80,000 march for gay pride in Mexico City

Clad in colorful costumes, or nothing at all, more than 80,000 people participated in Mexico City’s gay pride march, officials said. Amid the procession of people dressed as butterflies, clowns and Indian warriors, were a dozen floats, including one featuring topless transexuals dancing. 

‘This is our way to speak out against the social discrimination we face from our government and our society,’ said Alberto Avila, a 40-year-old bisexual waiter who marched alongside his five-year-old niece. 

‘I’ve wanted, since I was little, to teach people how to live with diversity,’ said the man dressed in a purple miniskirt, blond wig, and red heels. 

Placards brandished by demonstrators declared ‘Mom, I’m a lesbian,’ and ‘Proud to be transgender,’ among many others. 

‘Lots of people are attacked for not corresponding to the standard genders demanded by society,’ claimed a 16-year-old waving a huge rainbow flag. Mexico City in 2009 approved gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples, contrasting with mostly conservative policies across the largely Catholic nation. 

But the Human Rights Commission of Mexico City urged authorities to ‘enforce the guarantee of respect for rights for its inhabitants’ regardless of sexual orientation. 

Within Latin America, Mexico is second only to Brazil in terms of hate crimes towards gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transexuals, the group said. Meanwhile, Mexico City Archbishop Norberto Rivera called for the defense of traditional family values. 

‘We do not accept unnatural proposals which disfigure and obscure that splendor’ of family, he said during a Mass, according to a local radio broadcast.