A HERMAPHRODITE'S TALE ON THE SEXUAL AND SOCIAL FRINGE

By Juan Montoya
When she was born, Cynthia's (not her real name) parents in a poor colonia near Tampico, Tamaulipas, were amazed and distraught.

They found out that she was both a girl and a boy. Unlike the rest of her brothers and sisters, she had both male and female genitalia. Her parents and relatives, unable to cope with this unusual biological (but natural, if rare) manifestation, thought they had been punished for some sin. Intersex births were not common, and the priest at the local church who baptized her didn't help.

"Algún pecado cometieron," they were told, heaping the guilt on thick.

Cynthia exhibited characteristics of a girl and she was raised as one, even though as children, her sisters and brother noticed the difference. She soon took to dressing conservatively and covering her shame to hide it from others.

Her mother as – as was her duty with her other daughters – showed her the ways of the Mexican coastal cuisine. Cindy not only learned how to cook the in the tampiquera style, but took to it with a relish. She learned the art of preparing the succulent coastal dishes and sauces that give the coastal Tamaulipas cuisine its fame. You knew when Cindy was cooking because the smells emanating from her kitchen wafted through the colonia.

"Esta cocinando su Cindy," the people would say to her mother knowingly.

But over time, she took to wearing her hair cut high and tight, like a boy. And men did not interest her. After a while, her family moved to the city where her different outlook did not set her apart as it had done at the rural community where she was ostracized by her peers.

She took to it like a duck to water. Before long, she had struck up relationships with other men and women in the LGBT community there. But regardless of the freedom she found, the crush of the northern Mexico economy also forced her to look north, to the United States, and she left.

As usual, the only opportunities afforded a young girl (as Cindy was considered) in Brownsville were limited to being a domestic worker, or working in a bar. Cindy had been a good student, and, as is usually the case, had been taught mathematics in Mexico's primarias and secundarias to the point where she could solve problems in her head without the aid of calculators or having to write the problem down on paper.

Bar owners rapidly recognized her bookkeeping talents and her ability to do daily inventory and soon she was running the bars for them. Over time, she could just about choose where she wanted to work. This not only gave her a certain independence, but also proved to be a bonus. As the woman in charge of the bar, she could hire and fire other female workers. That power over the purse gave her an edge on women that she was attracted to.

For the most part, the women who sought work in the cantinas were single mothers who had no male provider at home. They were undocumented with U.S.-born children in need of income for rent and other necessities. They desperately needed a job and she could provide that to them, and more, if they wanted.

Some did and before long Cindy truck up amorous relationships with a number of women. She showered them with money for rent, utilities, la parranda, as well as expensive jewelry which she boasted none of their former mates ever gave them.

"When did your old man (tu pinche pelado) every have you decked out in gold," she would confront them when she drank a little too much at the bars. "Never, and you now it."

A ready way to raise cash was to sell dimes of coke and soon she established herself as la jefa del jale on the strip. After a time, she was making more selling pase than she did with her salary. She took to wearing a medallion of La Santisima Muerte and even had an altar to her in her house.

But being a woman, her instincts sometimes betrayed her and she readily grew close to their children and considered them her own. Some women used her sentiments against her to milk her for money, clothes, cars, and just about every whim they had. Some gave her money to their exes behind her back.

But Cindy took all this in stride and floated from flower to flower. She had also developed a sense of perverse humor and bravado that others didn't have. With her copped hair and baggy denim shorts, she was a frequent sight on the beer joints strip.

As the violence in northern Mexico spilled over to the norther side f the Rio Grande, it wasn't long before hangers-on (lambe huevos)of the cartels and Zetas groups started frequenting the obscure beer joints (congales) where Cindy plied her trade. Often they would saunter in and loudly announce their allegiance to this group or the other like the Cartel del Golfo or the Zetas. Cindy knew that if they were really members of those groups, the last thing they wanted was for anyone to know.

So she took their boasting in stride and let it go, except for one time when one of the fake Zeta braggarts was making a move on one of her girls, loudly boasting of his alleged tie to the armed groups in Matamoros.

"Nosotros somos de los Zetas," shouted the drunk. "Por aqui se van todos los putos que no les guste. Ay traigo con que pal que quiera," he told the rest of the bar clients who were enduring his outbursts with growing impatience. (We're with the Zetas no matter who doesn't like it. I got a little friend for whoever wants some.)

After a while Cindy could stand it no longer and went up to the table of the loudmouth and directed her remarks at him.

"Pos aqui no habra Zetas, pero se chingan con nosotros porque si hay Jotas," she said as the bar exploded into laughter and the braggarts face turned red with embarrassment.