conditions, religion, opinions, preferences, or marital status is prohibited, as is any other discrimination that harms human dignity and aims to cancel or diminish the rights and freedoms of persons.”2 However, the Constitution does not make explicit reference to sexual orientation with regard to rights and obligations in any of its first twenty-nine articles, contained in its section on individual guarantees (Pérez Contreras 2000, 62), and therefore remains largely underpinned by dichotomized, essentialist concepts of gender and by a reductionist view of the type of association that can happen between and within genders. For example, since 1974, Article 4 has stated: “Men and women are equal before the law. The law will protect the organization and development of the family.” In this statement of principle, there is no room for diversified gender identities, either transgendered or transsexual, nor does the article cover couple relationships other than those between a man and a woman for the purpose of forming a family. Some recent legal reforms are more progressive. In 2003, a new Federal Law to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination listed sexual preference as one of the grounds on which discrimination was to be discouraged in a wide range of public and private arenas.3 The new law prohibits “practicing or promoting physical or psychological abuse on the basis of physical appearance, manner of dressing, speaking, or gesturing, or for the public presentation of one’s sexual preference.”4 Some state-level legislation is also picking up on the theme of discrimination, and making it a criminal offense. For example, in 1999 the Penal Code of the Federal District included a new article, “Crimes against the Dignity of People...

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