Jorge, Gina y Dante - Snap Classic

This week on Snap, we go to Guadalajara, Mexico where Dante meets Jorge. As they start to understand each other they soon discover that what brings them together also sets them apart. This episode contains sexual references, sensitive listeners please be advised. Thank you, Dante and Jorge, for sharing your story! The Spanish version of this episode is available at CUIR: Historias Disidentes, a non-fiction podcast that showcases stories from the Latinx LGBTQ+ community and from people who challenge the way we think about love, identity, sex and pleasure. You can listen to more CUIR episodes anywhere you listen to podcasts and on the CUIR website: https://estonoesradio.mx/programas/cuir Jorge was voiced by Terry Holiday, one of the most prominent trans actresses in Mexico. You can read more about Terry in this https://www.vice.com/es/article/wjbvgb/terry-holiday-la-figura-trans-mas-emblematica-de-la-vida-nocturna-de-cdmx Vice article (in Spanish). Produced by Erick Yáñez, edited by Nancy López. Reported by Dante Ureta. Original score by Renzo Gorrio. Art by Teo Ducot. Snap Classic - Season 16 – Episode 24 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Speaker 00

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• 1:19Glynn Washington?

  There is a book, a novel, that I love. It evokes this ineffable sense, one that we don't have a great word for in English, a feeling of the monumental choice you can never revisit, of loss, of consequence, of not-quite-regret. So, when I hear the author is coming to my favorite bookstore to give a reading, I flip, grab my dog-eared hardcover, hoping to score a signature, sure, but more than anything, wanting to connect with someone whose world-building, whose characters, whose ideas have touched me. Reading a book the way I read this one,

• 2:02Glynn Washington?

  it creates this sense of traveling through someone's mind with them. It's intimate, revelatory, it's charged. And this particular text, for me, it's also kind of a north star.

• 2:18Glynn Washington?

  Lighting the way toward the writer I'd like to someday become. That is how strongly I feel and how disappointed I am. When the author sits down in front of a crowded room, reads a few lines, says he has just enough time for a couple of signatures, then stands up to leave. And I don't know what I expected from this guy. What, we're gonna become best pals? Exchange midnight text drafts of new stories? What am I asking for? I've got his book. What more do I want?

• 2:59Glynn Washington?

  Well, today on Snap Judgment, we can't just leave well enough alone. Snap probably presents Jorge Gina Dante. My name is Ken Washington, and please remember, stories on the radio are always better than stories from books, at least when you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 3:42Glynn Washington?

  Now, I want you to meet Dante. Dante grew up in a small beach town called Los Mochis, but now lives in Guadalajara. It's the second largest city in Mexico, one of the largest gay populations. And was there, he found something he'd been looking for, for a very long time. Snap Judgment.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  Cuando me mudé a este vecindario, quería hacer un cuello, así que fui al salón alrededor del parque. Y ahí es donde me encontré a Jorge.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Jorge parece ser un hombre gay. Tiene 50 años, está usando una máscara de rostro de arco. Y la primera cosa que veo es un gran cartel de Marilyn Monroe. Y justo al lado de él, hay una enorme iguana, dentro de una caja abierta. Jorge me dice que ha estado en la TV. No sé por qué, pero supongo que es porque es una iguana de nueve años muy grande.

• 4:58Speaker 03

  Me siento, él empieza a cortarme el pelo, y comenzamos a hablar. Y ni uno de nosotros está dispuesto a preguntarle al otro si son queer. Así que vamos en círculos, hasta que yo finalmente digo: "Soy trans". Y él me pregunta: "Entonces, ¿cuándo empezarás a tomar hormonas?" Y yo digo: "¡Hombre, ya he empezado!" Y él dice: "¿Qué?" Y yo digo: "Sí". Él dice: "Okay, lo entiendo". Él pensó que yo era una mujer trans. Y él dice: "Bueno, pasaste muy bien, que me pregunto cuán grande era tu culo".

• 5:39Speaker 03

  Así que Jorge gusta bromear mucho. Él me dice que el vecindario en el que vivimos siempre ha sido lleno de personas queer. Y me da sus nombres de amigos. Uno se llama La Flaca, el otro La Modelo. Él me dice que mostró una foto de él cuando vivía en San Francisco, cuando sus amigos lo llamaban Gina, y estaba con hormonas.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  This makes me think he's a trans woman who has detransitioned.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Now that I see up close, the hormones have left their trace on his body. He has small breasts that look like mine before I had my surgery.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  I can't believe my luck. All these years, I've wanted to meet a trans person older than me.

• 6:31Speaker 03

  In the small town where I grew up, I never saw queer people. The only trans person I knew was a client who would go to my mom's vet clinic. They were around 50 and I was just a kid, so I never talked to them. And now, here I am with Jorge, with someone who could finally tell me their story.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  We keep talking and then he says: "If you had seen me back then, you would have sworn I was a woman."

