The Fluidity of Muxe Identity in El secreto del río

The producer and directors of the Netflix series El secreto del río (The Secret of the River, Alberto Barrera, 2024) have delivered a sensitive and layered portrayal of muxe identity – a “third-gender” category rooted in the Zapotec culture of Mexico. At the heart of the series lies its symbology of water – a singular thread that enriches the narrative and ties muxe identity to Indigenous cosmologies. Through the imagery of water, the series set in Oaxaca invokes the Zapotec water deity Cocijo or Cociyo, God of Lightning.¹ The central protagonists, Manuel and Erik, share a friendship presented as a delicate and tender tapestry that becomes more emotionally complex as they mature and come of age. The narrative weaves Indigenous epistemologies together with geographic space to show their connectedness to Oaxaca. Similarly the community of muxes who act as their spiritual guides and mentors are also deeply rooted in their interconnectedness of land, body, and spirit which is an embodied experience that ties them to ancient cosmologies and understanding of gender. For the Zapotec, change in the Oaxaca Valley since the birth of Christ and the Spanish Conquest, as well as what historian John Paddock calls a “trifling Aztec invasion”² only presented gradual change illuminating the resilience and vision of the Zapotec in maintaining their traditions.

The idea of Indigeneity³ in Mexico as a recent concept has become a lens for understanding the rapidly changing landscapes of rich and diverse regional identities in the aftermath of the Spanish invasion of the early 1500s and the authoritarian rule of the modern Mexican state. Even before the Spanish invasion, Mesoamerica had always been a multiethnic region with diverse ethnic groups influencing each other through shared cosmologies, artistic innovation, trade routes, and war. These interactions contributed to sociopolitical cartographies that were dynamic, with regional boundaries constantly shifting and being remapped. Historians identify the period following the Spanish Conquest as Period V (post-1521), a time marked by the imposition of colonial structures and, paradoxically, by continued Indigenous agency. During this era, the Mixtecs mounted a significant and successful incursion into Zapotec territories. Yet, as documented by Spanish chroniclers, the Zapotecs retained key elements of their cultural identity, showing limited assimilation into Mixtec traditions.⁴ 

The god Cocijo

Since Zapotecs retained many of their traditional ways, Cocijo’s presence, central to Zapotec cosmology, permeates religious iconography, ceramics, and ritual objects. The god’s recurring representation across various artistic styles underscores the spiritual continuity that resisted external domination. In the television series El secreto del río, the motif of water – symbolically associated with Cocijo – emerges as a poetic, spiritual, and narrative force that drives the storyline, from the opening scene beginning at a river to a poignant scene with Erik, Manuel and Solange near the ocean. While at the ocean Manuel is inspired to by a particular word “sicarú,” which means beauty, as they contemplate the ocean waves which evoke ancestral memory, connecting memories of Manuel’s past and connecting him to an idea of beauty and the possibilities of the future through Zapotec worldviews.

Muxe Identity and Colonial Legacies

In Zapotec culture, the muxes played critical roles in cultural festivals, as community healers, marketplace vendors, and entrepreneurs, fulfilling important socioeconomic functions while retaining their multidimensional identities. In the Netflix series, the muxes face toxic masculinity, reflecting the growing hypermasculine violence as an outgrowth of both Spanish colonialism and US hegemonies that overlaps with the modern challenges presented by neoliberalism. A wise artistic choice from the producer, and multiple directors of the series, foregrounds water as a metaphor for transformation, healing, and belonging – situating the muxe within a multidimensional Indigenous framework. Zapotec cosmologies that connect people to land and water help to imbue the narrative with concepts of primordial Zapotec thought, looking to the past in connection to ancient cosmologies and the god Cocijo in order to look to the future. Zapotec ways largely persisted in spite of a brief period of time where the Zapotec government was in exile in Tehuantepec and remained continuous until modern times.⁵ Lisa Sousa in her book The Woman Who Turned into a Jaguar, and Other Narratives of Native Women in Archives of Colonial Mexico reveals that some precolonial Mesoamerican cultures understood the body and gender as fluid, mutable, and deeply embedded in cosmological systems rather than fixed biological categories. Gender identity, according to the world view she presents, was shaped by external factors – rituals, celestial events, clothing, labor, and speech – not anatomy. This critical framework destabilizes Western binary constructions of gender and opens space for cross-gendering as a socially recognized, sacred role.⁶

In El secreto del río, the representation of muxes as a third gender resonates powerfully with Sousa’s argument and is specific to Zapotec cultural worldviews. The muxes embody a Zapotec epistemology of gender – one where gender is performed and spiritually grounded, not biologically assigned. Their roles in the community, rituals, and family life reflect the cultural memory of duality and fluid embodiment central to Zapotec cosmology. The series poetically reinforces this through its use of water as a recurring symbol – a mutable, flowing force that mirrors the concept of the body as unstable, transformable, and sacred. Just as Mesoamerican bodies were susceptible to transformation through celestial and natural forces, the river becomes a site of emotional, spiritual, and gendered revelation.

