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This dissertation is a feminist ethnography about on-street sex work and transgender politics in contemporary Mexico. It focuses on the socioeconomic and symbolic tensions existing between trans activists and trans vendors, mostly of sexual services, in Mexico City. It is based on ethnographic research consisting of participant-observation, formal interviews, informal conversations, and travel companionships with low-income female-gendered transpeople and self-identified trans activists in places of work, homes, social gatherings, and activist events about sexual diversity. The fieldwork for this study was conducted between 2010 and 2011, with shorter research periods spanning 2009 to 2014. The research also draws on bill proposals and official stenographic transcripts of socio-legal discussions held in Mexico City’s Legislative Assembly between 2001 and 2013. This study shows that, while not all transpeople are sex workers, a sizeable number of low-income trans women work as sexual labourers on the streets of Mexico City. Trans women have gained increasing visibility in on-street sex trade areas. Impoverished transpeople suffer the symbolic and material expressions of a generalized disrespect and disregard affecting on-street sex workers and low-income female-gendered transpeople. A sexual labour framework is thus critical to understand the ways in which social class and informal on-street vending shape the circumstances, livelihoods, and aspirations of low-income trans women. Their daily realities are shaped but not subsumed or exhausted by gender expressions and subjectivities or sex–gender systems alone. A class and labour lens, in addition to a gender lens, is necessary to shed light on the often-overlooked dimensions of socioeconomic standing and employment background that frame the lives of trans activists and trans sex workers. This project applies an intersecting critical trans and sexual labour analysis to understand the socioeconomic concerns and livelihoods of female-gendered transpeople. It contributes to the ethnographies of Mexico by underscoring regional and class diversity in the experiences and circumstances facing Mexicans. Lastly, this work helps refine feminist anthropology by demonstrating the utility of classic concepts to understand shifting intersecting realities and, more broadly, by refusing to conflate trans and sex work issues in Mexico with those found in other contexts.

En este artículo analizamos la relación entre el feminismo y las jóvenes en México. El eje rector responde a la interrogante de si existen jóvenes feministas y, de ser así, cuál es su participación y papel en los movimientos feministas del país. Si bien percibimos con toda claridad, por una parte, que el feminismo ha impactado directamente las vidas de las jóvenes; por otro lado, sólo un número minúsculo se asume como feminista. La situación en este sentido es inquietante, sin embargo, ya sea desde la política o la academia observamos que algunas jóvenes sí se comprometen con los feminismos, y son ellas quienes se integran a espacios establecidos o bien generan propuestas autónomas e independientes para dar expresión a sus posturas, entre otras, mediante la generación de redes. In this article we analyze the relationship between feminism and young women in Mexico. Our central purpose consists of analyzing whether there are young feminist women and, if so, what their participation and role in the Mexican feminist and women's movements are. We argue that while feminism has undoubtedly impacted young women's lives, only a small number of them self-identifies as feminists. This situation is disquieting; however, by participating either in local political movements or in the academia, some young women do commit themselves with feminisms, and thus, strengthen and/or generate autonomous and independent projects that allow them to express their points of view, among other means, by creating networks.

In this thesis, I examine issues relating to pole dancing classes as performed in Vancouver, Canada. Pole dancing classes are programs inspired by erotic dancing, offered largely in fitness studios that have appeared during the past five years. Based on interviews with two instructors and eight students of pole dancing, participant-observations, and archival data, I address three themes that emerged during my field research. First, I describe the erotic fitness scene in the city. Second, I consider the different reasons women give for pole dancing. Here, I address the existing tensions between erotic pole dancing and pole fitness. And third, I document women's experiences and negotiations of the stripper stigma attached to the classes. I found that despite challenging prevalent sexual mores and gendered racial scripts, and developing a strong sense of admiration for strippers, in their efforts to deal with stigma pole dancing students re-inscribe established norms about female sexualities, inaccurate assumptions about professional erotic dancers, and widely held negative perceptions about sex industry workers