• 7:05Speaker 03

  I'm confused now, so I ask him if he still identifies as a woman. And he tells me he does. With his friends, he's Gina. But with everyone else, he's Jorge, and he uses masculine pronouns. Now I'm intrigued. I want to understand what led him to become Jorge and Gina.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  So I ask him if I can interview him. He agrees.

• 7:36Speaker 03

  The next day, I show up at the salon with my recorder.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  Jorge's smoking a cigarette in the lobby. Or maybe that's just an image I have stuck in my mind because every time I see him, he's smoking a cigarette. He offers me some water, we sit down.

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Yo te pregunto.

• 7:53Speaker 03

  Ok.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  Pues, primero es, ¿cómo te llamas?

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Yo me llamo Jorge. I ask him, "Where should we start?"

• 8:03Speaker 04

  Cuando yo estaba chico que tuve uso de razón de eso de lo gay, yo pensaba que yo era el único del mundo.

• 8:09Speaker 05

  As a kid I thought I was the only gay person in the world. Then when I was around fourteen years old, I met this gay guy.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  Y ese, la Yolanda, le decían.

• 8:19Speaker 05

  They called him Yolanda. He took me to meet some of his friends at the Plaza de la Liberación. And I started hanging out with a lot of gay people. From there, we'd go to Los Panchos.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Que era en ese tiempo el único bar gay que había.

• 8:33Speaker 05

  It was the only gay bar back then.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  Y de las primeras que...

• 8:36Speaker 05

  I was one of the first to start wearing makeup. I mean, I'm talking about the sixties.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  When Jorge started going to Plaza de la Liberación, it was a place where gay men hung out on the benches and talked. Other times, Jorge and his friends...

• 8:54Speaker 04

  La India María, la Chanel, la Olra Gotonga, la Chepa, la Juana Borja.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  They would go "Juariar".

• 9:05Speaker 04

  "Juariar" le llamábamos.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  We called it "Juariar" because with pickup guys on Juarez Street, there was a lot of flirting there.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Y ya nos hacíamos pendejas caminando por toda la...

• 9:16Speaker 05

  We'd mess around and walk from Juarez Street to Parque Revolución, which is now called El Parque Rojo.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Jorge says he had no problem hooking up with guys. In fact, sometimes the cars would line up for him. He would step out of one car and another was already waiting.

• 9:36Speaker 05

  Whenever I saw a car that wanted to approach me, I would tell the others.

• 9:41Speaker 04

  "Desaparezcan jotos, desaparezcan jotos, pa' que me hable".

• 9:44Speaker 05

  "Disappear, go out of the way, don't be a cockblock". Then the guy would talk to me and we'd go on a date. We'd get coffee and that was it.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  I'm gonna pass right here. So Jorge uses the word "joto" a lot. In Mexico, it's a slur that's used against gay people. But many in the gay community have reclaimed it and use it as a term of endearment.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  Al rato ya volvíamos con todas.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  Later, my friends and I would meet up again at the plaza because there was nowhere else to go. Somebody would have a party at their house.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  El carrerío, "hay fiesta en tal parte, hay fiesta en tal parte".

• 10:25Speaker 05

  We'd literally run. We looked like we were on a pilgrimage.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  Back then flirting on the street or just looking gay was reason enough to get thrown in jail for a couple of hours.

• 10:39Speaker 05

  They would send men in trucks to the plaza just to beat us up. You could hear people yelling. Los Madre Locas y el Corretero.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  Los Madre Locas. It's a nickname Jorge's friends gave to the police for beating up queer people.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  They would grab us, beat us, and chase us. Salían todas electrocutadas, ay verás qué feo. It was horrible. La primera vez que me agarraron de servicio en secreto. The first time the Secret Service came for me, I said to them. Pues hazme un buen servicio y en secreto. Give me a good service and in secret. Y no seas mamon y vas para arriba y yo ay no señor. And they'd be like, "Don't be a smartass." Or the police officers, they would arrest us. Pero pues las patrulla. But we'd give them a favor, you know what I mean? And they would leave us alone.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  So Jorge would spend his time strolling down Plaza de la Liberación flirting with men in Los Panchos so that they paid for his and his friends' drinks. And then one day, a friend introduced Jorge to drag.

• 11:45Speaker 05

  Y uno que le dicen la Tamara fue el que... They called him Tamara. He invited me to perform in a group called Les Girls. Que se llamaban los Les Girls.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  And that's when Jorge started dressing up as a woman. He would do live shows at the Zajera, a place where crossdressing was allowed but only if you were on stage. Jorge would impersonate the divas of Mexican music: Lupita Dalesio, Amanda Miguel, Aida Cuevas.

