Dear Mexican: I've always been attracted to transgendered women since I was about thirteen. I've noticed, however, that most trannies are Hispanic. Now, before you say that this is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not ¡Ask a Hispanic!, I've also noticed that more than half of all Hispanic transsexuals are Mexican. What's up with that? Is it a cultural thing? Is it something in your genes? I mean, what is it?
Self-Hating Hispanic
Dear Mexican: Like any good male of the species, I was surfing porn on the Internet last week when I happened on an escort website. The site had several categories, depending on your sexual proclivities, I suppose. While clicking through them, I got to the she-male escort section and noticed a curious thing: The percentage of transgendered escorts that were Latinos (by their admission) was 57%, whereas Latinos only comprise 37% of the population in general. Given the legendary Latino male machismo, how do you account for these statistics?
Gabacho of the Straight Persuasion
Dear Wab and Gabacho: To the gabacho: I'm all for folks enjoying their different strokes, but you — straight? When you're looking through the transgendered section of a prostitute website? And were able to calculate to the exact percentile the number of Latino/a escorts on said site (don't know which orifice you pulled out the 37 percent stat for Mexis from, though, as the Pew Hispanic Center's 2008 survey of Latino demography in los Estados Unidos puts the population of wabs and their descendants in the States at about 31 million, about 10 percent of the total American population). Cabrón: You ain't straight, and that's all right. To the wab: I don't know where you get your numbers, either. No reliable statistics exist on the number of Mexican transgendered people, whether in the motherland or el Norte, but what is known about this population is that they're inordinately represented in HIV cases, as sexual-assault victims, and face rampant harassment. To the gabacho: Instead of ogling them, maybe you should spend your perverted dollars on donating to nonprofits that help LGBT Mexis — and maybe they'll be kind enough to help you with your own sexual hangups. To the wab: You should donate, too. And to the both of ustedes and everyone else: This is ¡Ask a Mexican!, not Ask a Hispanic, Latino, Chili Belly or whatever other chingadera people confuse Mexicans as, so ask accordingly!
Dear Mexican: I met a wonderful man from Mexico City and became romantically involved with him. However, after just one month of dating, he dropped the "Te amo" bomb on me, which I thought was a bit sudden. Coincidentally, shortly after this happened, a good friend of mine also started dating a chilango. He said "Te amo" to her after only one week! Now, while my gabacho friends saw these situations as red flags, my Latino friends blamed them on pasión and said that these guys were "just being Latino men" and insisted we shouldn't worry about it. The latter reaction leads me to ask if it's a cultural norm in Mexico for a man to tell a woman he is dating that he loves her so soon.
The Confused Hawaiiana
Dear Wahine: Chula, Mexican men get straight to the punto. Your chilango obviously told you he loves you so soon because he thinks your hips are child-bearing, your bosom bountiful and your health good. No time for courtship: Bring on the babies! I'll allow that mexicanos, brought up on decades of expert wooers like Jose Alfredo Jimenez, Juan Gabriel, Agustin Lara and other songsmiths, might be more florid and expressive in matters of the corazón than their gabacho counterparts, who wouldn't be able to quote "Night and Day" if you spotted them the Frank Sinatra-Tommy Dorsey version and Frank's solo, drunken effort. Let love reign, and its verbal couplets rain upon you, I say — now, start popping out those twice-bronzed brownies!