The Enduring Importance of Muxe Identity

Muxe identity has held significance since ancient pre-Columbian times as an integral part of the social and spiritual fabric of the Zapotec. The series portrays its protagonist, Manuel, initially as a shy boy who comes of age while being mentored by a community of muxes led by Solange. Manuel is left in the care of his grandmother as his mother is dying of cancer. Navigating the violence of toxic masculinity, cruelty, and societal expectations of the village where his grandmother resides, Manuel’s journey shapes his internal exploration of self-discovery. Manuel’s story is situated within a broader cultural narrative of Zapotec traditions, and modern day Oaxaca, where gender fluidity is perceived both as a threat to the hypermasculine men of the town – especially his closest friend Erik’s father – and as an integral component of cultural resilience. Manuel’s grandmother views muxes as wise and respectable, while Manuel sees Solange as a mentor, a mother, and a spiritual guide.

El secreto del río

Water in Zapotec Cosmologies

In Zapotec cosmology, the rain and lightning deity Cocijo embodies the dual forces of creation and destruction, channelling the life-giving power of rain essential for agriculture while simultaneously representing the potential for natural devastation. This elemental duality reflects a broader Indigenous epistemology in which water is not merely a natural resource but a sacred, animate force. Its fluidity and capacity for transformation metaphorically align with the muxe experience, particularly their navigation across gendered, temporal, and cultural boundaries – between ancient and modern, masculine and feminine.

In the Netflix series El secreto del río, water becomes a central symbolic and narrative device, reshaping the cinematic landscape with its capacity to hold memory, emotion, and resistance. It serves as a poetic conduit through which the resilience of Zapotec traditions is made visible, highlighting how Indigenous cultural frameworks have endured and adapted despite the violent ruptures of colonization and state assimilation.

The pre-Columbian and colonial eras were marked by complex, often ambivalent interactions – including conflict, alliance, and cultural exchange – among the Zapotec, Mixtec, and Nahua civilizations. While these encounters led to hybridization and identity slippages for many Indigenous groups, Zapotec material and spiritual culture –manifested in their pottery, architecture, and cosmology – retained a remarkable degree of continuity. This continuity became a site of healing and resistance, enabling the integration of ancestral knowledge with new understandings of spirituality and identity in the wake of colonial and modern state violence. Within this cosmological and historical framework, muxes emerge as bearers of a multidimensional, embodied identity – one that predates colonial categorizations and simultaneously gestures toward contemporary LGBTQIA+ movements. Their existence challenges Western notions of gender as fixed or biologically determined, underscoring instead the Zapotec understanding of gender as constructed, performative, and cosmologically situated.

Water as a Central Metaphor for Identity

From its opening scenes, El secreto del río establishes water as a central metaphor for identity. The protagonist is first introduced standing by the river, gazing at their reflection – a visual representation of introspection and self-discovery. The river, ever-changing and uncontainable, becomes representational of the fluid and transformative identity that resists fixed definitions. In the opening scene, where Manuel is violently attacked and nearly raped, it is a new friend, Erik, who comes to the rescue, and this moment begins the trajectory of Manuel’s introspection on exploring their identity.

Later, the river’s importance in the scene where Erik’s uncle attempts to rape Manuel is undeniable, since the uncle falls into the river and hits his head on a rock, causing him to pass out. The river from the opening scene serves as both a boundary and an infra-world, reflecting and refracting states of being. It is presented as a place of violence as much as a sanctuary for healing, since Manuel and Erik return many times to the same site of the river to figure out how to heal from their grief and release the weight of the memory of the uncle who tried to rape Manuel. The river divides the physical space of the village while also connecting it to unseen, otherworldly realms of spirituality and memory. The river is not merely a setting but a living entity that interacts with the characters, shaping their identities and heavily influencing their destinies. Manuel’s exploration of identity, while not claiming the identity of muxe, is deeply tied to this interconnectedness.