• 12:16Speaker 05

  I'd come with a microphone, look you right in the eye, and I'd start singing. Te parece tanto a mí que no puedes engañar. Y empezaba toda la gente a reír. And all the people would start laughing.

• 12:33Speaker 04

  Me besaba la...

• 12:34Speaker 05

  One time, a man kissed my legs and it made the audience go wild. But he didn't know I was a man.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  Él pensó que era mujer, porque él llegó cuando yo ya estaba en el show.

• 12:44Speaker 05

  He thought I was a woman because he arrived in the middle of the show.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Pero antes de eso se...

• 12:49Speaker 05

  But the audience was warned beforehand that none of us were women.

• 12:56Speaker 03

  Police continue to raid bars and arrest anyone who they thought looked queer.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  Había un bar que se llamaba El Víctor.

• 13:03Speaker 05

  There was a bar called El Víctor. And we were there one night, just hanging out, when suddenly the police was raided.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  Y todas ahí vamos para arriba.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  They took all of us. Well, it turned out, one of the cops liked me. We were in the police truck when he says...

• 13:21Speaker 04

  Qué bonitos ojos tienes.

• 13:23Speaker 05

  You have such pretty eyes.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Le dije, ¿te gustan?

• 13:26Speaker 05

  I said, "Do you like them?"

• 13:28Speaker 04

  Ay, pues podrían ser tuyos, le digo, pues...

• 13:31Speaker 05

  They could be yours. He says...

• 13:35Speaker 04

  Si te ayudo...

• 13:36Speaker 05

  If I help you...

• 13:37Speaker 04

  Dame una cita.

• 13:38Speaker 05

  Go out with me.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  No pierdes el tiempo, ¿eh?

• 13:40Speaker 04

  Le dije, claro que sí.

• 13:41Speaker 05

  I told him, "Yes, of course." And then he says, "Do you promise?"

• 13:47Speaker 04

  Yo, claro que sí.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  So, we got off the truck. And I told him we could see each other the next day.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  Y que me baja.

• 13:56Speaker 05

  He let me go.

• 13:58Speaker 03

  ¿Cuánto, cuánto fue lo que más duraste? I want to know the longest time he's been in jail.

• 14:04Speaker 04

  Quince días como castigo.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  Fifteen days.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  Y, ¿qué por qué?

• 14:08Speaker 04

  Nada, nada.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  ¿No más te agarraron de...? I asked him what he was punished for. He tells me for no reason. They weren't fined, they were just being punished. But I don't understand.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Era castigo.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  ¿Cómo que castigo? Punishment for what?

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Sí, sí, por ser gay.

• 14:28Speaker 05

  For being gay. Luckily, you didn't live in that time. Like I said to my friend Alexa...

• 14:36Speaker 05

  It's all thanks to us.

• 14:39Speaker 05

  Because we were the ones who were in the gay revolutionary movement.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Jorge joined the big protests that were happening all over the country, in places like Mexico City and small towns.

• 14:54Speaker 05

  Actually, it was real beautiful, because we would go to small towns and all the gay people from Colima would already be waiting for us in the main square.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  Jorge will go on to be a hairstylist. He lived in the state of Colima for a while, and then he moved to the US in the 80s, during the AIDS crisis.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  So many friends died. We'd get together and be like...

• 15:25Speaker 05

  Do you remember so-and-so? Yeah, she died. Remember this other person?

• 15:34Speaker 03

  But there's one question that I really want to ask Jorge. When did he start taking hormones? And how did he start his transition?

• 15:44Speaker 05

  I went to the US with Pedro.

• 15:49Speaker 05

  And in the Castro, we met a trans person. And he was the one who told us, "I had my surgery at the Hospital de los Pinos in Tijuana."

• 16:02Speaker 05

  So there we go, Pedro and I, to that same hospital. But first, the doctors saw us. We had to wear women's clothes for a year.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  This is, in fact, a common requirement to start hormone replacement therapy. Doctors usually ask patients to perform their desired gender for a while, to prove they're committed to their transition. And only then do they prescribe hormones. But Jorge was not gonna wait that long. Just a month later...

• 16:37Speaker 05

  Me and my friends started taking Perlutar. In women, it works as their control. But for men, it's just pure female hormone.

• 16:48Speaker 05

  And when I began to notice my body was changing, when I began to look more like a woman, that's when I decided to dress as a woman.

• 17:01Speaker 05

  But I always knew that there was nothing I could do to grow titties.

• 17:06Speaker 05

  I moved back home to Guadalajara, and that's when I met Jessica Muriel.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Hola, Jessica Muriel.

• 17:12Speaker 05

  He was the owner of the Night Club París de Noche. And he was the first gay that I met who had surgery. He told me, "Don't do it."

