MEXICO CITY — The primary overtly nonbinary particular person to suppose a judicial place in Mexico used to be discovered useless of their house Monday within the central Mexican town of Aguascalientes after receiving loss of life threats on account of their gender identification, government stated.The Aguascalientes state prosecutor’s place of job showed that Jesús Ociel Baena used to be discovered useless Monday morning subsequent to someone else, who native media and LGBTQ rights teams recognized as their spouse.State prosecutor Jesús Figueroa Ortega stated in a information convention that the sufferers displayed accidents it appears led to by way of a knife or every other sharp object.Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo.by way of Fb“There are not any indicators or indications so that you can resolve {that a} 3rd particular person as opposed to the useless used to be on the website of the crime,” he stated.Mexico Safety Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez stated in a press briefing that government had been investigating the loss of life and it remained unclear if “it used to be a murder or an coincidence.” Some homicide investigations in Mexico have a historical past of being temporarily minimized by way of government as crimes of interest.Alejandro Brito, director of the LGBTQ rights team Letra S, stated that Baena’s visibility on social media made them a goal and steered government to take that context under consideration of their investigation.“They had been an individual who gained many hate messages, or even threats of violence and loss of life, and you’ll be able to’t forget about that during those investigations,” Brito stated. “They, the Justice of the Peace, used to be breaking throughout the invisible boundaries that closed within the nonbinary neighborhood.RecommendedBaena used to be a number of the maximum visual LGBTQ figures in a rustic the place queer communities are ceaselessly violently centered, and had already gained loss of life threats.Baena, an overtly nonbinary particular person, made historical past in October 2022 after they assumed the position as Justice of the Peace for the Aguascalientes state electoral courtroom. They had been believed to be the primary in Latin The usa to suppose a judicial place. In June Baena broke thru some other barrier after they had been amongst a gaggle of other folks to be issued Mexico’s first nonbinary passports.Baena would ceaselessly post footage and movies of themselves in skirts, heels and toting a rainbow fan in courtroom places of work and advocating on social media platforms with masses of 1000’s of fans.“I’m a nonbinary particular person, It’s not that i am fascinated with being noticed as both a girl or a person. That is an identification. It’s mine, for me, and no one else” Baena posted on X, previously Twitter, in June. “Settle for it.”Simply weeks ahead of their loss of life, Baena used to be offered with a certificates by way of the electoral courtroom spotting them with gender impartial pronouns as a “maestre,” a vital step in Spanish, a language that traditionally splits the language between two genders, female and male.Whilst Brito stated Mexico has made important steps in decreasing ranges of anti-LGBTQ violence in fresh a long time, his team registered a vital uptick in such violence in 2019, documenting no less than 117 lesbian, homosexual and bisexual and transgender other folks killed within the nation. Many had been grisly killings, together with brutal stabbings and public slayings.Brito stated he fearful that the loss of life of Baena may just galvanize additional acts of violence towards queer communities.“If this used to be against the law motivated by way of prejudice, a lot of these crimes all the time have the purpose of sending a message,” Brito stated. “The message is an intimidation, it’s to mention: ‘That is what may just occur to you if you are making your identities public.’”
