Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo lived his life with pride and courage. For several years now, he has been defining himself as a non-binary person, using inclusive language, breaking barriers and laying the foundation for other people from the LGTBIQ+ community to find their way into spaces where they have been discriminated against in the past. Baena Saucedo was the first person to receive a non-binary birth certificate in Coahuila, the first non-binary passport in Mexico, the first voter ID with a non-binary box, and the first openly non-binary person to hold a judicial position in Mexico took Latin America.
Baena Saucedo published photos and videos on her social networks wearing skirts, high heels and holding a rainbow fan in judicial offices with hundreds of thousands of followers. Throughout his career, he has sought to involve people from the LGTBIQ+ community in politics in Mexico, the second country with the most hate crimes in Latin America, with 305 violent acts between 2019 and 2022, according to the National Observatory of Hate Crimes Against LGTBIQ+ People. A native of Saltillo, Coahuila, he had lived for ten years in the city of Aguascalientes, where he was found this Monday dead and with signs of violence in the house with his partner after receiving death threats based on his gender identity.
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The long road to naming rights
Baena Saucedo, 38, described herself as “a non-binary and proudly homosexual person,” meaning someone who does not identify with either the male or female gender. On her professional LinkedIn profile and in her social networks, she appeared in a checked skirt, black blouse and high heels. In an interview with journalist Gabriela Warkentin in October 2022, she explained that the path to recognizing and naming yourself as a non-binary person was marked by violence and discrimination from a young age.
“For a long time I perceived myself as a woman, I liked women’s clothes, I liked the things they did or the girl stereotypes. And that created the breeding ground for me to be discriminated against throughout my childhood, both in my family and at school,” he explained.
But Baena Saucedo left home when his family found out about his gender identity and returned after six months of no communication, after which his family decided to take him in. “I have decided to forgive myself and accept myself. “If you cross that personal boundary, the rest will follow.”
Years later, as a student at the Faculty of Law at the Autonomous University of Coahuila, he was appointed president of the student association, where he was openly gay. Thanks to this experience, he delved deeper into democratic processes and in 2006 took part in an opposition examination to become the returning officer of the then Federal Electoral Institute (IFE). It was a temporary job that he combined with a teaching position in Coahuila until some time later when he had the opportunity to take part in an opposition exam in which he competed against more than 2,000 people nationwide and won a permanent place in the government body, the Electoral Tribunal, received the state of Aguascalientes.
“Elle, elle, her pronoun was elle!”
Thousands of people gathered at the Estela de Luz this evening and then marched to the Paseo de la
Reform in Mexico City to demand justice for the death of judge Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo🎥 @LaloEduardoMx pic.twitter.com/LGd3UlP0ni
— EL PAÍS Mexico (@elpaismexico) November 14, 2023
In 2020, while participating in a strategic legal battle over political voting rights, Baena Saucedo decided to openly express his gender identity as a non-binary person, and in 2022 he became the first non-binary election judge in Latin America.
Since then, she decided to openly express her non-binary gender identity and began wearing makeup and high heels. In her own words: “People who identify as non-binary are those who break the dichotomous idea of what is meant by a man and a woman.” In my case, I do not identify and feel male not me as a woman. My identity, which makes me feel free and belonging and allows me to develop in my personality, is this breaking of the dichotomy of wearing men’s clothes and “It is a woman who does not have the obligation, the burden and the social pressure “Having to behave a certain way,” she said.
Little by little, Baena Saucedo promoted initiatives such as the use of inclusive bathrooms and the guidelines for the inclusion of people from the LGTBIQ+ community in the court. “In the upper echelons of power, which are generally men […] Visibility allows us to normalize our presence; We want nothing more than to normalize our presence in public and private spaces. […] “If it’s my turn to get criticism, then definitely not,” he said in an interview last October.
The use of a language that makes visible
Baena Saucedo’s fight went beyond the electoral court of the state of Aguascalientes. The magistrate promoted an initiative that the voter ID card should have a field for non-binary people. So people with this gender identity could vote with the letter “X” in the gender field instead of the letters “H” and “M” for man and woman. However, his gender identity meant that he was constantly subjected to attacks on social networks, including hate messages and death threats.
In October last year, she admitted the fear her gender identity caused her in her early days: “The first time I put on a skirt, put on heels, put on my lipstick and left my house four years ago, it was a fear. “ ” . I broke my own glass ceiling when I walked out onto the street and thought that everyone was already waiting for me with a stone. Then this stone became verbal discourse, but the problem is that it is more important to overcome personal fears.”
During an interview broadcast on October 26 on the program La VerDrag on Channel Once, Baena Saucedo spoke about the hate messages that she was the target of: “The hate speech against me is increasing, I have seen it on social networks .” Media, but what I regret most are the death threats I have received recently. […] Physical aggression follows from verbal discourse and ends in murder,” he said.
Just a few weeks before his death, he received a certificate from the Electoral Tribunal recognizing him as “maestre,” a historic and significant step in the use of Spanish, a language in which words are distinguished between two genders, male and female.
Alejandro Brito, director of Letra S, an LGTBIQ+ rights group, told the Associated Press that Baena Saucedo had received many hate messages on social media, including threats of violence and death, and that this should not be ignored in the investigation. “Elle, Magistrade, has broken the circle of invisibility in which this community has been trapped.”
We deeply regret the death of Judge Ociel Baena. His legacy in the fight for equality and against discrimination through strategic litigation and tireless action on behalf of sexual and gender diversity is invaluable.
We demand clarification… pic.twitter.com/fdOGcCHSKU
– MOVii (@MOViiMexico) November 13, 2023
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