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Latin America’s first nonbinary judge found dead in Mexico home

Authorities say Jesús Ociel Baena showed signs they were stabbed

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Jesús Ociel Baena was Latin America's first nonbinary judge. They were found dead in their home in Mexico's Aguascalientes state on Nov. 13, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Baena's Facebook page)

Authorities in Mexico’s Aguascalientes state on Monday found Latin America’s first nonbinary judge dead in their home.

The Associated Press reported Jesús Ociel Baena’s body was discovered next to another person who media reports and an LGBTQ rights group identified as their partner. State prosecutor Jesús Figueroa Ortega told reporters during a press conference the two victims showed signs they had been stabbed.

Aguascalientes state is located in central Mexico.

The AP reported Baena in October 2022 became a magistrate on Aguascalientes’ electoral court. Baena in June was one of the first people in Mexico to receive a passport with a nonbinary gender marker.  

Violence based on gender identity and sexual orientation remain commonplace in Mexico. 

The AP reported Baena in the weeks before their death had received death threats. Federal Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez on Monday said it remains unclear if the murders were “a homicide or an accident.”

The New Gay Times, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Mexico, reported LGBTQ rights groups across the country have demanded “a definitive and specialized investigation” into Baena’s murder. Thousands of people on Monday who took part in a march in Mexico City demanded justice for Baena.

“We are and will be there for you, dear Ociel,” said Casa Refugio Paola Buenrostro, a shelter in Mexico City that Casa de las Muñecas Tiresas, a local transgender rights group, runs, on Monday in a post to its Facebook page. “Your fight will not be in vein.”

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Mexico

Claudia Sheinbaum sworn in as Mexico’s first female president

Former Mexico City mayor pledged to continue supporting LGBTQ rights

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum (Screen capture via PBS News Hour YouTube)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday took office.

Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s former mayor who is a member of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s leftist Morena party, on June 2 defeated Xóchitl Gálvez of the opposition National Action Party and Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizens’ Movement.

Sheinbaum, who is also a scientist, is Mexico’s first female and first Jewish president.

First lady Jill Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Guzman, and U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) are among the American officials who attended Sheinbaum’s inauguration.

“Mexico and the United States are strong partners and close neighbors and we share deep political, economic, and cultural ties,” said President Joe Biden in a statement in which he congratulated Sheinbaum on her inauguration. “The United States is committed to continuing to work with Mexico to deliver the democratic, prosperous, and secure future that the people of our two countries deserve.” 

Sheinbaum before the election released a policy paper that reiterated her support for LGBTQ rights in Mexico. The platform, among other things, reiterated “absolute respect for diverse gender identities” and pledged to create “public policies to (end impunity) and to eradicate hate crimes and violence against LGBTIQ+ communities because of gender and sexual orientation.”

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Mexico

Claudia Sheinbaum elected Mexico’s first female president

LGBTQ officials throughout Latin America applaud historic milestone

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Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum (Photo via Claudia Sheinbaum's X page)

Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum on Sunday became the first woman elected president of Mexico.

Sheinbaum, a scientist who is a member of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s leftist Morena party, defeated Xóchitl Gálvez of the opposition National Action Party and Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizens’ Movement. She will also be Mexico’s first Jewish president.

“Thank you to the people of Mexico,” said Sheinbaum on her X account. “This is your triumph, this June 2 we once again made history.”

Mexican voters elected Sheinbaum less than a year after Mexico City hosted an LGBTQ and intersex rights conference that the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute co-sponsored. The election also took place against the backdrop of rampant cartel violence in Michoacán and other Mexican states. 

Sheinbaum before the election released a policy paper that reiterated her support for LGBTQ rights in Mexico. The platform, among other things, reiterated “absolute respect for diverse gender identities” and pledged to create “public policies to (end impunity) and to eradicate hate crimes and violence against LGBTIQ+ communities because of gender and sexual orientation.”

“Without diversity, there is no democracy,” read the paper.

(Courtesy photo)

Mexican Congresswoman Salma Luévano, who is transgender, is among those who congratulated Sheinbaum. Claudia López, the former mayor of the Colombian capital of Bogotá who is a lesbian, in a post to her X account described Sheinbaum’s election as a “cultural and political transformation” for Mexico.

“Claudia Sheinbaum has on her shoulders the largest popular mandate in Mexican history and the necessary institutional equilibrium that depends so much on her talent and style of leadership,” said López. “I am sure that her human, professional, scientific training and her feminine empathy will allow her to honor history and her role in it.”

The Washington Blade will update this article.

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Mexico

Mexican Senate approves bill to ban conversion therapy

Measure passed by 77-4 vote margin

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

The Mexican Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would ban so-called conversion therapy in the country.

Yaaj México, a Mexican LGBTQ rights group, on X noted the measure passed by a 77-4 vote margin with 15 abstentions.  The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Mexico’s congress, approved the bill last month that, among other things, would subject conversion therapy practitioners to between two and six years in prison and fines.

The Senate on its X account described conversion therapy as “practices that have incentivized the violation of human rights of the LGBTTTIQ+ community.”

“The Senate moved (to) sanction therapies that impede or annul a person’s orientation or gender identity,” it said. “There are aggravating factors when the practices are done to minors, older adults and people with disabilities.”

Mexico City and the states of Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Jalisco and Sonora are among the Mexican jurisdictions that have banned the discredited practice. 

The Senate in 2022 passed a conversion therapy ban bill, but the House of Deputies did not approve it. It is not immediately clear whether President Andrés Manuel López Obrador supports the ban.

Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Germany, France, and New Zealand are among the countries that ban conversion therapy. Virginia, California, and D.C. are among the U.S. jurisdictions that prohibit the practice for minors.  

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