You know ... every once in a while you just run across something truly surprising.
Mexico's transvestite candidate out in the open _ and may win (sfgate.com, July 3, 2003): Four female impersonators, all exquisitely made up, lip-synch and dance to pop music in Ixhuatan's town plaza. Traffic freezes as drivers and pedal-cabbies halt in the street to watch. Then out comes candidate Amaranta Gomez -- the first transvestite to have at least an outside chance of winning a congressional seat in Mexico. Campaigning in a flower-print skirt, and making no attempt to hide the fact that she lost an arm last year in a bus crash, she has become a symbol of the tolerance for diversity promoted by a small, new political party, Mexico Possible.
I wonder if a local transvestite candidate for national or local office would get even this much press. After all, our press tends to limit their coverage to those candidates who have at least an outside chance to either win or affect the outcome of an election. The conventional wisdom would say that such a candidate has little chance of doing either one in the US.
Gomez said her high-profile sexuality tends to obscure her record on political and economic issues, but she hopes voters will recognize that transvestites have a place in politics. "You don't have to stop being a transvestite," she said. "You don't have to stop wearing makeup. You don't have to stop being what you want to be to be involved in politics."
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