Political views, being a woman and appearance top discrimination reasons in Mexico City

Political opinions, being a woman, and the way people dress or present themselves are the leading reasons Mexico City residents say they have faced discrimination, according to the city’s 2026 survey.

Forty-six percent of respondents said they had been discriminated against or belittled in the past four years. Among them, 22% cited their political opinions, while 20% cited being a woman and another 20% pointed to their clothing or personal appearance. Weight or height accounted for 18%, and social class for 16%.

The survey, conducted every four years by the Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination in Mexico City, examined skin-color discrimination for the first time. Among those who reported discrimination on that basis, 19% described their skin as dark or very dark, 15% as brown, 8% as light brown and 8% as fair.

The 2026 edition also asked about self-perceived body type. Thirty-one percent of women who reported discrimination said they were plus-size, compared with 21% of men. The survey found that discrimination most often occurred on streets or public transport, cited by 12% of respondents, followed by shopping centers or businesses and police, public prosecutor’s office or attorney general’s facilities, each at 9%.

COPRED president Geraldina González de la Vega said the latest study used a more specialized questionnaire and different methodology. She said the survey explored how perceptions of people’s bodies, identities and appearance affect access to rights and activate prejudices that lead to rights being denied.

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It is a different questionnaire, a different methodology from the surveys conducted previously, and there were two issues we were especially interested in including: the self-perceived body-type scale and the Perla scale, to highlight how perceptions of people’s bodies, identities and appearance affect the exercise of their rights and the prejudices that come into play when rights are denied