A wrestling ring is a space where keys, blows and jumps occur, a space where muscular men bathed in sweat and blood traditionally meet. But Ariana found there the answer she had always looked for: she wasn't a gay man, she was a trans woman.
“Wrestling freed me, made me realize that I am a woman. Saying that it made me connect with my 'female side' is a very short, very square expression, compared to everything that made me find inside me,” he says, while he puts on makeup and gets ready for a fight in the Zocalo of Mexico City.
Ariana Mami, her professional name, is 24 years old and is originally from the port of Acapulco, Guerrero. She is the only trans woman in the “Two of Three Falls” Brigade, which is promoted by the Institute of Youth of the capital government. His figure is imposing: high, of strong legs and arms, 100 kilograms of pure muscle, which contrast with their cheerful, tender ways.
He arrived at the wrestling at age 16, when they installed a ring in a park in their Acapulqueño neighborhood to train young people. “I was not the most athlete, I had a problem of overweight, but since there was a Chavillo that I liked and he trained there, because I got into …” he recalls. He trained for two years intensely and debuted at age 18, with the name of Shanel. “I know, terrible name, a cliché, but I was 16, do not judge me,” he jokes.
For that first occasion he chose an androgynous look, stopped hair, punk wave, and some makeup, in the style of exotic fighters, like Cassandro, the fighter that Gael García Bernal took to the cinema last year: “I saw me in the mirror and gave me a strength, the strength I needed to get on the ring … I never felt a gay man, it was the label. Mirror, in my suit, it was there that I began to recognize myself as a woman. ”
Soon luck smiled at him and appeared on the cover of a wrestling magazine, so he was invited to fight Adolfo López Mateos, in the State of Mexico, and there he knew that hatred can reach the ring: “They broke my mother, they hit me, they sent me to the hospital because they broke my gallbladder. Something went out in me. ”
Violence towards the trans population in Mexico is not a myth. This year the homicides of six trans women have been recognized by authorities, although the trans activist Kenya Cuevas points out that at least 15 cases have occurred. Along with this violence, the Phenomenon of the influencer Wendy Guevara, graduated from the reality show La Casa de los Famos, of Televisa, has helped to make this population visible in Mexican homes.
Your rebirth
In 2018, at 19, Ariana moved to Mexico City to carry out her transition process. “The experience of the fight made me understand who I was and told my mother: 'Do you know what? I recognize myself as a woman', and she not only accepted it but also started looking for information and found that at the Condesa clinic of Mexico City give the treatment, and sent me here,” he says.
However, the process was not easy: the waiting list was long and had no identification with the direction of the capital, so it was rejected. Impatient, Ariana decided to start the process on his own: “He disappointed me and then I did what many trans women do: I began to inject hormones myself. I do not recommend it, but many do it out of necessity,” he admits.
Currently, just over 5,000 trans people have an active file in Condesa Clinic and Comprehensive Health Unit for Trans Persons, the two areas of care of the capital government, where the process of transition and mental health care is provided.
Ariana soon began to see the changes of her body: her chest, her voice … her whole body changed. He felt pretty, he admired in the mirror. He began to dress as a woman on a day -to -day basis, on the street, safe of the looks he raised.
For several months he dedicated himself to working in a store to earn money and rented a room in a neighborhood to live. One night they invited her to a bar from the historic center, the Garibaldi Theater, to see the Drag race, a simile of the Rupaul's Drag Race competition. “Night life in Mexico City was a awakening,” he recalls. “There I met Drags and more transition women like me, I felt in a safe space, where I could be me and there were people like me. And I made a drag, I lived from that for a while, gave me security,” he says.
Back to ring
Some night in a capital bar, he met again with a trans friend from Acapulco who had continued in wrestling and invited her to train: “At first I hesitated because I had not fighting for years. But I started training, it cost me work, but I entered the gym, the routine, and I had to debut again, but this time already as a woman, what I am.”
His second debut, already as Ariana Mami, was in a sand in the Tepito neighborhood. When the quadrilateral stepped on again, he felt that wrestling and drag had similarities: everything was a show, there was some acting in between. But he also received criticism for being trans women and fighting cisgenero women.
“There are stronger women than me, who can easily throw me with a kick. As a trans woman I have never felt stronger. I don't want the place of any cis woman, I want a place by her side. I don't want to take away space from anyone, I want to have the space I deserve as a human being,” he says.
Last October, federal deputy Teresa Castell, of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), presented an initiative to reform the Constitution to prevent trans women from participating in women's category sports, which was described as transbic.
“With this intention that sex is not gender for sports issues, we seek sex to be respected, do not invade female competitions who are male sex, because the advantages in size, weight, resistance, in muscle are obvious, and that has been happening in many countries and we do not want something to regret,” said the legislator, who has been accused of hate speech by hate by transitists.
In response, the trans deputy of the official party Morena, María Clemente García, presented a law proposal to guarantee the rights of these people nationwide. The initiative seeks to guarantee access to hormonal treatments and accompaniment in mental health, as well as the right to health and housing.
In the Mexican Congress, there are currently three trans legislators, something unpublished in the political history of the country. The most recent to take protest was María Fernanda Félix, of the Citizen Movement Party. The other legislator is Salma Luévano, also from Morena.
In his day to day, Ariana goes to a gym from the Guerrero neighborhood, in the center of the Mexican capital, to load weights and make her fighting training. It has its official license issued by the box and wrestling commission, a document required to get on a ring. He lives on wrestling and is part of a program of the Youth Institute, of the capital government, which promotes wrestling and where she is the only trans woman.
“My brother recently told me that when he sees me in the ring, he sees me as if he were a superhero. Having my family's support has been fundamental, I am fortunate, because many trans people are abandoned by their family,” he reflects.
Over time he has been making costume – you, you, costumes, leotards. He also met star dust, an exotic fighter who, along with Cassandro, opened a gay representation in Mexican wrestling and has made her protected. “To me, people like star dust or Cassandro inspire me, my dream is to fight like them once in the Mexican sand or the colosseum,” says Ariana.
Ariana debuted in January in the capital Zócalo, in an event organized by the city government. He wore a pink, white and blue suit, in honor of the trans flag. That afternoon, fought with three cis women. His team lost. But she knows that losing sometimes is a step to become the person who wants to be.
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