Tales from TJ
Gay life below the border
BY ROB WILLIAMS AND TED GIDEONSEThis article is not an attempt to reverse all of these popular assumptions about Tijuana, but rather to supplement and complicate them, and to describe our rather boisterously fun bar crawl. Tijuana deserves some of its press. It’s largely considered one of the most corrupt cities in Mexico, but at the same time, it’s one of the richest. (Of course, San Diego is one of the most corrupt cities in the U.S., as well as one of the richest.) TJ is not just the touristy border town it once was, but it’s because it’s a border town – perhaps the most border town-ish of all border towns – that has made it so exciting, liberal, raunchy and wonderfully bizarre. Partying in Tijuana, in gay Tijuana, is, well, boisterously fun, but being gay in Tijuana, living gay in Tijuana, is more complicated. According to gay men living in San Diego who were born in Tijuana, their hometown is a terrible place to be gay. At the same time, gay men living there now have a different view.