• 17:21Speaker 04

  Que no, que no lo hiciera, que están súper arrepentidos.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  He regrets it. He said...

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Qué pendejada hice en mi vida, ahora qué soy.

• 17:29Speaker 05

  What did I do? Now, where am I?

• 17:32Speaker 04

  No soy ni hombre, no soy ni mujer, no soy ni...

• 17:35Speaker 05

  I'm not a man? I'm not a woman?

• 17:38Speaker 04

  Qué chingado soy.

• 17:39Speaker 05

  What the fuck am I? And then I met his cousin Marcia, who also had surgery. And Marcia told me the same thing.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Pero la Jessica era mujer trans, ¿o...? Wait, I'm confused. Was Jessica a trans woman, or...?

• 17:54Speaker 04

  Era mujer trans, era el primero que yo vi opegado.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  She was a trans woman, the first person I've ever met who had an operation.

• 18:01Speaker 04

  Y ahí viene mi hermano.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  Suddenly, Jorge tells me to stop the recorder.

• 18:06Speaker 04

  A ver, apárale.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Another man has just walked into the hair salon. Jorge introduces us. It turns out it's one of his brothers.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  They smoke a cigarette. Their conversation is short. Awkward, even. I think it's time for me to go. Jorge turns to me and says, "I really like you, kid. Let's meet again." Jorge will later tell me that, to this day, his brothers do not know that he used to dress as a woman, and that he still does. There's so much more I still wanna know about Jorge. I wanna know what it means for him to be trans, or to live as a trans person, or to be gay. Because when he tells me that he lives as a woman, taking hormones, letting his hair grow out, for me, that means he's a trans person. But Jorge doesn't seem to see it that way.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  When Jorge talks about transitioning, he talks about it as a surgery. It's like Jorge and I are speaking different languages. He doesn't go by the labels my generation uses. I mean, if Jorge says he's not trans, then he's not trans, period.

• 19:30Glynn Washington?

  After the break, we get closer and deeper into Jorge's life and all the things he keeps behind closed doors. Stay tuned.

• 19:47Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Jorge, Gina, y Dante episode. When last we left, Jorge was interrupted. His friends told him to stop his transition. His brother stopped his conversation with Dante. But there's still so much to uncover. Snap Judgment.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  Three weeks go by without hearing from Jorge. And then, one day, he calls me. He wants to show me the place where he keeps his gowns and dresses and wigs. We meet at 6:00 that evening, getting his car, a red Sentra, and head down Calzada Independencia, to the house he shares with his mom. I pull out my recorder. I ask him how his dresses and wigs ended up in this house, with his mom.

• 20:45Speaker 05

  So I had a big room built upstairs. No one goes there but me. That's where I keep everything. I actually have to give away a lot of clothes because, honestly, most of it didn't fit anymore.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  I ask Jorge how his life will be now, if he were my age.

• 21:09Speaker 05

  I would have had surgery.

• 21:14Speaker 05

  I would, with all the choices available now.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Jorge tells me that he live in the US, in the gastro, probably in a commune with his queer friends. He says he will make a living putting on shows or working as a hairstylist.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  We get to Jorge's house. We walk past a patio full of plants. He takes me up a set of stairs and into his room.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  When he opens the door, I feel like I've stepped back in time. I see a full-size bed, an old TV, old photos, carnival masks.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  He says that if I ever need a room one day, I'm welcome to stay here.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  He shows me his outfits. A blue sequin dress catches my eye. I grab it and put it on.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  And there I am, in this skin-tight dress, in my lumberjack boots, and a long wig that Jorge's put on me.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  I look at myself in the mirror and I'm like, "No." Besides, I have a beard. I look nothing like the person I was two years ago, before the hormones.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Sí, la verdad, la cintura todavía la tienes, estás piernudo.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Jorge points out that I still have a waist.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Sí, tienen nalga.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Y le perdí mucho con las hormonas. He admires my ass, and then his eyes move up to my chest.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Y fíjate que sí todavía, nomás la chisísima te ve liso.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  ¿Sabes qué pienso yo? He wants to know if I miss my female body. I tell him that, even though there's this myth that trans people hate the bodies they're born in, that wasn't my experience. Y yo siento... I realize that what I didn't like was how other people saw me when I had a female body.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Pero cualquiera diría que eras gay.

• 23:08Speaker 05

  But now, anyone will say you're gay.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  This catches me off guard. I'm telling Jorge what it's like to be trans, but he responds by saying that I look like a gay man?

• 23:26Speaker 05

  It also happens to me. When I am a woman, my gestures are that of a woman. When I'm with my family, I act like a man. And when I'm dressed as a woman, I act like a woman.

