Heriberto Frías and his stories about "sexual deviants"

Abstract

This article discusses the journalistic-literary representation of homosexual characters by writer Heriberto Frías, a Mexican author who investigated gender roles through the writing of testimonials published during 1885 by the newspaper El Demócrata, and which are set in the Cárcel de Belem, a place of homoerotic meetings, sexual violations and transvestism of effeminate men in a specific context that criminalizes the affections and sexual contacts between them. It also discusses the humorous relationship of a lesbian couple in the story “Las inseparables”, a pioneering Mexican narrative that depicts the defense of the love between two women.