Shocking Death of LGBTQ Activist Judge in Mexico

Mexico's first openly non-binary member of the judiciary and prominent LGBTQ+ activist Jesús Ociel Baena has been found dead, after receiving death threats because of Baena's gender identity, authorities said.  The body of the magistrate was discovered in the central city of Aguascalientes, in the home Baena shared with a partner.

Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez said it was unclear if it was a homicide or some kind of accident.  According to a statement from the state attorney-general's Office, there was no sign that a third person had entered the house. Authorities said that a sharp object had been found and that preliminary findings suggested the incident could have been a personal matter.  Many murder investigations in Mexico have a history of being quickly minimized by authorities as crimes of passion.

The LGBTQ+ rights group Letra S has urged local authorities to investigate the deaths thoroughly and without prejudice.  Alejandro Brito, the group's director, said that Baena had received "many hate messages, and even threats of violence and death."   Brito added that Baena had been "breaking through the invisible barriers that closed in the nonbinary community".

The 38-year-old became a magistrate for the Aguascalientes state electoral court in October 2022 and was thought to be the first non-binary person in Latin America to take up a judicial position.  In June, Baena was among the first group of people to be issued gender-neutral passports.  "I am a non-binary person, I am not interested in seeing myself as a woman or a man," Baena wrote on social media the same month.  "This is an identity, it is mine and for me, for no one else."  Baena would regularly publish photos and videos dressed in skirts, heels and toting a rainbow fan in court offices while advocating for LGBTQ+ issues.

A vigil was held for Baena by other LGBTQ+ activists in the capital, Mexico City.  "We are heirs to a struggle that Ociel inherited from us," one person said.  "We must not let Ociel's death pass in vain and we must carry on the legacy Ociel left us."   The former chief justice of Mexico's Supreme Court, Arturo Zaldivar, wrote on social media that he deeply regretted the magistrate's death. "We lost a strong voice for equality and the rights of LGBTI+ people," he said.