Dance of the Forty-One

[1][4] Only 41 men were officially arrested; however, there were rumors that Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, son-in-law of President Porfirio Díaz, was also in attendance.

In the early 20th century in Mexico performing dances where only men or only women attended was done frequently, albeit in a clandestine way due to discrimination and public condemnation of sexual diversity at the time.

[2] The presumed organizers of the party would have been the son-in-law of then-President Porfirio Díaz, Ignacio de la Torre y Mier, married to his daughter Amada Díaz, and Antonio Adalid, nicknamed "Toña la Mamonera",[2] godson of Maximilian I of Mexico and Carlota of Mexico;[7] Other sources quoted the journalist Jesús "Chucho" Rábago and the landowner Alejandro Redo as frequent organizers.

This was stated in a journalistic note of the time:On Sunday night, at a house on the fourth block of Calle la Paz, the police burst into a dance attended by 41 unaccompanied men wearing women's clothes.

They were wearing elegant ladies' dresses, wigs, false breasts, earrings, embroidered slippers, and their faces were painted with highlighted eyes and rosy cheeks.

We refrain from giving our readers further details because they are exceedingly disgusting.A rumor, neither confirmed nor denied, soon emerged, claiming that there were in reality 42 participants, with the forty-second being Ignacio de la Torre, Porfirio Díaz's son-in-law, who was allowed to escape.

Seven of the convicted (Pascual Barrón, Felipe Martínez, Joaquín Moreno, Alejandro Pérez, Raúl Sevilla, Juan B. Sandoval, and Jesús Solórzano) filed a writ of protection against their conscription to the army.

[9] The incident and the numbers were spread through press reports, but also through engravings, satires, plays, literature, and paintings; in recent years, they have even appeared on television, in the historical telenovela El vuelo del águila, first broadcast by Televisa in 1994.

José Guadalupe Posada's engravings alluding to the affair are famous, and were frequently published alongside satirical verses:[4] Hace aún muy pocos díasQue en la calle de la Paz,Los gendarmes atisbaronUn gran baile singular.Cuarenta y un lagartijosDisfrazados la mitadDe simpáticas muchachasBailaban como el que más.La otra mitad con su traje,Es decir de masculinos,Gozaban al estrecharA los famosos jotitos.Vestidos de raso y sedaAl último figurín,Con pelucas bien peinadasY moviéndose con chic.Such was the impact of the affair that the number 41 became taboo, as described by the essayist Francisco L. Urquizo in 1965: In Mexico, the number 41 has no validity and is offensive...

Robert Franco, a historian who has studied the scandal extensively, argues that the Dance of the Forty-One fostered a sense of identity in LGBT Mexicans.