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‘Now I Have Found Myself, and I Am Happy’: Marta Olmos, Sex Reassignment, the Media and Mexico on a Global Stage, 1952–7

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 August 2023

Ryan M. Jones Open the ORCID record for Ryan M. Jones [Opens in a new window]
Ryan M. Jones*
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Associate Professor of History, State University of New York at Geneseo
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Email: jonesr@geneseo.edu
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Abstract

In May 1954, the story broke internationally of Marta Olmos, recipient of the first widely known, male-to-female sex reassignment conducted in Mexico. Her doctor, Rafael Sandoval Camacho, claimed that homosexuality could be cured and that, through transitions, queer Mexicans could be made into ‘socially useful’ citizens. While initially celebrated as a scientific triumph placing Mexico among elite nations, and receiving support from individuals close to the Ruiz Cortines administration, opinions soured as critics – physicians, politicians, cartoonists and clerics – condemned Marta for renouncing manhood through a fraudulent cure that threatened the binary sex/gender order underpinning Mexican nationalism. Sex reassignment, understood through foreigners including Christine Jorgensen and associated with ‘anti-social’ queer Mexicans, thus exemplified misplaced priorities during a period in which the state sought to ‘modernise patriarchy’. While self-affirming for Marta and permitted unofficially through state indifference, sex reassignment became seen as anti-Mexican. Thus, Marta's case illuminated how the state reconciled development with policing its patriarchal order.

En mayo de 1954, fue noticia internacional el caso de Marta Olmos, recipiente de la primera reasignación sexual ampliamente conocida de hombre a mujer realizada en México. Su doctor, Rafael Sandoval Camacho, señaló que la homosexualidad podía ser curada y que, por medio de transiciones, mexicanos queer podían convertirse en ciudadanos ‘socialmente útiles’. Mientras que inicialmente se celebró como un triunfo científico que ubicó a México entre las naciones líderes y recibió apoyo de individuos cercanos a la administración de Ruiz Cortines, también se empañaron las opiniones cuando los críticos – médicos, políticos, caricaturistas y curas – condenaron a Marta por haber renunciado a su género masculino por medio de una cura fraudulenta que amenazaba el orden binario sexo/género sosteniendo al nacionalismo mexicano. La reasignación sexual, entendida a través de extranjeros como Christine Jorgensen y relacionada con mexicanos queer ‘antisociales’, entonces ejemplificó prioridades equivocadas durante un periodo en el que el estado buscaba ‘modernizar el patriarcado’. Aunque auto-afirmante para Marta y permitida extraoficialmente a través de la indiferencia estatal, la reasignación sexual fue vista como anti-mexicana. Por lo tanto, el caso de Marta mostró cómo el estado reconcilió el desarrollo con la fiscalización de su orden patriarcal.

Em maio de 1954, foi divulgada internacionalmente a história de Marta Olmos, receptora da primeira redesignação sexual amplamente conhecida de homem para mulher realizada no México. Seu médico, Rafael Sandoval Camacho, afirmou que a homossexualidade poderia ser curada e que, por meio de transições, os mexicanos queer poderiam se tornar cidadãos ‘socialmente úteis’. Embora inicialmente celebrado como um triunfo científico, colocando o México entre as nações de elite e recebendo apoio de indivíduos próximos ao governo Ruiz Cortines, as opiniões azedaram quando os críticos – médicos, políticos, cartunistas e clérigos – condenaram Marta por renunciar à masculinidade por meio de uma cura fraudulenta que ameaçava a ordem binária sexo/gênero que sustentava o nacionalismo mexicano. A redesignação sexual, compreendida por estrangeiros como Christine Jorgensen e associada a mexicanos queer ‘anti-sociais’, portanto exemplificou prioridades equivocadas durante um período em que o Estado procurou ‘modernizar o patriarcado’. Embora auto-afirmante para Marta e permitida não oficialmente pela indiferença do estado, a redesignação sexual passou a ser vista como anti-mexicana. Assim, o caso de Marta iluminou como o estado reconciliou o desenvolvimento com o policiamento de sua ordem patriarcal.

