LGBT in Argentina

LGBT in Argentina

From top, left to right: an indigenous transgender female in Viedma, Río Negro in 1902; activists Raúl Soria and Carlos Jáuregui in the cover of magazine Siete Días in 1984; portraits of the "Princesa de Borbón", a famed travesti of the Buenos Aires gay scene, c. 1911; the Frente de Liberación Homosexual in 1973; a group of transgender activists in 1998, including Lohana Berkins (left) and Claudia Pía Baudracco (right); and a crowd at the Buenos Aires pride march of 2018.

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.^[1] 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.^[2] 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.^[3] 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.

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. The arrival of the last civic-military dictatorship in 1976—with its subsequent intensification of state terrorism—dissolved these activist efforts, 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 travesti 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.^[4] One of its first great achievements was the repeal of police edicts (Spanish: "edictos policiales") 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 (Spanish: Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario) in 2010—becoming the tenth country to do so—and the Gender Identity Law (Spanish: Ley de Identidad de Género) in 2012—which allows people to officially change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery, psychiatric diagnosis or judge approval. Since 2019, the country has an official ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity. In 2021, the Cupo Laboral Trans law was passed—which established a 1% quota for trans workers in civil service jobs—^[5]and the country became the first in Latin America to recognise non-binary gender identities in its national identification cards and passports.^[6][7]

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.^[8] 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%.^[9] The country—especially Buenos Aires—is regarded as a top destination for LGBT tourism,^[10][11] 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.^[12]

History[]

Indigenous peoples[]

Andean peoples[]

The Inca Empire (in Quechua: Tawantinsuyu) extended to part of the modern-day Argentine provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Catamarca, Tucumán, La Rioja, San Juan, and the northwest of Mendoza, incorporating them to the Qullasuyu administrative region.^[13]

According to journalist Edmundo Fayanas Escuer, homosexuality was frequently practiced in the Inca Empire—being closely linked with religious life—and lesbianism was permitted and even idealized within the noble classes.^[14] Among the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, skeletons of two young men were found surrounded by feminine ornaments and without any masculine attributes.^[15]

Nevertheless, Juan José Sebreli noted that: "This does not mean, however, that sexual permissiveness reigned in indigenous cultures, in the style of lost paradises that utopian anthropologists like Margaret Mead believe they find in primitive peoples. In the most advanced pre-Columbian civilizations, on the contrary, homosexuality was repressed more viciously than among Europeans; the Incas completely destroyed the sites where a case of sodomy was discovered."^[16]

Guaraní and Guaycurú peoples[]

In his 1946 study "Ethnography of the Chaco" (Spanish: "Etnografía del Chaco"), anthropologist Alfred Métraux reported that berdaches were very common among the Mbayá people, writing: "They dressed and spoke like women, pretended to menstruate, and engaged in feminine activities. They were regarded as the prostitutes of the village."^[17] According to Alberto Cardín, even though Métraux wrote on the Mbayá people, this was the name that the Guaraní gave in past times to the nomadic tribes of the Guaicuruan languages, who inhabited the other side of the Paraguay River.^[18] Pierre Clastres lived for a year among the Guaycurú people and reported two paradigmatic cases: that of Chachubutagachugi, a member of the Aché tribe who did not like men's jobs and worked alongside women; and that of Krembegin, an unapologetic homosexual who was frowned upon but never punished.^[18] Likewise, in the mid-19th century the Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute reported on the homosexuality of the Guaycurú: "Among the Guaycurú and the Xamico, there are some men [...], whom they call cudinhos, who serve as women, mainly on long trips. These cudinhos or nefarious demons, dress and adorn themselves like women, talk like them, they do only the same jobs that they do, they urinate on their knees, they have a husband whom they are very jealous of and constantly hold in their arms, they appreciate that men fall in love with them and once a month they affect a ridiculous pretense that they are supposed to be menstruating, not eating, like women in those crises, neither fish nor meat, only fruits and palm hearts, going every day, as they practice, to the river with a basin to wash themselves."^[18]

Mapuche peoples[]

Depiction of a Mapuche family from the Araucanía region, c. 1854.

