Yan María Yaoyólotl Castro

Yan María Yaoyólotl (born 1952) is a lesbian feminist activist and a Mexican feminist artist, painter, curator and cultural promoter. She was co-founder of the groups Lesbos and Oikabeth (1978) which have their origins in the lesbian-feminist movement in Mexico.

Biography Named María de Lourdes at birth, she later took the Indigenous Maya name Yan and the Nahuatl Yaoyólotl as her last name. She studied philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), with a specialization in aesthetics and politics (1973–1980).

Activist in the Lesbofeminist Movimiento In 1977, she co-founded the group responsible for initiating the lesbian-feminist movement in Mexico: Lesbos, who did not want to enter public life and who worked in what was called "Small Self-Consciousness Groups." She continued in 1978 with Oikabeth I, which she also co-founded. In a 2018 interview with Luisa Velázquez Herrera, Yaoyólotl explains that Oikabeth was a member of the FHAR (Homosexual Front for Revolutionary Action) for three months, but after three months they left it, reaffirming the autonomy of the lesbian movement. She considers the creative act to be an integral part of social struggle for countries exploited by imperialism; the working class by classism; the original races and peoples due to racism and Westernization and, above all, women due to sexism.

Political beliefs In addition to her artistic activity, which has always been charged with political content, she has created political theory and criticism which forms part of lesbian feminism. She maintains a strong criticism of neoliberal policies both about the sexual diversity market and queer theories promoted by academia in Latin America. She also criticizes the misogyny of the gay movement. This statement stems from the idea that lesbianism is a political stance, and not merely a sexual practice, with 9,000 documents including posters, videos, photographs, manifestos, and other documents that span 40 years of activism of the lesbian-feminist movement in Mexico.