LGBT in Argentina refers to the diversity of practices, militancies and cultural assessments on sexual diversity that were historically deployed in the territory that is currently the Argentine Republic. It is particularly difficult to find information on the incidence of homosexuality in societies from Hispanic America as a result of the anti-homosexual taboo derived from Christian morality, so most of the historical sources of its existence are found in acts of repression and punishment.Sebreli, 1997, p. 275 One of the main conflicts encountered by LGBT history researchers is the use of modern concepts that were non-existent to people from the past, such as "homosexual", "transgender" and "travesti", falling into an anachronism. Non-heterosexuality was historically characterized as a public enemy: when power was exercised by the Catholic Church, it was regarded as a sin; during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was in the hands of positivist thought, it was viewed as a disease; and later, with the advent of civil society, it became a crime.
According to the Pew Research Center, 76% of Argentine people believe homosexuality should be accepted in society as of 2020, the highest-ranking Latin American country in the list. In 2021, a survey conducted by Ipsos found that 69% of the Argentine population support LGBT visibility and equality, the highest number on the list after Spain's 73%. The country—especially Buenos Aires—is regarded as a top destination for LGBT tourism, and in 2020, the Spartacus International Gay Guide listed it as the fifth most gay-friendly travel destination, the highest-ranking country in Latin America and second in the Americas after Canada.
History
The indigenous peoples of the pre-Columbian era had practices and assessments on sexuality that differed from those of the Spanish conquistadors, who used their sinful "sodomy" to justify their barbarism and extermination.Bazán, 2010 , pp. 59–61
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the first activist groups of the country appeared, most notably the leftist Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH), whose immediate forebear was Nuestro Mundo, the first gay rights organization in Latin America.Bazán, 2010 , pp. 340–342 The arrival of the last civic-military dictatorship in 1976—with its subsequent intensification of state terrorism—dissolved these activist efforts,Sebreli, 1997, p. 325 and the local movement often denounces that there were at least four hundred LGBT people among the desaparecidos. The end of military rule in 1983 was followed by a flourishing of lesbian and gay life in the country which, combined with the continued repression, resulted in a resurgence of activism, within which the role of Carlos Jáuregui and the Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA) stood out.
During the 1990s, the local LGBT activism continued to expand, and the first pride marches of the country took place. During the decade, the and transgender rights movement emerged, spearheaded by figures such as Mariela Muñoz, Karina Urbina, Lohana Berkins, María Belén Correa and Claudia Pía Baudracco. Through the 1980s and until the mid-1990s, the nascent LGBT movement was primarily concerned with issues such as homophobia, police violence, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. One of its first great achievements was the repeal of police edicts () in 1996, used by the Federal Police to arrest LGBT people. In 2000, a civil union bill was introduced in the Buenos Aires legislature, and two years later the city was first in the region to have a law granting legal recognition to same-sex couples.
In the early 2010s, Argentina established itself as a pioneering country in terms of LGBT rights, with the passing of the Equal Marriage Law () in 2010—becoming the tenth country to do so—and the Gender Identity Law () in 2012—which allows people to officially change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery, psychiatric diagnosis or judge approval. The country has had an official ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity. In 2021, the law was passed—which established a 1% quota for trans workers in civil service jobs— and the country became the first in Latin America to recognise non-binary gender identities in its national identification cards and passports.
Health Housing
Access to housing is one of the problems that most affects the travesti and trans women community. In Buenos Aires, 65.1% of travestis and trans women live in rental rooms in hotels, private houses, pensions or apartments, whether authorized by the competent body or "taken" by those who manage them irregularly. According to a study carried out by INDEC and INADI in 2012, 46% of the travesti and trans women population in Argentina lived in deficit housing, while another study carried out by ATTTA and Fundacion Huesped in 2014 indicated that one third of them lived in poor households, particularly in the Northwest region of the country.
Violence
According to the FALGBT and the Buenos Aires ombudsman Defensoría del Pueblo, 152 hate crimes against LGBT people occurred in Argentina in 2020, with 84% of the cases corresponding to travestis and trans women, followed by cisgender gay men with 12%, lesbians with 4% and trans men with 2%. Of all the hate crimes registered, 57% of the cases (86) were injuries to the right to life, while the remaining 43% of the cases (66) were injuries to the right to physical integrity, that is, physical violence that did not result in death. Regarding the geographical distribution of these hate crimes, the highest percentage occurred in the Buenos Aires Province with 34.21%; followed by the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires with 14.47%; then Córdoba Province with 8.55%; and later Santa Fe Province with 6.58%. In fifth place, 5.92% of the total cases took place in Salta Province; followed by the provinces of Catamarca, Jujuy, Tucumán and Santiago del Estero with 3.95% each; then with 1.97% each, the provinces of Misiones and Mendoza. They are followed by the provinces of Chaco, La Rioja, Entre Ríos, San Juan and Santa Cruz with 1.32%. Finally, with 0.66% representing one case per province: San Luis, Corrientes, Neuquén and Chubut. In 1.32% of the cases, there is no record of the geographic location where the events occurred.