The Mapuche peoples—who inhabited part of the current territories of Chile and Argentina—had a notion of sexual identity and practice that differed from those of Spanish conquistadors, who reduced their complexity under the concept of "sodomy".^[19] According to Chilean writer Tomás Guevara, who studied the Mapuche people in the early 20th century:

"[Mapuche] society did not stigmatize pederasty, which was not as widespread [among them] as in Inca communities. In Arauco, it was practiced freely by the machi, male healers. It seems that sodomy was an integral part of ancient and modern 'machism'. The chroniclers of the 17th century mention the existence of this deviation from genetic functions and describe the ways and the exterior of these pederasts. In the learning of 'machism' for men, the art of leaving their sex or of copying females in walking and dressing, in gestures, voice and looks was understood. They painted their faces and adorned themselves like women. They chose an invariably young man, who played the role of husband. They were these passive pederast machi and rarely experienced lewd feelings about women. The young men destined to satisfy the inverted sexual activity of these individuals were made the butt of ridicule by others, and nothing more. They never denied their status as active pederasts because they feared that by refusing, they could father defective children if they married. [The Mapudungun language] designates the homosexual with the word huelle and homosexuality with huelletun."^[19]

An indigenous "sexual invert"—presumably a Mapuche machi weye—detained in Viedma, Río Negro, as reported by Caras y Caretas in 1902; shown dressed in female clothing (left), being inspected by a physician (center), and half-dressed in male clothing (right).

In the same way, anthropologist Alfred Métraux reported that: "The male shamans today are, as before, berdaches, to use an old French word formerly applied to people of their kind among the Indians of North America. Núñez de Pineda y Bascuñán, who knew them well in the 18th century, qualifies them as passive homosexuals (hueye). He describes them as dressed in loincloths tied at the waist in the manner of women and in a long tunic.' He adds: 'They did not dress like a man, but wore their hair long, while the others braided it. They were adorned with necklaces, rings and other feminine jewels. They were highly esteemed and respected by men and women; with the latter they behaved like men, and with the former like women.' Among the [Mapuche] of the Argentine pampas, a young man of delicate constitution who acted more like a girl than a future warrior, was not for that reason despised, he was not an object of ridicule. His tendencies were stimulated since they dressed him as a woman; an effeminate appearance was in a man the outer mark of his shamanic vocation."^[19]

However, more recent studies point out that, by translating the colonial codes of "sodomy" into the sexuality of machis—isolating them from their historical and socio-political contexts—European settlers were unable to truly understand Mapuche sexuality.^[19] Unlike what the Spaniards interpreted, the Mapuches considered that, while political power was masculine, spiritual power was linked to femininity.^[19][20] For them, in addition to men and women, there was at least one more gender identity and they accepted many different types of sexual acts.^[19][20] Until the late 17th century, shamans—then known as machi weye—were men with special powers due to their permanent dual gender identities and relationships with spirits, which allowed them to act as mediators between the human and spiritual world.^[20] The machi weye oscillated between the feminine and masculine poles, combining male and female behaviors, dress, and styles in various ways.^[20] This dual gender condition could be associated with active or passive sexual acts with men or women or with celibacy, the meanings of which varied depending on the context.^[20] A man who became "effeminate" did not lose any status, as womanhood and feminity were valued socially.^[19][20] According to Chilean anthropologist Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, the sexual acts of the machi weye in the Colonial era were not homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual; but rather linked to spirituality.^[20] Through colonization, the Mapuche people eventually incorporated the sexual ideology of the conquistadors, and many modern-day Mapuches claim that homosexuality never existed among them, but that they were practices introduced by the Spanish.^[19]

Pampa peoples[]

The various indigenous groups that inhabited the Pampas region were grouped under the name of Pampas by colonizers, who sometimes made the distinction between these and the so-called Serranos, those who inhabited places farther away from the lowlands, such as San Luis, Córdoba and the Sierra de la Ventana mountains.^[21] The Pampas label was variously used to include the Mbeguá, Tehuelche, Ranquel and Querandí peoples, among others.^[21][22]

In the second half of the 19th century, with the indigenous tribes already in their decline, Lucio Victorio Mansilla reported in 1870 on the Ranquel people's orgiastic dances between men, writing: "They kissed, they bit each other, they threw obscene hands..."^[16]

16th—18th centuries: Colonial era[]

Painting by Pancho Fierro depicting the Peruvian Inquisition—which had jurisprudence on present-day Argentina—parading a detainee in the streets of Lima.

