Queer Relajo

2026 Dance Studies Association de la Torre Bueno First Book Award Shortlist FinalistIn 2015, Mexico City declared itself a “gay-friendly” city and followed up with a gay tourist guide and new laws permitting changes to gender markers on legal documents, sanctioning same-sex marriage, and allowing joint adoption of children. At the same time, patterns of violence and discrimination against women, trans, and queer people have continued throughout the country. In Queer Relajo, David Tenorio argues that while Mexico City aims to bring visibility to queer sociality, the benefits of legitimizing queer space remain unclear. Combining readings of film, digital media, and performance with drag autoethnography, Queer Relajo quite literally plays with how relajo (or playfulness) structures the spaces of queer nightlife in urban contexts by revealing how nighttime intimacy can minimize the paralyzing effects of violence and precarity in a neoliberal Mexico. Considering the political implications of when a queer/trans person is present at night, Tenorio argues that queer feelings of play are not only essential to sexual liberation, but also resist neoliberal commodification and heteronormative extraction.