Amelio Robles Ávila was many things: a soldier, a strategist, an Indigenous revolutionary, and a trans man who lived his truth, even when it meant putting a gun in someone’s face to defend it.
Becoming Amelio: A Soldier by Identity, Not Disguise
Born in 1889 as Amelia Robles in Guerrero, he was raised in a conservative, Catholic family, the kind that expected girls to be proper, obedient, and invisible. But from a young age, Amelia refused to perform that version of girlhood. He was defiant, bold, and uninterested in the rigid roles assigned to him. He wasn’t confused. He was clear. He knew who he was long before the world had a language for it.
When the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, Robles didn’t join the fight as a soldadera. He entered the battlefield as a man. A soldier. A revolutionary. He took the name Amelio Melequías Robles Ávila and made it known to his peers that this wasn’t a disguise—it was his identity.
And if anyone doubted it? He handled it the way a revolutionary would: by placing a pistol in their face.
He didn’t carry that weapon to protect himself from enemies. He used it to demand respect from those who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see him for who he was.
Respected on the Battlefield, Erased in the Archives
Throughout the war, Amelio proved himself again and again. He was a brilliant tactician and earned the rank of Colonel. The men he fought beside respected him. His contributions were undeniable. But after the war, the Mexican government showed exactly how conditional that respect was.
There were no military honors. No pension. No formal recognition of his identity. To this day, official records still refer to him as a “coronela” erasing the reality of who he was. Even now, in 2025, history books either ignore him completely or reduce him to a woman playing dress-up for safety.
But Amelio lived as a man until his death in 1984. Not just during the war, after it. For over 70 years, he dressed, moved, and loved as a man. He had relationships with women. He fathered a daughter. He made his gender known again and again, not through explanation, but through existence.
And still, he is denied dignity in the archives.
A Legacy Worth Fighting For
In recent years, feminist collectives and historians like Gabriela Cano have worked to tell his story with care and clarity. They’ve honored both the name he was born with and the man he became, not to undermine his identity, but to map the full journey. Some schools and museums now refer to him as Amelia/Amelio Robles in an attempt to bridge the past with the truth of who he was. It’s something, but it’s not enough.
Because the truth is simple: Amelio Robles was not a woman who put on pants to survive the Revolution. He was a trans man, an Indigenous leader, and a national hero. And Mexico’s refusal to recognize him as such says more about our collective discomfort with queer and trans history than it does about his legacy.
Not Your Textbook Hero, But a Hero All the Same
History likes heroes who are easy to romanticize: men with medals and women with flowers in their hair. Amelio doesn’t fit that mold. His story asks us to hold complexity, to confront our biases, and to acknowledge that queer and trans people have always been here. Fighting. Leading. Existing.
We owe him more than a passing mention in feminist essays or LGBTQ timelines. We owe him the dignity he fought for, the truth he lived, and the legacy he left behind.
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