Keywords

homosexualitytransgenderMarta OlmosChristine Jorgensenmedia culturetabloidsnationalismgender normssexologysex reassignmenthomosexualidadtransgéneroMarta OlmosChristine Jorgensencultura mediáticatabloidesnacionalismonormas de génerosexologíareasignación sexualhomossexualidadetransgêneroMarta OlmosChristine Jorgensencultura de mídiatabloidesnacionalismonormas de gênerosexologiaredesignação sexual
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 3 , August 2023 , pp. 455 - 489
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 ‘¡Lo único que nos faltaba!’, ABC, 5 May 1954, p. 1; ‘El caso de hombre […]’, ABC, 5 May 1954, p. 2; ‘Asombra el cambio de Jorge Olmos’, Últimas Noticias, 5 May 1954, p. 1; Alfonso Serrano, ‘Mediante 6 intervenciones quirúrgicas […]’, Excélsior, 5 May 1954, p. 23A. Publications are Mexico City-based unless specified. Some initially stated Marta's maternal surname as ‘Ramiro’; some used the anglicised ‘Martha’.

2 Camacho, Rafael Sandoval, Una contribución experimental al estudio de la homosexualidad (Mexico City: n.p., 1957)Google Scholar.

3 ‘Un hombre del Puerto […]’, Diario de Xalapa, 6 May 1954, p. 1.

4 Asociación de Editores de los Estados (AEE), ‘Revuelo por la operación […]’, El Siglo de Torreón, 6 May 1954, p. 1; ‘Dieron personalidad femenina […]’, El Porvenir (Monterrey), 6 May 1954, p. 1; ‘Información que dañan […]’, El Informador (Guadalajara), 8 May 1954, p. 1.

5 Australian Associated Press (AAP), ‘To Ban Sex Switch’, Brisbane Telegraph, 6 May 1954, p. 13; United Press (UP), ‘Male Clerk […]’, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 May 1954.

6 International News Service (INS), ‘3 Mexican Interns Change Sex of Man’, Los Angeles Examiner, 6 May 1954, p. 8; Ángel Viniegra, ‘ABC habla con Jorge Olmos […]’, ABC, 6 May 1954, p. 3; Sandoval, Una contribución, pp. 55–73.

7 INS, ‘3 Mexican Interns […]’, Los Angeles Examiner, 6 May 1954, p. 8; Serrano, ‘Mediante 6 intervenciones quirúrgicas […]’, Excélsior, 5 May 1954, p. 23A.

8 Ibid.

9 AEE, ‘Debe descartarse […]’, El Siglo de Torreón, 10 May 1954, p. 11.

10 Don Yo, ‘Así es la vida’, La Prensa, 12 May 1954, p. 9.

11 ‘El obispo de Tamaulipas […]’, El Sol (Phoenix, AZ), 21 May 1954, p. 3; Iglesias, E., ‘Cambio de sexo’, Christus, 19: 229 (1954), pp. 1026–7Google Scholar.

12 See, for instance, Monsiváis, Carlos, ‘Los gays en México: La fundación, la ampliación, la consolidación del ghetto’, Debate Feminista, 13: 26 (2002), pp. 89–115Google Scholar; Macías-González, Víctor, ‘The Transnational Homophile Movement and the Development of Domesticity in Mexico City's Homosexual Community, 1930–70’, Gender & History, 26: 3 (2014), pp. 519–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, Ryan M., ‘Mexican Sexology and Male Homosexuality’, in Fuechtner, Veronika, Haynes, Douglas A. and Jones, Ryan M. (eds.), A Global History of Sexual Science (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017), pp. 232–57Google Scholar; Sánchez, Nathaly Rodríguez, ‘De Cuauhtemotzín a las cervecerías: El control oficial del homoerotismo masculino y la construcción estratégica de la geografía disidente, Ciudad de México 1930–51’, Historia Mexicana, 68: 1 (2018), pp. 111–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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15 McManus, Siobhan [Fabrizzio], ‘Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Biomedical Sciences in Twentieth Century Mexico’, Sexuality and Culture, 18: 2 (2014), pp. 235–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘(Re)trazos de una historia: La homosexualidad y las ciencias biomédicas en el México del mediados del siglo XX’, in Rodrigo Parrini Rosas and Alejandro Brito (eds.), La memoria y el deseo: Estudios gay y queer en México (Mexico City: UNAM, 2014), pp. 51–76; Skidmore, Emily, ‘Constructing the “Good Transsexual”: Christine Jorgensen, Whiteness, and Heteronormativity in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Press’, Feminist Studies, 37: 2 (2011), pp. 270–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, ‘Mexican Sexology’.

16 Mary Kay Vaughan, ‘Pancho Villa, the Daughters of Mary, and the Modern Woman: Gender in the Long Mexican Revolution’, in Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan and Gabriela Cano (eds.), Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), p. 28; Rath, Thomas, ‘Modernizing Military Patriarchy: Gender and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Mexico, 1920–1960’, Journal of Social History, 52: 3 (2019), pp. 807–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Benjamin T. Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society, 1940–1946 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), pp. 14, 25–6.