• 23:41Speaker 05

  And when I'm in the hair salon, I act gay.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm definitely having a hard time understanding Jorge. What does it mean to act gay? Or to act as a woman? Or a man? How would a trans man act according to Jorge?

• 23:59Speaker 03

  And then it hits me. Jorge and I were lost in translation. I just want to explain to him that we all possess female and male energy, and that even though I transition, I can perform femininity. And also, that none of this has anything to do with who I'm sexually attracted to. But all these terms, performing femininity, sexual orientation, gender... Jorge doesn't use these words when he's talking about himself, or those around him.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  I finally admit to Jorge that when I first met him, I thought he was a trans woman who had detransitioned. That was my first impression.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  I tell him how eager I was to find someone like him, and how frustrating it was that the only queer stories I found were from the US. I didn't know anything about Mexico's LGBT history.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  I'm from Sinaloa, and it's hard to find any queer stories there.

• 25:12Speaker 05

  No, and there are a lot of lesbians there.

• 25:19Speaker 05

  I remember being there once, and everywhere I looked, there were lesbians.

• 25:25Speaker 05

  And I was like, "What the hell? What am I doing here?"

• 25:33Speaker 05

  And how did your parents take it?

• 25:36Speaker 03

  I tell Jorge that I grew up with my mom. And in 2017, when I was 22, my dysphoria was getting worse. I didn't feel comfortable in my female body, or with the way others looked at me, or how I saw myself in the mirror. And while in therapy, I decided to start taking testosterone, and my mom supported me.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  I never had the longing to be a woman.

• 26:06Speaker 05

  Since I was a kid, I identified as gay.

• 26:10Speaker 05

  And I want to stay gay.

• 26:14Speaker 05

  But look, the strange thing is that a lot of my friends, Jessica, for example, I knew him for years, and he liked men. But after her transition, she liked women.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  A mí y las hormonas me hicieron que me gustaran los hombres. I told Jorge that I've always identified as bisexual, but taking hormones made me like men even more. Que raro, ¿no?

• 26:40Speaker 05

  That's weird, right?

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Pues es que, Miguel, la sexualidad es fluida, cambia en cualquier momento. Sexuality is fluid, it can change moment to moment. Ahora, ¿por qué a nosotros no nos gustaba ni que nos tentaran adelante?

• 26:54Speaker 05

  Now, ¿why didn't we like to be touched or seen down there? Whenever I was in bed with someone, I used a towel. In fact, my first husband, Juan, we were together for about eight years, and he never saw my private parts.

• 27:11Speaker 03

  ¿Pero qué sentías? I wanna know what dad made him feel.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  I was embarrassed, I was ashamed.

• 27:20Speaker 03

  ¿Y no era disforia?

• 27:23Speaker 03

  I wonder if he's experiencing disforia, because I've heard similar stories, but only from trans people. I don't know.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 27:35Speaker 05

  I was embarrassed.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  I ask him what he thinks of my generation. When we're celebrating pride, ¿how does he see us? ¿What does he think about the rights we're fighting for?

• 27:53Speaker 05

  Now these folks ask for respect, but they don't give it.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  There they go, flashing their boobs, showing their bare ass, naked.

• 28:07Speaker 05

  That's not respectful.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  I try to explain that people do it as a way of saying, "My sexuality is also political. We're making ourselves visible. We don't want to hide anymore, so here we are."

• 28:24Speaker 05

  I don't see it that way. Why get naked?

• 28:33Speaker 03

  I keep trying to explain to Jorge that our rage and our pain come from not being able to be ourselves. So today's activism, my activism, is about us becoming visible, that the body is the first line of defense, that this fight is for those who have historically been pushed to the margins of society. That our bodies are political. Our desires too. So we take to the streets demanding to be seen.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Who better than Jorge to understand what I'm talking about? He's experienced oppression and violence himself.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  Night falls. I take off the blue sequined dress. And just as I'm starting to feel like this conversation is pointless, Jorge tells me one last thing.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  One day, a man passed by in his car. He was staring at me. I thought, "I'm gonna get lucky." And he wasn't that bad. He kept looking at me. And I looked back. You know, flirty as hell.

• 29:54Speaker 05

  Well, it turns out that he didn't want me for that. He tells me, "I have a problem and I think only you can help me."

• 30:05Speaker 05

  And he tells me that he has a teenage son who's gay.

• 30:11Speaker 05

  What would you say to him? What advice will you give him? Should he accept his son?

• 30:20Speaker 03

  Sí.

• 30:21Speaker 05

  Or should he reject him?

• 30:24Speaker 03

  Pues obviamente que lo acepte. I tell Jorge that this man should obviously accept his gay son.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  ¿Qué le dijiste?

• 30:36Speaker 05

  This man asked me, "Should I be okay with this?"

• 30:40Speaker 05

  And I said, "Of course not."

