He joined the Zapatista movement at the age of 23 as a man and remained so until his death in 1984. Both privately and publicly, the soldier Amelio Robles was called "Amelio," even though everyone knew that underneath his belt, his military scarf, his hat, and his virile attitude was a biologically female body.

It was 1912. Decades would pass before the first LGTBQ+ groups would take to the streets to fight for their rights, and the first sex reassignment surgeries would be performed. In the revolutionary Mexico where Robles was born and lived, there were only two ways to be: Man or Woman.

However, he found a way to move towards his true identity, and because of his courage, his good shooting skills, his ability as a horseman, and as a lover of many women, few dared to challenge him. 

"It is an exceptional case because it is documented, although you can't rule out that there were others," researcher Gabriela Cano, who brought Robles' story to light in the book Andar de soldado viejo, tells El País. 

For the historian, who studies how social roles of both sexes were constructed at the beginning of the century, the colonel was neither transgender, nor a transvestite, nor a lesbian woman who adopts male behavior, but a transgender man in a binary society.

"Women were always present, but were never recognized in the Army or by their partners."

"Armed conflicts are often idealized, but they were extreme contexts of death, suffering, and pain, and it is in the war that the gender parameters that existed are shifted," she concludes.