18 Paul Gillingham, Michael Lettieri and Benjamin T. Smith, ‘Introduction’, in Gillingham, Lettieri and Smith (eds.), Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2019), pp. 6–17.

19 On ‘queer embodiment’, see Susan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution (Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2008), p. 20; Emily Skidmore, True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 2017), p. 11.

20 On similarly avoiding the US-centric trap, see Stryker, Susan, ‘We Who Are Sexy: Christine Jorgensen's Transsexual Whiteness in the Postcolonial Philippines’, Social Semiotics, 19: 1 (2009), p. 89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Skidmore, True Sex, pp. 9–11; and Howard Chiang, Transtopia in the Sinophone Pacific (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021).

21 On ‘trans’ as a process, see Jen Manion, Female Husbands: A Trans History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p. 11; Stryker, Transgender History, p. 1.

22 On ‘gender migration’, see Jesse Bayker, ‘“Some Very Queer Couples”: Gender Migrants and Intimacy in Nineteenth-Century America’, Gender & History, 35: 1 (2023), pp. 103–23, quotations pp. 103–4 and 107–8.

23 Gabriela Cano, ‘Unconcealable Realities of Desire: Amelio Robles's (Transgender) Masculinity in the Mexican Revolution’, in Olcott, Vaughan and Cano (eds.), Sex in Revolution, pp. 46–8.

24 Associated Press (AP), ‘Cambio de sexo […]’, La Prensa (San Antonio, TX), 30 Sept. 1936. Leñero later operated on Trotsky.

25 ‘Cambio de sexo’, Sucesos para Todos, 19 Oct. 1937, p. 2; ‘Encantado de haber cambiado de sexo’, La Prensa (San Antonio), 20 Feb. 1938; ‘Maybe Girl, Maybe Man’, Austin Statesman (TX), 8 March 1941, p. 5; ‘Queer Case […]’, Richmond River Herald (NSW), 6 June 1941, p. 1. Bonilla worked for the Green Cross ambulance service.

26 ‘De Plaza de Armas […]’, El Dictamen, 29 April 1951.

27 Darwin Porter, Howard Hughes: Hell's Angel (New York: Blood Moon, 2005), pp. 575–6, 737; Zagria, ‘Whatever happened to Pussy Katt (1929–)’, A Gender Variance Who's Who, available at https://zagria.blogspot.com/2008/12/whatever-happened-to-pussy-katt-1929.html, last access 18 March 2023.

28 Weyrauch to Pesqueira, 19 Feb. 1953, Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Salud (hereafter SALUD), Secretaria de Salubridad y Asistencia (hereafter AHSSA), Subsecretaria de Asistencia (hereafter SUBA), box 11, folder 3, 02/403/1. (Citation accurate in 2009.)

29 Pesqueira to Weyrauch, 13 March 1953, SALUD, AHSSA, SUBA, box 11, folder 3, 02/403/1.

30 Susan Stryker, ‘Don Lucas Interview’, 13 June 1997, GLBT Historical Society, Digital Transgender Archive (DTA), available at http://docs.glbthistory.org/oh/Lucas_Don6-13-1997_web.pdf, last access 18 March 2023.

31 ‘Cambio de sexo’, Sucesos para Todos, 19 Oct. 1937, p. 2.

32 ‘Maybe Girl, Maybe Man’, Austin Statesman (TX), 8 March 1941, p. 5; ‘Queer Case […]’, Richmond River Herald (NSW), 6 June 1941, p. 1.

33 Sandoval, Una contribución, pp. 35–6.

34 ‘Un hombre del Puerto […]’, Diario de Xalapa, 6 May 1954, p. 1; Viniegra, ‘ABC habla con Jorge Olmos […]’, ABC, 6 May 1954, p. 3; ‘Jorge Olmos Romero se convierte […]’, La Prensa, 6 May 1954, p. 15; AEE, ‘Marta Olmos está feliz’, El Siglo de Torreón, 7 May 1954, p. 1.

35 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 35.

36 Ibid., p. 2; Rafael Sandoval Camacho, ‘Informe general sobre la exploración sanitaria de la Villa de Unión de San Antonio, Jalisco efectuada del 20 de septiembre de 1941 al 20 de febrero de 1942’ (Mexico City: UNAM, 1942); Raúl Domínguez Martínez, Historia de la física nuclear en México, 1933–1963 (Mexico City: UNAM, 2000), p. 117.

37 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 35.

