An insider’s view of Mexico City’s LGBTQ+ community

One after­noon in 2021, pho­tog­ra­ph­er Mayan Toledano was sit­ting on a pile of clothes on the floor of her friend Havi’s home in Mex­i­co City. Havi – a trans woman – had just under­gone breast aug­men­ta­tion surgery, and was explain­ing how an Amer­i­can friend had helped make it pos­si­ble by set­ting up a GoFundMe page. In its descrip­tion, they had described the poten­tial surgery as ​“gen­der affirm­ing”, which tripped her up.

“Gen­der affirm­ing… gen­der affirm­ing,” Havi repeat­ed to her­self as she explained the post to Mayan. ​“I nev­er under­stood what it means because I always had the affir­ma­tion that I was a woman, and now for the first time I realise what this set of words means – it’s for soci­ety to look at you as a woman. But I nev­er need­ed that.”

It was a moment of hon­esty and con­nec­tion between the two friends, which they both felt and rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed. ​“That con­ver­sa­tion in par­tic­u­lar was very eye-open­ing to me,” recalls Toledano. ​“We both cried, and it was very emo­tion­al and beau­ti­ful – she’s def­i­nite­ly some­one I learned a lot from.” 

A pho­to­graph tak­en of Havi from that day – lying in the bath with her post-surgery breast hov­er­ing above the water­line, is the very first pho­to­graph fea­tured in Mayan’s new pho­to­book No Mames. Fea­tur­ing inti­mate, joy­ous pic­tures of her queer friends and wider cir­cle tak­en over the past six years, the book is an up-close-and-per­son­al win­dow into Mex­i­co City’s LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty and scene.

Based main­ly in New York, Mayan first vis­it­ed Mex­i­co City in 2017. Upon arrival she felt such an instant con­nec­tion with its dense streets, count­less cul­tur­al attrac­tions, and the peo­ple who made up its queer com­mu­ni­ty. ​“When I arrived there was this warm feel­ing that real­ly drew me in,” she says. ​“I think the first year I came back maybe three or four times and grad­u­al­ly start­ed this project – it wasn’t the idea or inten­tion to make a book, it was just because I met a lot of peo­ple, I fell in love, I made great friends and I want­ed to doc­u­ment the community.”

While New York can often feel hos­tile, unsup­port­ive and indi­vid­u­al­is­tic, Mayan instead found Mex­i­co City formed the antithe­sis of that. ​“A lot of peo­ple in the book are cre­atives, artists, musi­cians. I shot a lot of best friends, cou­ples and room­mates” she explains. ​“Some­times in cre­ative indus­tries you can sense a feel­ing of com­pe­ti­tion – I felt like peo­ple are sup­port­ing one anoth­er and col­lab­o­rat­ing with one anoth­er, and that’s real­ly what moves the city. There’s real­ly this har­mon­ic feel­ing of hold­ing one anoth­er and I real­ly love that.”

Tak­en at after­par­ties, hang­ing out in friends’ bed­rooms and bath­rooms, and fea­tur­ing plen­ty of mak­ing out – the pic­tures cel­e­brate that com­mu­nal joy and queer spir­it. But there’s a neces­si­ty to that close­ness, sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty. Although same sex rela­tions are legal in the coun­try, homo­pho­bic and trans­pho­bic atti­tudes per­sist – even wors­en­ing in areas. That is par­tic­u­lar­ly true for trans peo­ple – Mex­i­co is the sec­ond most dan­ger­ous coun­try in the world to be trans­gen­der, with trans women over­whelm­ing­ly the most tar­get­ed for vio­lence. One page at the back of the book is ded­i­cat­ed to the names of all the trans peo­ple who died last year.

“When you hang out with­in the group there’s this feel­ing of pro­tec­tion, and you kind of have your own bub­ble,” Mayan says. ​“But I know sto­ries through friends and some of the peo­ple I shot. There is a lot of death and they all know peo­ple who were hurt – in abu­sive rela­tion­ships or [fac­ing] bru­tal­i­ty on the streets – so there is a fear, espe­cial­ly among trans women and it’s some­thing that peo­ple talk about.”

No Mames then, through­out its pages cre­ates a pho­to­graph­ic safe space for Mayan’s sit­ters among its spreads, giv­ing what is usu­al­ly com­mu­ni­ty on the fringes of soci­ety the chance to be the focus of her lens and ful­ly express them­selves with­in its pages. ​“I want to see some­one for who they are, and what they want to show me – you can know some­one for five years and still meet them for the first time the day [you pho­to­graph them],” she says. ​“The project real­ly became a part of my life, and my life is in the book. It’s the peo­ple I love, it’s the peo­ple I hang out with, and it’s all these rooms that I was in.”

No Mames by Mayan Toledano is pub­lished by Dami­ani.

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