During the Porfirio Díaz administration, any press references to sexual heterogeneity were veiled, but it was in 1901, based on a scandalous raid on a clandestine dance, that the subject became relevant.El País (founded by Trinidad Sánchez), a Catholic newspaper with conservative tendencies, became a defender of morality when it categorized this event as an “odious dance.” It also took advantage of the moment to settle scores with the liberals. Thus the publication stated that “the authorization of licentiousness,”—which, for this newspaper, is a natural consequence of liberalism—leads “by inescapable logic to the abysm of aberrations that at first glance seem unbelievable.” This led to a dispute with the semi-official newspaper, El Imparcial, which defended both “liberalism and progress” (bastions of the political system of Porfirio Díaz). El País, a daily newspaper that considered liberalism the cause of the scandalous dance, fired off a round of attacks. El Imparcial replied that the pride of Mexico were historic figures such as Benito Juárez, José María Iglesias and Ignacio Ramírez, all notable liberals. From that night on, in Mexican culture, to say “forty-one” was both a reference to homosexuality and an indicator of intolerance.
