On the night of December 20, 2001, less than an hour after President Fernando de la Rúa declared martial law, hundreds of thousands of Argentines took to the streets and marched straight into the political and historical heart of Buenos Aires, La Plaza de Mayo. We shouted a very rude but liberating slogan telling de la Rua what he could do with his martial law. In the days that followed, the police killed 22 people near the plaza. Various groups resisted this brutality with their bodies, including the Plaza de Mayo Mothers, motoqueros (young men who deliver packages using motorcycles), left-wingers—and gay, lesbian and travesti activists.
The links between some “LGBTTTI”1 groups and left-wing parties (mostly communist and Trotskyist), as well as the more mainstream human rights movement, have been very strong since the gay and lesbian movement began in the late 1960s. Activists like Lohana Berkins (travesti) and Maria Rachid (lesbian) have run for legislative seats on left-wing tickets. Julio Talavera, a gay activist prominent in the HIV/AIDS movement, has for a long time also been one of the leaders of the Children of the Disappeared (H.I.J.O.S.). For these activists, as well as for many others, discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation or gender identity is not isolated from socioeconomic injustice; rather it is one more tool to preserve the privileges of patriarchy and the capitalist system. For travestis2 in particular, it is impossible to dream of a liberal state that would guarantee certain civil rights to “sexual diversity” when every day they experience the links between poverty, marginalization and gender-based discrimination.
Nonetheless, Argentine society has evolved in a quite positive way with regard to gay and lesbian rights in the last 20 years. Legal advances, such as civil unions or the modification of regulations that forbade gay men from donating blood,3 are legitimate conquests of the movement. They are by no means gifts from the Néstor Kirchner government, which has begun to deal with the “LGBTTTI” movement using a “recipe” it has employed with the human rights, women’s rights and unemployed (piquetero) movements:
- Satisfy some of the movement’s most urgent, or symbolic demands, provided they do not threaten the status quo too deeply (i.e., repealing the laws that shielded the dictators from prosecution, now that they are already in their seventies; distributing contraception in public hospitals; granting monthly subsidies of US$50 to the unemployed).
- Be silent or ambivalent about how far you are willing to go in supporting controversial issues (i.e., the large number of police officers involved in the dictatorship who are still in active positions of power; abortion; land reform; and the expropriation of factories taken over by workers).
- Spread a few symbolic gestures here and there, provided they do not risk unwanted consequences (i.e., transforming former concentration camps into museums; giving awards to leaders of the abortion struggle; kissing babies in shantytowns).
- Be generous with money (i.e., grants for friendly NGOs).
- Divide and rule. Provide government positions for some of the most prominent leaders—provided they are always under the authority of a career politician and can be easily watched—forcing movements to split between those who are working with the government and those who are not. That will keep them busy.
Being small and not truly problematic, the “LGBTTTI” movement was not initially a priority for the Kirchner administration. Since its first years of office, Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (Argentine Homosexual Community, CHA), one of the oldest and more mainstream organizations in the country, has cultivated a fluid relationship with the Foreign Affairs Ministry and taken part in developing the National Plan Against Discrimination, which includes important demands, such as civil unions for same-sex couples and the recognition of transpeople. But with the appointment in September 2006 of María José Lubertino as head of the government’s National Institute Against Discrimination (INADI) and the close links forged between her and some of the leaders of the Argentine LGBT Federation (a coalition created in 2006 of four well-established organizations), the “recipe” began to be applied in full force.
Lubertino, a professional politician, has always supported feminist causes and sexual diversity, so she might appear to be a good choice for the INADI—and there are no doubts about her dedication and knowledge of the issues. But regardless of her credentials, is a politician from the president’s base the best candidate for a position that requires loyalty only to human rights standards and the people affected by discrimination? True, the INADI is not the ombudsman’s office.4 But wouldn’t an independent expert (such as a human rights lawyer, activist or scholar with no ties to any party) have been a better choice?
With Lubertino’s appointment, the Kirchner administration seems to have learned its lesson from three years ago, when, in one of its first symbolic gestures, it appointed two outstanding, and independent, human rights experts, Eugenio Zaffaroni and Carmen Argibay, to the Supreme Court. In the years that followed, these judges became a serious headache for the government, unruly as independent experts passionate about human rights tend to be.