38 Gregorio Marañón, The Evolution of Sex and Intersexual Conditions, trans. Warre B. Wells (London: G. Allen and Unwin, 1932), p. 166; Leopoldo Baeza y Acévez, Endocrinología y criminalidad (Mexico City: Imprenta Universitaria, 1950), pp. 233–4. For a broader discussion of ‘Latin sexology’, see Chiara Beccalossi, ‘Latin Eugenics and Sexual Knowledge in Italy, Spain, and Argentina: International Networks Across the Atlantic’, in Fuechtner, Haynes and Jones (eds.), A Global History of Sexual Science, pp. 305–29; Jones, ‘Mexican Sexology’, pp. 232–57.

39 He also cited Carl Westphal, Albert Moll, Jean-Martin Charcot, Valentin Magnan and Auguste Forel.

40 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 32.

41 Ibid., pp. 7, 28–9, 32, 54.

42 Ibid., pp. 36–7, 51–4; Jones, ‘Mexican Sexology’, pp. 241, 245.

43 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 52.

44 ‘Jorge Olmos Romero se convierte […]’, La Prensa, 6 May 1954, p. 24.

45 See, for instance, Nancy Leys Stepan, The Hour of Eugenics: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996); Alexandra Minna Stern, ‘Responsible Mothers and Normal Children: Eugenics, Nationalism, and Welfare in Post-Revolutionary Mexico, 1920–1940’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 12: 4 (1999), pp. 369–97; Robert Buffington, Criminal and Citizen in Modern Mexico (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000); Pablo Piccato, City of Suspects: Crime in Mexico City, 1900–1931 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001); Diego Pulido Esteva, Las Islas Marías: Historia de una colonia penal (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH), 2017).

46 Sandoval, Una contribución, pp. 11–12, 54, 75–8, 87; ‘Jorge Olmos Romero se convierte […]’, La Prensa, 6 May 1954, pp. 15, 24; Viniegra, ‘ABC habla con Jorge Olmos […]’, ABC, 6 May 1954, p. 3.

47 Lara Marks, Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 67–72.

48 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 12.

49 Ibid.; Diario de los debates de la cámara de senadores, 1: 38 (27 Dec. 1952), p. 18.

50 See Alfonso Quiroz Cuarón, ‘Una historia clínica’, Criminalia, 2 (Aug. 1935), pp. 175–85; Jones, ‘Mexican Sexology’, pp. 232–46.

51 McManus, ‘Homosexuality’, p. 250; ‘(Re)trazos’, pp. 51–76.

52 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 113.

53 Ibid., p. 35; AEE, ‘Marta Olmos está feliz’, El Siglo de Torreón, 7 May 1954, p. 1.

54 UP, ‘Male Clerk […]’, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 May 1954; AEE, ‘Marta Olmos está feliz’, El Siglo de Torreón, 7 May 1954, p. 10.

55 ‘El hombre vuelto mujer’, La Prensa, 7 May 1954, pp. 2, 12, 39, ‘Jorge Olmos Romero se convierte […]’, La Prensa, 6 May 1954, p. 15; AEE, ‘Marta Olmos está feliz’, El Siglo de Torreón, 7 May 1954, p. 1.

56 ‘Martha hace sus compras’, ABC, 7 May 1954.

57 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 47.

58 Ibid., pp. 39–54, 93–110.

59 ‘Asombra el cambio de Jorge Olmos’, Últimas Noticias, 5 May 1954, p. 1.

60 Armando Boyer, ‘Yo lo vi’, Últimas Noticias, 7 May 1954, p. 7.

61 ‘Jorge Olmos Romero se convierte […]’, La Prensa, 6 May 1954, pp. 15, 24; ‘La cirugía ha logrado […]’, El Sol (Phoenix, AZ), 14 May 1954, p. 3.

62 Iglesias, ‘Cambio de sexo’, pp. 1026–7; Miguel Campo, S. J., ‘Cambio de sexo’, Sal Terrae, 43: 1 (1955), pp. 31–2; Miguel Campo, S. J., ‘Cambio de sexo’, Sal Terrae, 43: 5 (1955), pp. 284–7.

63 ‘¡Lo único que nos faltaba!’, ABC, 5 May 1954, p. 1; ‘Quiere trabajar […]’, La Prensa, 8 May 1954, pp. 2, 23.

64 Skidmore, ‘Constructing the “Good Transsexual”’, p. 273.

65 ‘El hombre vuelto mujer’, La Prensa, 7 May 1954, cover and pp. 2, 12.