According to a 2017 research published by the Ministry of Defense of Buenos Aires titled La revolución de las mariposas, 74.6% of trans women and travestis in the city said they had suffered some type of violence, a high number, although lower than that registered in 2005, which was 91.9%. The same study indicated that they die on average at the age of 32, well below the average life expectancy of the country. Lohana Berkins reflected in 2015: "Reaching old age is for a travesti like belonging to an exclusive club, because the mishaps that accompany marginal life—which lead to a death that is always considered premature in terms of population statistics—are the perennial consequences of a persecuted identity." In recent times, the concept of "travesticide" (Spanish: travesticidio)—along with "transfemicide" or "trans femicide"— has been extended to refer to the hate crime understood as the murder of a travesti due to her gender condition. In 2015, the murder case of activist Diana Sacayán became the first precedent in Argentina and in Latin America to be criminally judged as a "travesticide". According to Blas Radi and Alejandra Sardá-Chandiramani: Travesticide/transfemicide is the end of a continuum of violence that begins with the expulsion of home, exclusion from education, the health system and labor market, early initiation into prostitution/sex work, the permanent risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, criminalization, social stigmatization, pathologization, persecution and police violence. This pattern of violence constitutes the space of experience for trans women and travesties, which is mirrored in their waning horizon of expectations. In it, death is nothing extraordinary; on the contrary, in the words of Octavio Paz "life and death are inseparable, and each time the first loses significance, the second becomes insignificant".
Work According to La revolución de las mariposas, 88% of travestis and trans women from Buenos Aires never had a formal job, while 51.5% never had a job of any kind. 70.4% of those surveyed said they earned their living from prostitution, and of this group, 75.7% had been doing so from an age less than or equal to 18 years. 87.2% of these travesti and trans women surveyed who currently work as prostitutes wish to leave the activity if they were to be offered a job. The expulsion of travestis from the educational system is a necessary element to understand the use of prostitution as an almost exclusive means of support, since the "hostile circumstances that mark the schooling experience of the majority of travesti girls and adolescents severely condition the possibilities of these subjects in terms of social inclusion and access to quality employment in adulthood."
Observances
In 2012, the legislature of the city of Buenos Aires established August 20 as the Day of Activism for Sexual Diversity in Argentina, in memory of activist Carlos Jauregui and his contributions to the LGBT community.
Since 2013, the Argentine Lesbian Visibility Day is celebrated on March 5, in memory of the murder Natalia "Pepa" Gaitán, killed by a shotgun in the chest by her girlfriend's stepfather that day in 2010.
In the city of Buenos Aires, the Day for the Promotion of the Rights of Trans People is commemorated every year on March 18 since 2014, a date instituted to commemorate the death of activist Claudia Pía Baudracco. The initiative was replicated by the legislatures of the city of Córdoba and of Santa Fe Province in 2016, and of Río Negro Province in 2020.
Arts and culture Archives
In 2011, the blog Potencia Tortillera (English: "Tortillera Potency") was created, the first digitized documentary archive of lesbian activisms.
Following the death of fellow activist Claudia Pía Baudracco, María Belén Correa created the Archivo de la Memoria Trans (English: "Archive of Trans Memory") in 2012, which originally began as a Facebook group. It is a unique collective project in the world, dedicated to compiling and recovering the cultural heritage of the Argentine trans community. Correa defined the project as: "the reconstruction of the memories, experiences and past [of trans people], counting on the survivors who are exiled and the few who remain living in Argentina." The archive began to professionalize after the incorporation of the photographer Cecilia Estalles, who prompted Correa to digitize the images.
Argot Argentine gay men have developed the so-called "language of the locas" (Spanish: "habla de las locas"), term with which openly effeminate homosexuals were called in the gay scene. A popular term in local gay culture is chongo—the opposite of loca—which refers to masculine, straight passing men. The popularity of the word chongo has extended from the gay community and is currently also used by heterosexual women to refer to men with whom they are sexually attracted.
The Argentine LGBT community uses the pejorative term paqui or paki to refer to heterosexual people. There are different versions regarding the origin of the term, including it being a reference to Plaza de Pakistán—a popular cruising spot for men who have sex with men in Buenos Aires. The word paqui apparently comes from paquidermo, which means "" in Spanish. The lesbian community claims to have invented the term in the 1960s, because they saw heterosexuality as "clumsy and boring in bed." Over the years, the term began to be written with the letter k for its association with Plaza de Pakistán, something that has been denounced and resented by lesbian activists.