Abstract
This paper analyzes the votive offerings known as retablos, which have existed since the nineteenth century in Mexico and are used to thank miracles granted to situations that tell about everyday life in Mexico City. Of particular interest are the "retablos" that during the past decade had acquired a significant peak for non‐normative identities (lesbian couples, homosexual,
transgender and transsexual). The analysis argues that the “retablos” are a space of physical, mental and spiritual subversion for abject bodies where revulsion and disgust are replaced by appreciation and celebration. That is, they allow abject bodies to re‐appropriate faith, whatever it is, and to have a direct relationship with divinity that otherwise, within a Church, would exclude them. Thus, the retablos represented a contesting site to the Church and State.