• 30:47Speaker 05

  I tell him, "All you can do now is turn a blind eye."

• 30:53Speaker 05

  Because I have seen friends who are accepted at home. Next thing you know, they're walking around with makeup on and dressing as women. In front of their mothers, in front of their siblings.

• 31:06Speaker 05

  It's rude. It's disrespectful.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Yo pienso diferente.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Yo no soy grosero por expresar mi género como yo quiero. I see it differently. I'm not being disrespectful for expressing my gender the way I want to.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  Hmm, no, te voy a decir por qué.

• 31:24Speaker 05

  No, I'm gonna tell you why.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  No, no, no Dante. ¿Sabes por qué?

• 31:31Speaker 05

  You know why? Because I live my life as I pleased.

• 31:35Speaker 04

  Y yo viví de mujer, viví de esto, viví del otro.

• 31:38Speaker 05

  I lived as a woman. I lived as many things.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  Si de por sí una madre sufre cuando su hijo es gay.

• 31:45Speaker 05

  It's hard enough for a mother when her son is gay. And then having to see them with makeup on or dressed as a woman.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Peor va a ser para esa madre.

• 31:54Speaker 05

  That's even worse.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  ¿Por qué no evitarles eso si tú puedes hacer todo fuera de tu casa?

• 31:59Speaker 05

  Why not spare them that pain and do whatever you want outside of the home?

• 32:04Speaker 04

  Yo lo viví.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  We leave Jorge's house and he drives me back to my apartment. We say goodbye and he goes back home to cook dinner for his mom. When Jorge told me the story of the man who asked him for advice about his gay son, I didn't know how to react. For me, everything he said was so problematic. It's dated and out of touch with reality. Had it been anyone else, I would have said, "What kind of bullshit is that? I mean, your words can bring harm to someone else." But I didn't know how to say, "You know what? I don't agree." Still, I can't just cancel Jorge. His way of thinking comes from personal experience,

• 32:57Speaker 03

  from the way he had to live his life. Jorge has been sharing stories that are sad and tough to hear. I hadn't realized it because he tells them almost as jokes. But at the end of the day, most of them are full of pain. When I asked him to share a happy memory, he told me about his friend, La Chanel, and how she drowned in Colima. Jorge and his friends took her body back home to her mother in Guadalajara. And when I asked him about his family, he tells me he hasn't really been around his family.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  I get it. I also have pain and fear. In this community, we know a lot about trauma, but we know very little about how to heal it. How can we heal pain with more pain?

• 33:54Speaker 03

  But the more I talk with Jorge, the less I understand him. It's gotten to a point where I'm not sure if I want to tell his story anymore. I think I should stop interviewing him.

• 34:15Glynn Washington?

  After the break, Dante has a change of heart. Stay tuned.

• 34:33Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the Jorge, Gina, y Dante episode. I'm just in Washington, and when last we left Dante, his quest to understand Jorge and to tell his story is falling apart. What do you do when the person you look up to lets you down? Snap Judgment.

• 34:58Speaker 03

  A friend invites me to Puerto Vallarta. And since the beginning of the pandemic, I've gotten into the habit of taking my questions to the sea.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Hoy es 14 de marzo de 2021, Puerto Vallarta. Today is March 14, 2021, Puerto Vallarta. It so happens that today is the first time I go out toughless in public after my surgery.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  And I can't stop thinking about the time Jorge came to the beach, way back when he was 17, when La Chanel drowned.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  I wonder what my life would have been like then. I have the privilege of passing as a cis man. I'm lucky I had surgery with a doctor who had the right tools to do it.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  But what would have happened to me, Dante, in the 80s?

• 36:02Speaker 05

  Es la primera vez que vengo al mar y no siento isforia.

• 36:05Speaker 03

  It is the first time that I come to the beach and I do not feel isforia.

• 36:09Speaker 05

  ¡Qué maravilla!

• 36:11Speaker 03

  How wonderful!

• 36:12Speaker 05

  Me estoy preocupando por qué...

• 36:13Speaker 03

  People are looking at me, but they're looking at me because I'm standing here with a microphone, not because I'm topless, without a binder, without anything.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  When I get back home to Guadalajara, I get an email. "A clothing brand is inviting me to appear in a campaign for Pride Month."

• 36:38Speaker 03

  I'm not sure if I should do it. Something about using queer activism in advertising doesn't sit right with me. But at the end of the day, I accept. If I don't take this opportunity, then who the hell is gonna take it?

• 36:54Speaker 03

  It's the morning of the photo shoot. I'm feeling nervous. I don't know what to expect. What kinds of people are going to be there?

• 37:05Speaker 03

  But while I'm getting my face done, I start telling the makeup artist about Jorge. And he tells me that he was also on hormones for a while. And then he stopped, just like Jorge. He says, "This was a common thing for gay men to do."