Manuel is confronted in other violent ways throughout the series. In perhaps one of the most breathtaking scenes, near the ocean where Solange counsels Manuel and Erik, they are immersed deeper into a spiritual connection rooted in water cosmologies via the wisdom of Solange. Solange explains that the Zapotec word “sicarú” means all that is beautiful – and beauty itself. The scene is memorable as Solange sings the word “siii-caaa-rúú” as if singing a ceremonial prayer to protect Manuel from all that forces that have caused their wounding. Manuel emerges later, after years have passed after leaving the village and returning, now as a muxe named Sicarú. Rather than culminating in a specific identity formation, Manuel’s arc leads to a multidimensional understanding of what it means to exist in the world beyond binary understandings of gender within a layered reality of embodying femininity, although this is mainly implied. In episode 8 of the series, Erik asks Sicarú if she always wanted to be a woman and Sicarú replies, “I always wanted to be free.”

While the series celebrates the sacredness of muxe identity, it does not shy away from portraying the challenges muxes face in a world increasingly shaped by neoliberal violence and machismo.⁷ Manuel’s journey to becoming Sicarú is marked by acts of resistance – against both external discrimination, physical violence and internalised self-doubts. In one entertaining scene Solange teaches young Manuel how to fight and it is understood that Solange is also preparing Manuel, who will one day become the gorgeous Sicarú, for the act of resisting male and female binaries as an embodied experience. 

One of the most powerful moments in the series occurs when Sicarú leads a procession to the funeral parlour to honour the memory of the deceased Solange. The act symbolises a reclamation of identity and a reaffirmation of the community’s connection to its Indigenous roots. The elder’s life is celebrated not as a tragic story of marginalisation but as a testament to the strength and beauty of living authentically. Like the god Cocijo, the muxes embody sites of fluidity – imbued with personal and collective meaning, layered with the Zapotec cosmologies. In another scene, as a child exploring femininity, Manuel puts on their mother’s old clothes and makeup, a symbolic act signifying a rejection of imposed male and female binaries and instead embracing a place of love and warmth. The fluid and feminine movements of a dance performed in this scene evoke the flow of the river, reinforcing the idea that identity is not separate from but deeply rooted in the rhythms of the land and water.

Multidimensionality as an Act of Resilience

Through the lens of multiple directors, the series raises an important question: what does it mean to be multidimensional? The muxe’s existence defies binary constructs offering a vision of identity that is expansive and fluid and who guide Manuel to become Sicarú. El secreto del río positions muxes as emblematic of Zapotec traditions while also addressing their lived experiences in a modern neoliberal world fraught with complexities. By framing muxes within the authenticity of their identity, the series challenges globalised notions of gender and sexual diversity, instead rooting its narrative in the specificities of Zapotec culture. For instance, the protagonist’s journey reflects the deeply ingrained respect muxes command within their community, as well as the social and cultural tensions they navigate. This duality is encapsulated in a pivotal scene where the protagonist, adorned in traditional attire, leads a community celebration that symbolises acceptance and unity. At the same time, the character faces prejudice from outsiders, underscoring the dichotomy of reverence and marginalisation.

By bringing visibility to muxes through an authentic and nuanced lens, El secreto del río invites audiences to reconsider the fluidity of identity and the cultural frameworks that define it. The series serves as a testament to the resilience and richness of Zapotec culture, where muxes are not only recognised but revered as vital members of their society. The muxes’ multidimensionality and the cinematic aesthetics of El secreto del río remind us of the importance of Indigenous epistemologies and survival. The Zapotec view gender, identity and spirituality as interwoven, and also as performative and socially constructed – a perspective that is increasingly relevant in today’s discussions about inclusion and diversity. By rooting its narrative in Indigenous cosmologies, the series not only celebrates the muxes’ unique contributions to their communities but also reclaims primordial traditions in Zapotec culture.

El secreto del río is a beautifully crafted exploration of cultural and spiritual reclamation. The series offers an important counter-narrative to the erasure of Indigenous identities and histories, reminding viewers of the richness and resilience of muxes. Through its nuanced portrayal of muxe identity, the series invites us to embrace a more fluid and inclusive understanding of the self, as well as Zapotec concepts that honour the rich interconnectedness of land, body and spirit. By expanding on themes of Indigeneity, via the characters who represent a tight-knit community of muxes who nurture Manuel’s coming of age, El secreto del río positions itself as a vital contribution to contemporary storytelling. Its exploration of muxe identity through the lens of ancient cosmogonies that persist into the present historical moment offers a powerful testament to the resilience and transformative potential of their stories. As viewers, we are left with a deeper appreciation for the complexity and beauty of muxe identity and the enduring legacy of the Zapotec culture that nurtures it.

Endnotes