Cassandro: Queen of the Lucha Libre
CBC Radio | Posted: January 16, 2017 7:24 PM | Last Updated: December 20, 2019
He's in fishnets. He's in sequins. His hair is feathered into a perfectly manicured blonde bouffant, and he's slamming some guy into the ground in a wrestling ring.
Welcome Cassandro, one of the most high profile Mexican wrestlers.
But Cassandro doesn't fit the usual bill for a professional wrestler. It's not just the makeup, the glitter and the Ziggy Stardust-meets-Farrah Fawcett hair — he's also openly gay.
Cassandro's at the forefront of a sub-group of wrestlers known as Exóticos. The Exóticos are just like all the other wrestlers in the Lucha Libre circuit, except they incorporate feminine traits into their wrestling personas — defying the industry's hyper masculine culture.
For pro-sports, especially pro-sports in Latin America, The Exóticos score about a 10 on the subversive scale.
While acceptance of the LGBT community has grown in Mexico, it's still not an easy place to be gay.
But Cassandro dares convention — dominating one of the country's most popular sports, all the while dressed in drag.
Producer Victoria Ferran brings us his story in Cassandro, the Queen of Lucha Libre.
About the producer
Victoria Ferran is a producer at Just Radio, an award-winning independent production company based in London. She won a silver medal at the 2016 New York Radio Festival Awards and also writes a blog for The Huffington Post. She is one of the Radio Academy's 30 Under 30 Class of 2016.