Meanwhile, the minister of health, Ginés González García, has publicly stated that abortion should be decriminalized. With his support, and thanks to the amazing work of feminist and women union leaders, a growing movement is demanding free, legal and safe abortions, with more than half of the population supporting it. The usually quite talkative president, however, has never spoken on the issue. Unlike with other popular but less controversial issues, neither the number of demonstrators in the streets nor the survey results have been enough to recruit the president to this cause. Rumor has it that Kirchner has made it clear to Minister González that contraception and sex education are fine, but decriminalizing abortion is a line he would rather not cross, to avoid conflicts with the Catholic Church.
How far the Kirchner administration is willing to go was also demonstrated by the recent vote at the Buenos Aires Provincial Congress on amending the Misdemeanors Code.5 Travesti groups—including the Asociación Argentina de Travestis y Transexuales (Argentine Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals, ATTA), the transvestite national organization that is a member of the Federation6—and their allies had been lobbying to repeal not only the articles criminalizing “cross-dressing” but also one condemning those who “engage in prostitution in public, in a scandalous manner.” The cross-dressing articles, which date from the early 20th century and are crudely discriminatory, were repealed. But the provision against “scandal” was not; it must remain because it guarantees that police officers will continue collecting money by extorting travestis and their clients, pacifying the conservatives by showing that the government will still protect public morals.
A Cacophony (or a Rainbow?) of Voices
During the 2006 Buenos Aires Pride Parade, heavily armed riot police blocked all access to the cathedral. They were both protecting the marchers from the divine fury of a small but very vocal group of Catholic fundamentalists, and, more importantly, guarding the cathedral against the grafitti that in previous years it had suffered at the hands of non-mainstream LGBT groups and their anarchist allies.7 This show of force did not prevent parade participants from clearly embodying this year’s slogan, “We are all wonderfully different,” in their remarks.
“We do not want to be marginal,” said Claudia Baudracco, one of the leaders of ATTA in her speech. “We want to live under the protection of the National Constitution and for transpeople to be part of society as a whole.”8 César Cigliutti, the president of CHA, thanked the city government for having placed rainbow flags along the streets where the parade passed and added, “We deserve to enjoy our party in peace.”9
Fabiana Tron, from Desalambrando Córdoba, a lesbian group that is part of the Contramarcha,10 said, “For human rights for all to be realized we would have to live in a different system, because capitalism does not allow it to happen. To say that we only want equal rights is to fall into a trap…. What we want is a more just society…. We want heaven here, now.”11
As these quotes demonstrate, “LGBTTTI” people speak and act from their own unique circumstances, in which their other identities (class, race, age, etc.) play a determining role. For someone like Baudracco, whose organization does an amazing job organizing travestis, the “LGBTTTI” rainbow’s most marginalized group and the hardest hit by violence, citizenship is an absolutely valid claim and inclusion an understandable political horizon. For middle-class gay men like Cigliutti, Buenos Aires—the new mecca of the international gay tourism—is understandably a party and the government a kind host. For politically minded lesbians like Tron, the charade is pretty obvious, and the challenge is how to search for new alternatives.
Unlike gays and lesbians—who do enjoy a certain degree of social inclusion and can be found in all social classes but whose activists are usually middle-class, urban and educated—the wide majority of travestis belong to the most deprived sectors of society. In Argentina, being travesti means moving several steps down the social scale even if one comes from the middle classes. Many travestis are sex workers and/or drug dealers, have no formal education, and live in shantytowns or dilapidated hotels, and almost their only interaction with the system consists of daily battles with the police. In urban centers, that fate has somewhat been alleviated in the last years, thanks to the endless efforts of travesti activists and their allies, to the extent that travestis can now attend school and be treated with respect at public hospitals.
Even in “democratic,” gay-mecca Argentina, the travesti organization Asosiación Luchar por la Identidad Travesti y Transexual (Association to Fight for the Travesti Transsexual Identity)12 had legal registration denied by the Executive under the argument that “affirming travesti identity does not contribute to the public good.” Thus, for travesti leaders and organizations, the dilemmas are more complicated and resonate with those faced by the piquetero movement. Their needs are urgent, ranging from the legal to the most concrete levels (assistance with food and lodging, professional training, HIV/AIDS prevention, access to health care). Travesti leaders are extremely savvy and they know very well the traps that lie ahead. But, in their case, conquering citizenship is quite a revolutionary act. It is an act that forces the state to interact with them and recognize their full humanity.
