Serving the largest urban population in the western hemisphere, the Sistema de Transporte Colectivo STC shuttles trains between stations. Footsteps from the billions of passengers who have taken the metro since it opened in have worn grooves in the stone-tiled stairs of the most popular stations.
Vendors hawking everything from pirated ranchera CDs to bobby pins enter trains at every station despite official posters warning passengers against buying anything. It is also an important cultural and political space that hosts spontaneous musical performances and official exhibitions of pre-Columbian artifacts.
When fares were increased from three to five pesos per trip at the end of , commuters jumped or ducked the turnstiles en masse while police stood by helplessly. The appropriation of certain metro cars as meeting and hookup sites for gay men exemplifies the clash between the STC and its users, and the closure of these cars illuminates the complex relationship between the political class that controls the city and the LGBTQ community.
Violence against transgender sex workers occurs throughout the country. In May in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, 40 transsexual and transgender sex workers were detained, viciously assaulted, and robbed by 20 members of the military police. Compounding the problem of homophobia in the general public, police throughout Mexico often fail to label homophobic assaults as such, meaning that statistics misrepresent the scale of violence faced by LGBTQ people.
Enrique Gomez, a freelance journalist and host of the LGBTQ-themed radio show Diversidad Ciudana, was 17 and dating a girl when he was introduced to metrear in My girlfriend got into the first train, but I missed it. I noticed that the car I got in was predominantly men, and I linked eyes with one. He came over, touched me, and then we began to talk. I felt a sexual attraction so I invited him to a porn cinema in front of Parque Alameda Central where we fucked in the bathroom.
