Amelio Robles’s masculine performance was supported by identifying documents that accredited his membership in various social and political organizations. The credentials’ identifying photographs confirm Robles’s masculinity, whose name and signature always figure as male.3 Perhaps the greatest evidence of the effectiveness of his masculine appearance is the med- ical certificate required for admission to the Confederation of Veterans of the Revolution. Issued in 1948 by a medical clinic in Mexico City, the certificate attested to Robles’s good health, age, and the scars from six bullet wounds on different parts of his body, including one in the thigh and another in the armpit—all without alluding to his sexual anatomy. The medical investigation required by the Confederation of Veterans of the Revolution was not a thorough examination but rather a prerequisite intended to certify any war wounds, considered irrefutable proof of valor on the field of battle.
The Ministry of National Defense (Secretaría de Defensa Nacional, or SDN) legitimated Amelio Robles’s masculine identity by decorating him in 1974 as a veterano of the revolution, not as a veterana, an honor bestowed on over three hundred women for their services in the revolutionary cause. The recognition of the country’s highest military officials must have provided Amelio Robles with enormous satisfaction, although the SDN did not corroborate the rank of colonel (or issue a pension) that he claimed in the Zapatista army, which had no systematic procedures for promotion.
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