An LGBTQ activist is suing a political candidate for allegedly lying about being LGBTQ.
According to Teresita Díaz Estrada, a representative of the Tijuana Cultural Community (Cocut), Alejandro Cabrera Acosta, a Mexican candidate running for second city councilor for the Morena party in Tijuana, has lied to the public. She says that Acosta – who is straight, married to a woman, and the father of three children – claimed to be bisexual.
According to Yahoo News, Estrada says Acosta announced in a government meeting that he was bisexual and the revelation caused a fight with his wife. According to him, the announcement was his way of “coming out of the closet.”
Now, of course, a married man can be bisexual. But, Alejandro Cabrera Acosta later claimed that his announcement was a misunderstanding. That led to Díaz Estrada saying Acosta purposefully claimed to be bisexual to boost his election chances.
You see, the LGBTQ community has few representatives in popularly elected positions. Due to there being anti-discrimination policies and quotas requiring representatives of substantive equality, a bisexual candidate could get more support than a straight candidate.
“We know this person said in a meeting that he didn’t realize that he had signed and claimed to be bisexual and that it led to a big fight with his wife,” said Díaz Estrada as reported by Border Report. “If you’re not bisexual you can’t be part of the LGBT community. Right now everyone in the world says they ‘just came out of the closet,’ which is a sort of abuse.”
“Let’s just say he did come out of the closet. Let him show who his partner or prove he is bisexual or homosexual. This is committing fraud against a vulnerable community that has been victimized for a long time,” she added.
As such, “The Tijuana LGBTI Cultural Community has challenged the nomination of the candidate for the second councilor of Morena in the local council, Alejandro Cabrera Acosta,” as reported by the Spanish language website La Jornada.
“We are asking for the candidacy of this person -Cabrera Acosta- to be eliminated and to be inserted or reinstated with a person who is indeed from the LGBTTTIQ community, and above all who has lines of work in favor of the community. It is an act with fraud, it is something that is not ethical, it is a theft that should not be. The rumor in the hallway is that he excused himself saying that he was assigned that way and only signed the documents, but no one from his party has raised his voice to correct this situation,” the activist added.
According to Edge Media Network, Díaz Estrada claims that 10 out of the 28 candidates are vetted supporters of LGBTQ people. She worries that actions like the one taken by Acosta take away space for real supporters or LGBTQ candidates.
“They are not taking away from us, they are stealing a space from the community, they are stealing from us again, that is the problem,” Teresita Díaz Estrada argued.
Source: Border Report, Edge Media Network, Jornada,