66 UP, ‘La transformación del hijo de un carpintero […]’, El Nacional, 3 Dec. 1952, sec. 2, pp. 1, 3; INS, ‘Soldado chino convertido […]’, El Siglo de Torreón, 22 Aug 1953, p. 9; UP, ‘Otro ex-soldado yanqui […]’, El Siglo de Torreón, 25 Feb. 1954, p. 1; ‘Un piloto que se convertido […]’, ABC, 21 April 1954, p. 10.

67 Rick A. López, Crafting Mexico: Intellectuals, Artisans, and the State after the Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 29–64; Mary Kay Vaughan, Cultural Politics in Revolution (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1997), p. 197.

68 Anne Rubenstein, ‘The War on “Las Pelonas”: Modern Women and Their Enemies, Mexico City, 1924’, in Olcott, Vaughan and Cano (eds.), Sex in Revolution, pp. 56–80.

69 ‘El lic. José Vasconcelos condena […]’, El Sol (Phoenix, AZ), 21 May 1954, p. 3.

70 Christopher Conway, ‘Birds of a Feather: Pollos and the Nineteenth-Century Prehistory of Mexican Homosexuality’, in William G. Acree and Juan Carlos González Espitia (eds.), Building Nineteenth-Century Latin America (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009), pp. 202–26.

71 See Robert McKee Irwin, Edward J. McCaughan and Michelle Rocío Nasser (eds.), The Famous 41: Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico c.1901 (New York: Palgrave, 2003); Robert McKee Irwin, Mexican Masculinities (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003).

72 AP, ‘El cambio de sexo […]’, El Siglo de Torreón, 3 Dec. 1952, p. 3; France-Presse, ‘Comentarios sobre […]’, El Universal, 4 Dec. 1952, pp. 17, 28.

73 Octavio Colmenares, ‘¿Puede la ciencia cambiar […]?’, Jueves de Excélsior, 18 Dec. 1952; Jacques Furtan, ‘¿Quiere usted cambiar de sexo?’, Jueves de Excélsior, 22 Jan. 1953; and ‘¿Quiere usted cambiar de sexo? II’, Jueves de Excélsior, 29 Jan. 1953.

74 AP, ‘El asunto de “Cristina”’, El Informador, 9 April 1953, p. 3.

75 Jocelyn Olcott, Revolutionary Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), p. 234; ‘No se permitirá […]’, El Informador, 14 Oct. 1953, p. 3; ‘Christine OK for Mex […]’, Variety, 4 Nov. 1953, p. 51.

76 Dalton Romay, ‘Jovencita convertida […]’, Magazine de Policía, 10 Feb. 1954; see also ‘Sex-Change Tale […]’, Sunday Times (Perth), 22 Jan. 1953 for a different case.

77 Dalton Romay, ‘“¡Ellas!” […]’, Magazine de Policía, 25 March 1954, pp. 6–7, verso.

78 ‘Se multiplican las Cristinas’, Magazine de Policía, 22 April 1954, p. 14; ‘Se multiplican las Cristinas, II’, Magazine de Policía, 26 April 1954, pp. 14–15.

79 ‘Solicitan operación […]’, El Siglo de Torreón, 19 Feb. 1953, p. 9; AAP, ‘To Ban Sex Switch’, p. 13.

80 ‘Se multiplican las Cristinas’, Magazine de Policía, 22 April 1954, p. 14.

81 ‘¡Lo único que nos faltaba!’, ABC, 5 May 1954, p. 1.

82 ‘No es cordero, que es cordera’, ABC, 7 May 1954, p. 6. The title referenced Shakespeare's gender-bending Twelfth Night.

83 Samantha J. E. Riches, ‘St. George as a Male Virgin Martyr’, in Samantha J. E. Riches and Sarah Salih (eds.), Gender and Holiness: Men, Women, and Saints in Late Medieval Europe (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 65–85.

84 Claudio Lomnitz, Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), pp. 103, 135–6.

85 John Lear, Picturing the Proletariat: Artists and Labor in Revolutionary Mexico, 1908–1940 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2017), pp. 109–11.

86 Karla Cancino, ‘¿Será este la origen de la “operación jarocha”?’, Diario de Xalapa, 19 Sept. 2018, available at www.diariodexalapa.com.mx/local/la-jarocha-reasignacion-de-sexo-2008914.html, last access 19 March 2023.

87 Pablo Piccato, A History of Infamy: Crime, Truth, and Justice in Mexico (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017), pp. 63–106.

88 ‘Jorge Olmos Romero se convierte […]’, La Prensa, 6 May 1954, p. 24.

89 ‘El hombre vuelto mujer’, La Prensa, 7 May 1954, pp. 2, 12, 39.