A Glimpse of the Future
There is nothing I wish for more than to be wrong in one of my premonitions—that the Kirchner administration will never be brave enough to decriminalize abortion. The committed feminists who are coordinating the Campaign for Legal, Free and Safe Abortion13 and, even more so, the women who every day are hospitalized and die from illegal, unsafe abortions deserve it.
But the administration will pass a national civil unions law—with restricted rights, not including adoption—and most likely a gender-identity law that will allow transsexuals to undergo sex-reassignment surgery and change their identity papers afterward. (And those laws will effectively change the lives of many, for the better). It will promote dozens of workshops, conferences and debates on “LGBTTTI” issues around the country, and will fund all kinds of social, cultural and even political initiatives. It will distribute condoms, teach people how to use them and introduce nondiscriminatory content in school curricula.
It will not, however, pass a gender-recognition act like the one in the United Kingdom, which does not require surgery; add an “x” category for gender to national ID papers, like in New Zealand; legalize sex work; or create a commission led by intersex activists to regulate surgical procedures affecting intersex children—because, again, it will mean radically changing the rules of the game in Argentina, offending the Catholic Church and (God forbid!) even losing some votes.
But teenagers in Buenos Aires, Rosario, Córdoba and other cities will keep defining themselves as “pansexuals” and exploring love, desire and/or pleasure with girls, boys, travestis, transmen and many other gender identities that will come to be lived and named in due time. Travesti groups will wisely use all the spaces of social acceptance that even a very mild liberal (in the U.S. sense of the word) administration cannot fail to provide, and more travestis (particularly the young) will go to school and fight for spaces in mainstream society. Having for the first time an administration that besides repressing them is also set to co-opt them, some gays and lesbians will problematize the relationship between their social movement and the state in ways never done before, enriching their political reflection and practice. And, hopefully, as the limitations of what the state is willing to do become clearer, more “LGBTTTIs” will explore (or continue exploring) nonstate or parastate solutions to their problems.
Notes:
- This is the most accepted name for the movement in Argentina: lesbian, gay, bisexual, travesti (see footnote below), transgender, transsexual and intersex. However, the acronym is not always reflected in the content. For instance, intersex activist Mauro Cabral pointed out to me that in spite of the “I,” there was no mention at all of intersex in the speech read by the Organizing Committee during the last Buenos Aires Pride Parade (November 25, 2006). I keep the acronym but place it in quotation marks, to remind readers that not all the subgroups are really included in most initiatives.
- I have chosen to refer only to travestis in this essay, as they are the most numerous and politically organized transcommunity in Argentina. Other groups (like transmen) are starting to organize themselves, but they are still very few and what they are doing for the moment is struggling inside the “LGBTTTI” movement to become more visible.
- See “Por un reclamo evalúan permitir donación de sangre a los gays,” Página 12, February 2, 2006, www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ sociedad/3-77114-2006-1202.htm
- Thanks to Marcelo Ferreyra for his illuminating comments on this issue.
- See www.iglhrc.org for a detailed information on this process.
- See www.attta.org.
- Once again, thanks to Marcelo Ferreyra for thinking through this section with me.
- “Postales de la Marcha del Orgullo Gay en Buenos Aires,” http://luchadores.wordpress.com/2006/11/27/postales-del-orgullo-gay-2006….
- Ibid.
- For several years now, groups that disagree with the political views of the parade organizers (CHA and the Federation among them) organize the contramarcha (counterparade). They march behind the official parade, chanting their own slogans. Groups with links to left-wing political parties, anarchists and other nonmainstream “LGBTTTI” individuals and groups are those who usually come together for the contramarcha.
- Interview by Liliana Daunes for the radio program Marca de Radio. The audio is stored at www.marcaderadio.com.ar (“El orgullo contramarcha”).
- For more on the process of legal registration, see www.iglhrc.org.
- For more information on this initiative, which brings together a wide range of organizations and has led thousands of women to participate in demonstrations all over the country, see www.derechoalaborto.org.ar.
Alejandra Sardá is a sexual rights activist and the coordinator of Mulabi: Latin American Space for Sexualities. She lives in Buenos Aires and Mexico City.
