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Over the past decade, several Latin American jurisdictions have extended rights to sexual minorities. Yet political science attention to this development has been scant, and scholars know little about the factors that have led to these unprecedented policy changes. This article fills this gap and explains policy outcomes in a notoriously understudied policy area by comparing the two jurisdictions in Latin America that were the first to adopt same-sex unions: Buenos Aires and Mexico City. The article first argues for the usefulness of engaging theoretical approaches to the study of social mobilization in policy analyses. Based on extensive field research, it subsequently advances the argument that the passage of these pieces of legislation in both cities is largely the result of the ability of very-well-organized activists to present an effectively framed policy within rare and favorable political conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]