90 ‘Martha hace sus compras’, ABC, 7 May 1954, pp. 8–9.

91 Luis Hidalgo y Carpio and Gustavo Ruiz y Sandoval, Compendio de medicina legal, vol. 1 (Mexico: Imprenta de Ignacio Escalante, 1877), pp. 11–12.

92 Óscar Urrutia, ‘Don Chepe y Mr. Puff’, Detectives, 19 Sept. 1932.

93 ‘Quiere trabajar […]’, La Prensa, 8 May 1954, pp. 2, 23.

94 N. Padilla, ‘Sucesos de la semana’, Magazine de Policía, 24 May 1954.

95 ‘Mexico Again Puts Nix […]’, Variety, 26 May 1954, p. 2.

96 ‘Natural desconfianza’, Universal Gráfico, 8 May 1954.

97 ‘Le han hechos para filmar Martita […]’, Magazine de Policía, 13 May 1954.

98 ‘Instantáneas’, Jueves de Excélsior, 13 May 1954.

99 AEE, ‘Reacción unánime de desaprobación […]’, El Porvenir, 9 May 1954, p. 1.

100 ‘Dos médicos eminentes […]’, ABC, 11 May 1954, p. 5.

101 ‘El lic. José Vasconcelos condena […]’, El Sol (Phoenix, AZ), 21 May 1954, p. 3.

102 Nikita Nipongo, ‘Perlas japonesas’, Excélsior, 11 May 1954, p. 7A.

103 ‘No es cordero, que es cordera’, ABC, 7 May 1954’, p. 6.

104 ‘Antifaz científico […]’, El Universal, 8 May 1954, p. 7; ‘El lic. José Vasconcelos condena […]’, El Sol (Phoenix, AZ), 21 May 1954, p. 3.

105 Nipongo, ‘Perlas japonesas’, Excélsior, 11 May 1954, p. 7A.

106 Yo, ‘Así es la vida’, La Prensa, 10 May 1954, p. 9.

107 ‘Está en bancarrota la ética […]’, Universal Gráfico, 11 May 1954, pp. 3, 18; ‘Ética profesional’, Universal Gráfico, 12 May 1954, p. 6; ‘Codena el director […]’, Universal Gráfico, 12 May 1954, pp. 3, 19.

108 Yo, ‘Así es la vida’, La Prensa, 12 May 1954, p. 9.

109 ‘Se multiplican las Cristinas, II’, Magazine de Policía, 26 April 1954, p. 15; Rafael Freyre, ‘Cambios’, Excélsior, 6 May 1954, p. 6A.

110 ‘No es cordero, que es cordera’, ABC, 7 May 1954, p. 6. Ferdinand preferred flowers to bullfights in Munro Leaf's 1936 classic.

111 ‘Editorial’, Magazine de Policía, 17 May 1954, p. 3.

112 ‘Buscabullas’, Magazine de Policía, 20 May 1954.

113 Yo, ‘Así es la vida’, La Prensa, 14 May 1954, p. 9.

114 ‘El feminismo se impone’, La Guacamaya, 25 July 1907, p. 1. La Guacamaya was one prominent penny-press newspaper lampooning effeminacy and homosexuality after 1901.

115 ‘En pro y en contra […]’, Jueves de Excélsior, 8 Jan. 1953.

116 Rafael Freyre, cover, Jueves de Excélsior, 15 Jan. 1953.

117 Yo, ‘Así es la vida’, La Prensa, 17 May 1954, p. 9.

118 Italo Manzi, ‘María Félix, el último mito’, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 629 (Nov. 2002), p. 84.

119 ‘Quiere trabajar […]’, La Prensa, 8 May 1954, pp. 2, 23.

120 ‘Que reglamenten aquí […]’, Últimas Noticias, 11 May 1954, p. 1.

121 See David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Ben Cowan, Securing Sex: Morality and Repression in the Making of Cold War Brazil (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016).

122 Roger D. Hansen, The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1971), pp. 72–3.

123 Benjamin T. Smith, ‘The Year Mexico Stopped Laughing: The Crowd, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico City’, in Gillingham, Lettieri and Smith (eds.), Journalism, Satire, and Citizenship, pp. 106, 112–15, 126–7.

124 ‘Sincero’, ABC, 7 May 1954, p. 6.

125 ‘Círculo no. 305-4-34’, Diario Oficial, 20 April 1954, p. 2.

126 Ryan M. Alexander, Sons of the Mexican Revolution: Miguel Alemán and His Generation (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2016), p. 170.

127 Dwight S. Brothers and Leopoldo Solís M., Mexican Financial Development (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1966), p. 86.

