Jesús Ociel Baena, a well-known LGBTQ+ campaigner and the first openly non-binary member of the Mexican judiciary, was discovered dead at their residence.
On Monday, the magistrate’s body and the body of another person were found in the central city of Aguascalientes.
The second person was recognized by the local media as Baena’s partner.
Rosa Icela Rodriguez, Minister of Security, stated that it was uncertain “whether it was a homicide or… some kind of accident.”
The state attorney general’s office released a statement saying that there was no indication that a third individual had entered the home.
They reported the discovery of a sharp item and the possibility that the occurrence was a private matter based on first investigation results.
Letra S, an organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ rights, has encouraged local authorities to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into the murders.
The director of the group, Alejandro Brito, told the Associated Press that Baena, who identified as they/them, had received “many hate messages, and even threats of violence and death.”
To this Brito added, Baena had been “breaking through the invisible barriers that closed in the nonbinary community”.
The 38-year-old was regarded as the first non-binary person to hold a judicial position in Latin America when she was appointed as a magistrate for the Aguascalientes state electoral court in October 2022.
They were among the first group of individuals to receive passports that were gender-neutral in June.
Baena posted the statement, “I am a non-binary person, I am not interested in seeing myself as a woman or a man,” on X, which was formerly Twitter, that month.
“This is an identity, it is mine and for me, for no one else.”
On Monday night, other LGBTQ+ activists in Mexico City’s capital staged a vigil in honor of Baena.
One of the individuals told the Reuters news agency, “We are heirs to a struggle that Ociel inherited from us.”
“We must not let Ociel’s death pass in vain and we must carry on the legacy Ociel left us.”
Arturo Zaldivar, the former chief justice of Mexico’s Supreme Court, expressed his profound grief for the magistrate’s passing in a social media post.
“We lost a strong voice for equality and the rights of LGBTI+ people,” he stated.
