CULTURE: Mexican Singer Juan Gabriel’s Death Re-Births Issue of Gay Rights in Machista Societies

Dying of a heart attack Sunday August 28 in Santa Monica, United States, renowned Mexican singer Juan Gabriel maintains a decades-long legacy continuing strong into the 21st century.

Famous for what is virally being remembered as “colorful”, “elegant” and “gentle styled” performances, the artist consequentially became known as “El Divo del Juarez” - a play on the masculinization of the word “diva”.

Juan Gabriel never married, but does have four children with his life-long best friend Laura Salas - Ivan, Joan, Jean and Hans, whom he wrote individual songs.

In addition to music, Juan Gabriel’s identity transcended time and discussions in other areas, including that of a highly speculated gay icon in a machista society…which embraces him.

Minority Rights in Developing Regions

According to the Citizens Commission Against Homophobic Hate Crimes’ 2015 Report, Mexico ranks second worldwide in homophobic-based crime, surpassed only by Brazil.

In the last 20 years, a recent UN Mexico analysis demonstrated that approximately 200,000 intentional homicides against people with different sexual orientations were reported in urban settings. Rural and unofficial estimates were excluded due to “unreliability” and “lack of solid information”.

Such statistics may be considered a paradigm foreign to the highly publicized, growing pockets of progressive minority rights movements throughout other Latin American countries.

In 2013, Brazil and Uruguay legalized gay marriage.

In 2016, adoption rights by gay couples hit Colombian national levels of discussion. The law, however, did not pass.

Yet for decades, El Divo triumphed in Mexico - a country where sexual diversity has experienced traditional silence, and where non- heterosexualism frequently continues to become a target of criticism, accusations, mockery, vilification and occasionally death.

Few public forums in predominantly traditional societies strongly embrace - even celebrate - this minority percentile.

One environment of public homosexual acceptance is the entertainment industry. Multiple popular novelas by Latin American production companies have taken note from the success of Western sitcom’s for-better-or-for-worse type-casting of the “gay best friend” as a beloved supporting character.

Has art helped open doors to assimilating more cross-industry, diversity acceptance in more traditional societies?

Figure heads across facets of industry and society have joined the discussion.

Recognition and Speculation

Succeeding in these conditions and more than that, becoming the icon - as what US President Barack Obama has dubbed a “symbol of a nation” - was no small task.

“Juan Gabriel succeeded,” Puerto Rican Latin Grammy-winner and recent Juan Gabriel musical collaborator Marc Anthony has said, “and that increases his legend.”

CNN Español journalist Fernando del Rincón once had the courage to ask it straight.

The divo responded after a laugh, “What you see, you don’t ask about.”

The response came in much of a comparable manner of other also suspected gay and bi-sexual musicians, including the late David Bowie, Ricky Martin and Freddy Mercury.

Even mid-21st century, the issue was very sensitive and yet simply by being interviewed and acknowledged by the mass media outlet and personality, Juan Gabriel exemplified progress.

That professional talent and positive - if not beloved - social engineering can overshadow traditional tendencies of negative skepticism.

Perhaps most importantly, such telling dynamisims rebirth the question of whether such historically oppressed minority - or simply the celebrated elite - are being giving further liberties of expression.