Armed police in Mexico attempted to arrest a gay couple on a beach for kissing last week, according to multiple news reports.
A series of videos posted to Facebook show men on a beach being handcuffed and led to a van, as an angry crowd argues that they are being discriminated against. As the onlookers surround the police, demanding that the men be released, objectors began chanting: “Yo soy gay,” translating to “I’m gay, too.” A handful of people, meanwhile, argued with the arresting officers one-on-one.
Eventually, with the van blocked by protestors, the videos show the men being released to loud cheers.
Maritze Escalante Morales, a municipal delegate for women in the local Movimiento Ciudadano party, recorded the video and further explained the situation in a February 21 Facebook post. According to Morales, a group of four police carrying large firearms approached a gay couple on a beach in Tulum, Quintana Roo. She said the men were handcuffed solely because they had been affectionate with one another.
“There are families and children and they can’t be watching this,” Morales says police told her.
According to the queer news site LGBTQ Nation, police later released a statement claiming that the men had been engaged in oral sex, alleging that they were arrested for “immoral acts and sexual erotic demonstrations, on the road or public places.”
Mexican LGBTQ+ organizers — such as Fuera del Clóset A.C. — have spoken out against the arrests, calling them homophobic.
Morales agrees, adding in her Facebook post that she is “FURIOUS” about how the couple was treated by authorities. “They were not committing any crime,” she wrote. “At no point did they do anything wrong, simply by KISSING each other like any other couple.”
Tulum is a small resort town on Mexico’s eastern coast and is generally known for having an LGBTQ+ friendly atmosphere. It only has one gay bar and no explicitly gay resorts, but all nightclubs, restaurants, and beaches are generally known to have a live-and-let-live attitude. It’s about 80 miles from the larger resort destination of Cancun, which is home to several gay hotspots.
The state of Quintana Roo, meanwhile, also has a history of affirming queer and trans people, having legalized marriage equality in 2012.
Mexico does not federally recognize same-sex marriage, although all states allow or recognize such unions. But unlike the United States, Mexico has robust federal protections against anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. The Mexican Chamber of Deputies unanimously passed a non-discrimination law in 2003, before the U.S. had even decriminalized homosexuality at the federal level. The Mexican Constitution’s first article contains an explicit ban on discrimination on the basis of “sexual preferences.”
To preserve the area’s LGBTQ+ friendly reputation, Morales has called for further sanctions against the police, while activists staged a kiss-in Sunday. There has been no indication that the couple will face any charges — or that police will implement any reforms as a result of the backlash.
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