Mexico’s first non-binary magistrate found dead

A year ago, 38 year-old Jesús Ociel Baena became the first openly non-binary person with a judicial post in Mexico. They were also the first person in Latin America to have a non-binary magistrate title approved (le magistrade), were granted Mexico’s first non-binary passport, and last month were given the first non-gendered professor title (maestre) in electoral law. On Monday, Baena and their partner Doni Herrera were found dead in their home in Aguascalientes. By Tuesday, state prosecutors said the deaths were likely a “murder-suicide” and that Baena, who had been stabbed 20 times, appeared to have been killed by their partner. Family and friends who knew the couple have said a murder-suicide was “completely unthinkable”. Baena had a significant social media presence and had received numerous death threats for their activism. Thousands of fellow LGBT+ activists marched in Mexico City demanding their deaths be investigated as a potential hate crime. This week the Trans Murder Monitoring project reported that 73 per cent of the 320 registered murders of trans and gender diverse people between October 2022 and September 2023 were committed in Latin America and the Caribbean.