128 ‘Guerra a los hambreados […]’, La Prensa, 7 May 1954, pp. 2, 28; ‘Otro perorata al rojo […]’, La Prensa, 8 May 1954, pp. 1, 3.

129 Jorge Carreño, ‘Castigo’, La Prensa, 8 May 1954, p. 8.

130 ‘Quiere trabajar […]’, La Prensa, 8 May 1954, pp. 2, 23.

131 ‘Problema electoral’, ABC, 10 May 1954, p. 6.

132 Renato Leduc, ‘Banqueta’, Últimas Noticias, 6 May 1954, p. 1.

133 INS, ‘Mexico Sex Surgery Claimed’, Lubbock (TX) Morning Avalanche, 5 May 1954; the Delphos (OH) Daily Herald, Elyria (OH) Chronicle-Telegram, San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Examiner, Lima (OH) News, New York Journal-American and Daily Times (New Philadelphia, OH) published versions on 5–6 May 1954; UP, ‘Marta Claims […]’, Kalispell (MT) Daily Inter Lake, 6 May 1954; the Daily News (Los Angeles) ran a version; The El Paso (TX) Herald-Post, Citizen News (Hollywood) and Capital Times (Madison, WI) published photos; UP, ‘Man Changes Sex […]’, Argus (Melbourne), 7 May 1954; ‘Third Male Changed […]’, Maryborough (QLD) Chronicle, 8 May 1954; Kyodo-UP, ‘Mexico Boy/Girl […]’, Nippon Times (Tokyo), 7 May 1954; ‘Jorge to Martha’, Singapore Standard, 14 May 1954; ‘Mexican Medics […]’, Sunday Mirror (NY), 30 May 1954.

134 UP, ‘Un mexicano se convirtió […]’, La Opinión (Los Angeles), 6 May 1954, p. 1; UP, ‘También en México […]’, Diario de las Américas (Miami), 7 May 1954, pp. 1, 6.

135 ‘Mexico Again Puts Nix […]’, Variety, 26 May 1954, p. 2; AAP, ‘To Ban Sex Switch’, p. 13; ‘Sexología […]’, Semana (Bogotá), 21 June 1954, p. 19; ‘El obispo de Tamaulipas […]’, El Sol (Phoenix, AZ), 21 May 1954’, p. 3.

136 Felarca, ‘Plato del día’, Ecos de Nueva York, 23 May 1954.

137 Dalton Romay, ‘Explotadores de “Cristinas”’, Magazine de Policía, 27 Sept. 1954, p. 4.

138 Eduardo Muñuzuri, ‘Cambio de sexo […]’, Siempre!, 16 March 1955, pp. 33–4, 70.

139 Juan Morales, ‘Mexico's Hush-Hush Clinic […]’, Whisper, April 1955, pp. 24–5, 43.

140 Skidmore, ‘Constructing the “Good Transsexual”’, pp. 271, 278.

141 ‘No dejarán exhibirse a la “Marta” […]’, Excélsior, 9 May 1954, p. 4C.

142 Alfonso Millán, ‘El carácter antisocial de los homosexuales’, Asistencia, 1: 5 (1934), pp. 11–12, 49.

143 Sandoval, Una contribución, p. 81.

144 Vaughan, ‘Pancho Villa’, pp. 22, 25.

145 Conversely, in post-1979 Iran, politicians, scientists and clerics collectively backed transitions for socio-political goals. See Afsanah Najmabadi, Professing Selves: Transsexuality and Same-Sex Desire in Contemporary Iran (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014), pp. 118–19.

146 Rath, ‘Modernizing’, pp. 808, 823.

147 Cano, ‘Unconcealable’, pp. 42, 46–8.

148 Octavio Paz, El laberinto de soledad (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992), pp. 12–17.

149 Federico Gutiérrez, ‘Por el decoro […]’, Excélsior, 15 May 1954, p. 7A.

150 Ibid.

151 Stryker, ‘We Who Are Sexy’, quotation p. 80; Jennifer Lambe, ‘Christine Jorgensen in Cuba’, American Historical Review, 127: 1 (2022), pp. 388–9.

152 Alex Saragoza, ‘The Selling of Mexico: Tourism and the State’, in Gilbert Joseph, Anne Rubenstein and Eric Zolov (eds.), Fragments of a Golden Age: The Politics of Culture in Mexico since 1940 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 91–115.