• 37:23Speaker 03

  "So, ¿do you consider yourself a trans person who detransitioned?" I ask him. And he tells me, "Well, people didn't accept themselves back then. There was such a rejection of homosexual people that for many, the answer was, "Well, I'll just become a woman, because a woman can love a man."

• 37:45Speaker 03

  And when he says that, my head explodes.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  After the campaign, I get lots of positive messages from my aunts, my cousins, and my whole family. It makes me feel seen. I'm proud to show others that it is possible for someone like me to exist in this world. In a way, I feel like I owe this to Jorge.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  So I reach back out to him.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  We're on our way to meet La Chepa, one of Jorge's friends.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  Sabiendo cómo me vivo yo y sabiendo cómo han cambiado los tiempos, ¿tú hubieras cambiado algo?

• 38:25Speaker 03

  I ask Jorge if there's anything he'd change about his life.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Más bien me arrepentiría de muchas cosas.

• 38:32Speaker 05

  I regret many things.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  De no haber estudiado.

• 38:35Speaker 05

  I regret not going to college. I wouldn't have fooled around so much. I will have studied and things will be different.

• 38:43Speaker 04

  Yo en antros, en cantinas, en bares.

• 38:46Speaker 05

  I was just in clubs and bars, just hooking up.

• 38:50Speaker 04

  Por eso te digo, tú eres más sensato...

• 38:52Speaker 05

  You're more mature than I was at your age.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  Que yo a tu edad.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  Habiendo vivido eso, ¿tú qué nos dirías?

• 39:02Speaker 03

  Given everything Jorge has been through, I want to know if he has anything to say to someone like me.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  ¿Qué es hasta admirable, el cómo están ahorita?

• 39:11Speaker 05

  I'm jealous. You're so free. There's so much information for people who want to change their texts. We had none of that.

• 39:23Speaker 05

  Back then, if you were pretty, you were pretty.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  We get to La Chepa's house.

• 39:32Speaker 03

  La Chepa is short and thin and looks a little older than Jorge. La Chepa confirms all the crazy stories about how Jorge was the most popular and how every time Jorge was asked out on a date, La Chepa went along as the third wheel.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  But as they're talking, I can't stop thinking about that conversation with Jorge when he told the man not to accept his gay son. So I decide to bring it up.

• 40:01Speaker 04

  Completamente en desacuerdo contigo. ¿De qué? El consejo que le diste al señor cuando te vino, ¿te acuerdas? Es la única cosa en la que está en desacuerdo contigo. ¿Por qué?

• 40:09Speaker 03

  Jorge tells me that his real intention was to protect the kid. His advice was to hide so he could live his life the way he wanted. This is what Jorge did to survive.

• 40:22Speaker 05

  I didn't want to lose my family.

• 40:26Speaker 05

  At the end of the day, the only people who will love you and be with you are your family.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  I asked him if his family's views have changed. He tells me that now, they spoil him. Everyone loves him and takes care of him. His older brother, who used to say mean things to him, later had a gay son. And Jorge has been able to share his stories with him. Jorge's mom recently passed away. She was 94 years old. Jorge tells me that one day, they were watching a movie and he asked her, "What would have happened if you had been a lesbian?" And she told him, "Well, son, we would have gone dancing at the club, both of us with our partners."

• 41:16Speaker 03

  At some point, she told him, "Oh, son, how I wish I could turn back time, so I could treat you better."

• 41:23Speaker 04

  I said, "No, al contrario."

• 41:25Speaker 05

  I said, "I'm glad that you kicked me out of the house."

• 41:28Speaker 04

  Así viví mi vida como tenía que vivirla.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  I found a way to live my life.

• 41:32Speaker 04

  No estuve viviendo una vida que no es la mía.

• 41:34Speaker 05

  I didn't live a life that wasn't mine.

• 41:41Speaker 05

  She got sad, but I told her, "No, really, Mom, don't worry."

• 41:45Speaker 04

  Yo fui feliz a mi modo.

• 41:48Speaker 05

  I was happy, in my own way.

• 42:01Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, Dante and Jorge, for sharing your story with us now. This story was adapted from its Spanish version. Originally broadcast on Queer, Historias Disidentes, a nonfiction podcast that showcases the life stories of the Latino LGBTQ community and from people who challenge the way we think about love, identity, sex, and pleasure. The show is available wherever you get your podcasts. That's queer, spelled as it sounds in Spanish, the C-U-I-R. Big thanks to Terry Holliday, who provided the voice for Jorge. The original score for this story is by Renzo Gorrio. It was edited by Nancy López, reported by Dante Ureta,

• 42:46Glynn Washington?

  produced by Eric Iñáñez.

• 43:04Glynn Washington?

