THOUSANDS hit the streets of Mexico City on Monday night to demand justice for an influential LGBT activist who was found dead at home in the city of Aguascalientes.

Jesus Ociel Baena, the first openly non-binary person to assume a judicial post in Mexico, was found dead next to his partner Dorian Herrera.

Baena had been the target of numerous death threats since coming to prominence.

But State Prosecutor Jesus Figueroa Ortega told a news conference that “there are no signs or indications to be able to determine that a third person other than the dead was at the site of the crime.”

The suggestion that suicide was a possibility in the deaths quickly sparked outrage, with LGBT groups calling it another attempt by authorities to brush aside violence against their communities.

Alejandro Brito, director of the LGBT rights group Letra S, said Baena’s visibility on social media made the magistrate a target and urged authorities to take that into consideration in their investigation.

Mr Brito said: “They were a person who received many hate messages, and even threats of violence and death and you can’t ignore that in these investigations. 

“They, the magistrate, was breaking through the invisible barriers that closed in the non-binary community.”

Protesters in Mexico City lit candles over photos of Baena and other victims of anti-LGBT violence. 

They shouted “Justice” and “We won’t stay silent” and demanded a detailed investigation into the deaths.

Among them was Nish Lopez, who came out as non-binary in March, partly in response to Baena’s inspiration.

“I loved them because they made people uncomfortable, but they knew what they were doing,” Lopez said. 

“Through institutions they showed that you can inspire change regardless of your gender identity.”

The National Observatory of Hate Crimes Against LGBTI+ Persons in Mexico registered 305 violent hate crimes against sexual minorities in 2019-22, including murder and disappearances.