153 Morales, ‘Hush-Hush’, p. 25.

154 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, p. 2

155 Skidmore, ‘Constructing the “Good Transsexual”’, pp. 286–7.

156 On ‘Tijuana-ization’, see Eric M. Schantz, ‘Behind the Noir Border: Tourism, the Vice Racket, and Power Relations in Baja California's Border Zone’, in Dina Berger and Andrew Grant Wood (eds.), Holiday in Mexico (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 130–60.

157 Morales, ‘Hush-Hush’, p. 43.

158 Roberto Blancarte, ‘Intransigence, Anticommunism, and Reconciliation: Church/State Relations in Transition’, in Gillingham and Smith (eds.), Dictablanda, pp. 70–88.

159 Jeffrey Rubin, ‘Contextualizing the Regime: What 1938–1968 Tells Us About Mexico, Power, and Latin America's Twentieth Century’, in Gillingham and Smith (eds.), Dictablanda, p. 390; Victor Macías-González, ‘Homosexuales’, in Susana Sosenski and Gabriela Pulido Llano (eds.), Hampones, pelados y pecatrices (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2019), pp. 84–119.

160 ‘Redada de tipos […]’, El Universal, 16 June 1953, p. 24; ‘Con mano de hierro […]’, Últimas Noticias, 7 March 1954, p. 8.

161 Torrets, Francisco Ferrer and D'Oc, Joan, Sodoma pide fuero: ¿Es respetable un país con veinte millones de homosexuales? (Mexico City: F. Ferrer, 1959)Google Scholar.

162 Zolov, Eric, Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pensado, Jaime M., Rebel Mexico: Student Unrest and Authoritarian Political Culture during the Long Sixties (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), pp. 8, 181–200Google Scholar.

163 ‘Reglamento de la Ley de la Industria Cinematográfica’, Diario Oficial, art. 71, 6 August 1951.

164 ‘No dejarán exhibirse a la “Marta” […]’, Excélsior, 9 May 1954, p. 4C.

165 ‘Nada de temas equívocos […]’, Excélsior, 11 May 1954, p. 10A.

166 ‘Nada de “Marta Olmos” […]’, Excélsior, 12 May 1954, p. 4B; Raúl Cantú, ‘Cine-Cosas’, La Prensa (San Antonio), 30 May 1954.

167 ‘El doctor Gaxiola se negó […]’, Excélsior, 13 May 1954, p. 4B.

168 Cantú, ‘Cine-Cosas’, La Prensa (San Antonio), 30 May 1954; Nora Herrero, ‘La vida en México’, La Prensa (San Antonio), 6 June 1954.

169 Pablo Piccato, ‘Notes for a History of the Press in Mexico’, in Gillingham, Lettieri and Smith (eds.), Journalism, Satire, and Censorship in Mexico, pp. 33–60; Smith, The Mexican Press and Civil Society, pp. 17–26, 43–80.

170 The ‘double movement’ concept is developed in C. Riley Snorton, Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minneapolis Press, 2017).

171 AEE, ‘Se desaprueba […]’, El Siglo de Torreón, 9 May 1954; Morales, ‘Hush-Hush’, p. 43.

172 Ibid., p. 25; UP, ‘Him's a Her […]’, San Bernardino Sun, 11 Nov. 1955.

173 Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed, pp. 132–3, 86, 147, 187; Benjamin, Harry, The Transsexual Phenomenon (New York: Julian Press, 1966) pp. 131, 168Google Scholar; Benjamin to Barbosa, 22 March 1969, Kinsey Institute (hereafter KI), Harry Benjamin Collection (hereafter HBC), Series IIC, box 3, José Jesús Barbosa folder; Benjamin to Anabitarte, 23 June 1967, KI, HBC, Series IIC, box 3, Hector Anabitarte folder; Quraishi to Benjamin, 15 Dec. 1969, KI, HBC, Series VIC, box 25, folder 27.

174 José Antonio Ramos Frías, ‘Estudio criminológico y médico legal de la homosexualidad’, Licenciatura en Derecho, UNAM, 1966, pp. 76–7.

175 Bonnet, Emilio Federico Pablo, ‘Cambio de sexo y homosexualidad: Cuestiones médico-legales’, Criminalia, 33: 2 (1967), pp. 91–108Google Scholar.

176 ‘Se transcribe opinión de la Dirección General de Asuntos Legales en el sentido de que no debe practicarse el cambio de sexo’, 7 Nov. 1969, SALUD, AHSSA, SUBA, box 37, folder 4.

177 Archivo de Registro Civil del Distrito Federal, Acta de defunción 203, 30 Dec. 1972.

178 AEE, ‘Marta Olmos está feliz’, El Siglo de Torreón, 7 May 1954, p. 1.