This February, Mexican LGBTQIA+ activist Fausto Martínez became the first person to receive a non-binary gender marker on their birth certificate. This historic achievement was the result of a months-long appeal process that culminated with Martínez winning their amparo lawsuit.
The journey for transgender and non-binary people to be recognized legally doesn’t have the track record for being the smoothest, and this is true for Martínez’s journey as well. They spoke about the process of achieving this on a Twitter thread, opening up to the hardships that they faced to make this happen.
It all started in September of 2021, when Martínez and a few other non-binary people approached the National Electoral Institute (INE) wishing to put “NB” (non-binary) on their official documents instead of sex. Unfortunately, the INE denied their request, which is when Martínez requested help from Juan Pablo Delgado, the executive director of Amicus, a “civil society organization that works every day in the defense and promotion of LGBTQ+ and Mexican peoples’ rights”.
Together they filed their amparo lawsuit in November and the judge ruled in their favor in January. “I’ve always said that what is not named does not exist,” Martínez wrote on Twitter. “Which is why the transcendence of this fact, the Mexican state recognizes that non-binary people exist and with that, we are subject to rights and obligations.”
As of right now, the court’s decision only applies to Martínez’s case, but they are hopeful the decision could be used as a precedent for future cases and eventually for everyone.