  Now, Eric, who is the producer of both the Spanish and English version of this story, sits down with Dante to discuss the making of the story, the things that were left out, the layers of meaning within, and what, if anything, got lost in translation.

• 43:24Speaker 06

  What do you feel gets lost in translation? Because I feel that every time our work of art is translated, there will always be certain things that are being lost, but others are won. What do you think we won with the story, or we lost?

• 43:41Speaker 03

  The story definitely has multiple layers. And when we translated it to English, there were even more layers on top of the first ones. One, the language barrier. The hardest thing was maintaining the essence of the words.

• 44:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. Jorge himself has a lot of ways of speaking and phrases that only people in Guadalajara use.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 06

  He's also like a very funny person.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:11Speaker 06

  And we were like, is this being funny in English? Like, this makes me laugh in Spanish. Will people laugh in the English version?

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Being funny in a foreign language is hard.

• 44:22Speaker 06

  It is.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  But also, the original version was made for a very specific audience: queer people and social justice activists. So when we do it for a community of people who we know will understand some terminology, we don't have to think twice when we say cisgender, for example.

• 44:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. Or dysphoria.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  We assume you know what we're talking about. In the English version, we had to rethink or define a lot of words. On top of me having to define the words I was trying to teach Jorge in the first version.

• 45:04Speaker 06

  It's really funny to be discussing what got lost in translation from Spanish to English, because I feel like the story itself talks about being lost in translation with someone, generation-wise. I mean, it's two people from the LGBT community, which is like, you know, we are a community, we're supposed to be like in the same page. And then suddenly you discover that this person doesn't talk your language, basically, even though you're both talking Spanish, right?

• 45:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have the age gap, we have the language gap, and the territory gap. When I was writing some of the leading points of the Spanish version, I wrote about knowing a lot about queer American history. And sometimes, I think it can blur your vision so much that we can feel like their story is our own.

• 46:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was thinking, this is not us talking to an American audience about a story they don't know, because we told this story to ourselves, because we didn't know it either.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, and explain the things we have to get through in Mexico for people who don't live here.

• 46:18Speaker 06

  It was very fun to find someone like Jorge, who actually went through all of that himself. He suffered police violence, he also was part of all the movements that were happening all over Mexico. Jorge was part of a little bit of everything, right? So it was like the greatest, uh, subject to tell this story, but we had to cut a lot. What do you wish had made it in the final piece in English but didn't?

• 46:47Speaker 03

  I think one was all the countless funny stories of Jorge, or the details he gave me of the nights he spent in jail. We also lost political statements. Something that we missed was ternura radical, or radical tenderness, which is a political statement of trans activists who speak in Spanish. It was in my mind, and it was around everything I did in this story, but we didn't literally mention it. And it's very complex to explain, but actually I have the Radical Tenderness Manifesto, and I can read it to you.

• 47:31Speaker 06

  Sure, go ahead.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  Radical tenderness is to be critical and loving at the same time. Radical tenderness is to allow yourself to be seen. Radical tenderness is to not collapse in the face of our contradictions, is to dissent with maximum respect, to transit in spaces you do not understand. Radical tenderness is to accept the ambiguous, is to not initiate all thought by navel gazing. It is to find a galaxy in the eyes of another and not break the gaze. And finally, Radical Tenderness is to give a narcissist the option of adapting or rethinking their position.

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Radical tenderness is something that is not necessary to define. It's written by Dani D'Emilia and Daniel B. Chavez, two trans activists and performers and artists.

• 48:30Speaker 06

  That's beautiful. I love it. Thank you, Dante.

• 48:38Glynn Washington?

  Many thanks to both Eric and Dante. We appreciate it.

• 48:46Glynn Washington?

  Now then, you are a snapper. That is seriously fantastic. It's magical. Let me ask you, what about your friends, your family? Don't they deserve some snap too? Is it fair that they are left shivering, out in the cold, alone, snapless? A fate worse than they can possibly imagine? How can they know unless you tell them? And the very best deal during these end times is that there are hours of amazing Snap Judgment podcasting available right now at the Snap Judgment Podcast, snapjudgment.org.

• 49:30Glynn Washington?

  Snap is brought to you by the team that always lets everyone have their say before making a final decision. Except of course, from Mark Ristich, the Uber producer. Better than he just remains silent after that last incident. There's Nancy Lopez, Pat and Suzy Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryo, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, John Facile, Marissa Dodge, Bo Walsh, Anu Nguyen, Zara Norvash, and Doug Stewart. You may have heard that this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you could finally get the signature hairdo, your fashion hero, sports in all

• 50:14Glynn Washington?

  the magazines. But after a couple of days, decide, you know what? Truthfully, not only does this make you look ridiculous, but really, it doesn't do them any favors either. And you would still, still, not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.