On this day, 24 February 1915, during the Mexican Revolution, Amelio Robles Ávila, a transgender officer in the Liberation Army of the South, led by Emiliano Zapata, intervened in close combat in Salto de Valadez and Mazatlan, Guerrero. His unit battled against a column directed by colonel Zenón Cerrato, beginning the fight at 12 noon and ended in victory at 6:30 PM.
Robles Ávila recounted that when he first joined the fighting: “it was nothing but madness, but later I learned what a revolutionary stands for and I defended the Plan of Ayala”. The Plan of Ayala was a revolutionary 15 point programme authored by Zapata, which called for the overthrow of the government and for the radical redistribution of wealth, land and property.
While Zapata’s peasant army originally allied with Venustiano Carranza, the relationship soured after Carranza took power and failed to implement promised improvements. According to Robles Ávila, “Carranza was just a mystifier of the revolution and I fought against Carranza.”
This battle was just one of at least 70 he took part in over the course of the revolution, and years after the fighting ended he became the first recognised transgender Mexican army veteran.
Learn more about Robles Ávila on our Stories web app including timeline and sources: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/tag/8681/amelio-robles-%C3%A1vila
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