Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, June 30, 2026 – Puerto Vallarta has formally installed its Municipal Council on Sexual and Gender Diversity, giving LGBTQ+ advocates and municipal officials a standing forum to review policy, recommend programs, and follow up on inclusion and non-discrimination work inside City Hall.
The installation was held near the close of Pride month and after the city approved a formal regulation earlier this year governing the council’s operations. José Juan Velázquez Hernández, secretary general of the Ayuntamiento, led the session on behalf of Mayor Luis Ernesto Munguía González. Karla Vivian Bravo Pérez, director of Equity and Combating Inequality, participated as the council’s executive secretary.
The council is more than a ceremonial body. Under the municipal regulation published in February, it is defined as a consultative, proposal-making and liaison body tied to the city’s Directorate of Equity and Combating Inequality and the Subdirectorate of Sexual Diversity.
Its stated powers include issuing opinions and recommendations, proposing municipal protocols and programs, supporting public awareness and training campaigns, tracking structural problems without supplanting courts or investigative agencies, and preparing annual activity reports for the full Ayuntamiento. The regulation also calls for ordinary meetings at least once per quarter.
Puerto Vallarta’s LGBTQ+ agenda has often advanced through a mix of tourism visibility, Pride organizing, nightlife and business leadership, and civil society pressure. The new council channels part of that work through a formal municipal process, where proposals can be documented, voted on, assigned to city departments, and later reviewed.
The council’s membership includes city officials from several areas of government, including social development, tourism and economic promotion, health promotion, education, public security, DIF, communications, human rights coordination, and the Subdirectorate of Sexual Diversity. The regulation also provides for six representatives from LGBTQ+ rights organizations, with attention to plural representation, including trans people, young people, older adults, intersex people, and other sectors of the community.
That mix could make the council useful for issues that do not fit neatly within one city office. Health access, police treatment, discrimination complaints, public-event planning, employment inclusion, and cultural programming often require more than one department to act. The regulation allows the council to create temporary or permanent commissions on areas such as health, education, labor inclusion, security and justice, and cultural or artistic issues.
The installation follows several months of municipal action on diversity policy. In February, City Hall committees advanced changes to make the Cabildo de la Diversidad an annual participation mechanism held each May 17, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, and also moved the council regulation toward final approval. Proposals from that annual Cabildo could be routed through municipal commissions for analysis and possible action.
Puerto Vallarta has also been trying to turn its national and international LGBTQ+ profile into a more permanent public-policy framework. PVDN has reported on the city’s Pride calendar and civic role, as well as prior local commitments on LGBTQ+ policy. The broader topic remains part of PVDN’s continuing Puerto Vallarta LGBTQ+ coverage.
During the installation session, Víctor Manuel Espíndola Villegas recognized recent city actions, including the creation of the Subdirectorate of Sexual Diversity, the installation of the council, and municipal backing for Vallarta Pride, according to local reports. He also called for continued work on pending commitments.
The city did not immediately publish a full public calendar for the council’s first year of sessions, nor did the initial reports list every civil-society representative by name. Those details will be important for judging how open the process becomes and whether the council’s recommendations are visible to the public.
The key change is that Puerto Vallarta has moved part of its LGBTQ+ policy work from informal advocacy into a regulated municipal body with meeting requirements, reporting duties, and a defined role in proposing programs and protocols.
