Mexico: Lesbian elected to legislature

Off Our Backs, Jan 1998 by Taflinger, Laura, Douglas, Carol Anne

MEXICO CiTY--Mexico's July 6 elections not only broke the stranglehold the Insitutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has held for decades, they also saw the first election of an open lesbian to the parliament. It is believed that Patria Jimenez may be the first open lesbian or Jay in a national legislature in all of Latin America.

Jimenez, who has been a lesbian and gay liberation activist for 20 years, called her election "extremely important as a demonstration of the ideals and human rights of homosexual people, being in a place where they can exercise their rights like everyone else."

Three hundred of the Chamber of Deputies 500 seats were filled by direct election and the other 200 by proportional representation, under which a party is given a number of seats proportionate to its percentage of the total vote. Jimenez was number 12 on the list of the Democratic Revolutionary Party, which took about 36 percent of the vote in her five-state region, which includes Mexico City.

--info from QNews, Buffalo, NY, august 1997