Mujercitos: The Profane of Mexican Citizenship

Abstract

The American sociologist Jeffrey Alexander has pointed out that the degree of membership and solidarity in the civil sphere is expressed through the deep cultural codes installed in public opinion and regulatory institutions framing the sacred and the profane of citizenship. This article shows how the sensationist press perceived and judged queer individuals, giving an account of the reasons, relationships, and institutions that founded their exclusion/inclusion during the emergence of the homosexual movement. To this aim, the present study conducts a semiotic analysis of forty-two articles published between 1976 and 1985 by the magazine Alarma! The research demonstrates the existence of a “discursive triangle of homosexual exclusion” based on male heteronormativity, criminality, and morality. It also highlights the degrading, scandalous, and profane in the Mexican civil sphere. Despite media condemnation, the homosexual protest published in Alarma! allows us to perceive signs of inclusion and reconfiguration of the homosexual subject as citizen.