The repression of homosexuality was legalized in Spain with the establishment of the absolutist monarchy: the Catholic Monarchs instituted the death penalty at the stake for the act of "sodomy" or "nefarious contra natura sin" in 1497, and King Philip II revalidated it in practice in 1598.^[1] On January 25, 1569, Philip II created the Inquisition Tribunals of Lima and Mexico, with the former having jurisprudence on the current Argentine territory.^[23] As explained by Professor Jaime Humberto Borja Gómez:

... a distinctive feature of the Inquisition in the Americas was that the accusation (of homosexuality) fell especially upon the cultural groups that diverged from the cultural norm that the conquistadors had, that is, the accusation of homosexuality was brought against the indigenous Americans that resisted the Conquista, which also intensified the idea of the Just War. Later, the same accusation of "infamous" behavior was brought to bear on black slaves and their strange attitudes. This imputation was not rare in Christian thought, since it had been carried out throughout the history of medieval thought, which accused of sexual excess, especially homosexuality, all those out-groups that represented a danger to the social order: this was done to heretics, Jews or Templars. It was a way of diminishing the "other", feminizing them, to highlight their "barbaric" customs. In fact, homosexuality was a characteristic of the "barbarian" according to some sources of classical antiquity.^[23]

The jurists, theologians and moralists of the 16th and 17th centuries defined homosexual sexual acts with the term "sodomy".^[24] From this definition, a "ranking" of sins was built according to their level of transgression, and at the top was the "sin contra natura" or, more euphemistically, the so-called "nefarious sin" (Spanish: "pecado nefando").^[24] In addition to being theologically defined as sins, these sexual practices constituted crimes in the legal sense, which was nourished by both Roman law and the canon law and religious tradition of the Middle Ages.^[24] The prevailing criminal legislation in the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata back in the 18th century considered that sexual excesses, execrable adultery, illicit friendship, homosexuality, etc., should be punishable as crimes against honesty, since the dominant idea in the legal doctrine of the era considered marriage as a sacrament.^[25] At the local level, the justice system incorporated the resolutions of the synodal congresses held in the Southern Cone, among which we can cite the 1603 Synodal constitution of the first council of Río de la Plata in Asunción, the Synod of Córdoba in 1700 carried out by Bishop Mercadillo, or the Synod of Bishop Fray Cristóbal de la Mancha y Velasco of 1655, among other meetings that issued codes referring to relations between men and women, norms that transcended in the time.^[25]

The ruins of San Ignacio Miní in present-day Misiones, one of the several 17th century Jesuit reductions where the Guaraní people were Christianized.

The homosexual practices of the indigenous peoples continued in the Colonial era, especially in the communal life of the Jesuit reductions.^[16] Beginning in the 17th century, Jesuit missionaries founded thirty of these reductions for Guaraní people, two of them located in the current provinces of Misiones and Corrientes. Seeking to evangelize the natives, the missionaries adopted Guaraní religious figures and beliefs to impose those of Christianity.^[18] For example, missionary Luis de Bolaños intervened the myth of the creation of the Ypacaraí river, relating it to the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, especially the idea of divine punishment for homosexuality.^[18] According to this version, the gods punished the homosexuality of ancient villagers by making the earth thunder and flooding the villages of Tapaikuá and Arekayá.^[18] In this way, the repression of sexuality was introduced, which the Guaraní were far from considering as a problem.^[18] For the Jesuit missionaries, Guaraní beliefs and mythologies did not go beyond superstitions, but they took advantage of them to impose themselves.^[18]

The punishment of homosexuality among the indigenous peoples carried out by Spanish authorities consisted, in the early days of the colony, in throwing them to wild dogs so that they could be eaten alive.^[16] Later, the penalties for homosexuals, both indigenous and European, where death by burning or by hanging, and their ashes were thrown to the wind, because unlike other convicts they did not deserve a Christian burial.^[16] In 1770, viceroy Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo ordered that vagabonds—including homosexuals although without naming them—were to be confined in the Falkland Islands (locally: Islas Malvinas), after being exposed in the town square to be mocked.^[16] The first mention of homosexuality in Buenos Aires was in 1771, in a legal complaint for slander that the Englishman Guillermo Higgings initiated against Criollo Manuel Milton.^[26] The following year, the first public scandal occurred in the city, when Mariano de los Santos Toledo, who had relations with an Arab named Mateo, was denounced for wanting to abuse a twelve-year-old boy and, given his resistance, trying to assassinate him.^[26]

Early 19th century: Independence era[]

The alleged homosexuality of Manuel Belgrano, one of the main Libertadores of the country, has been established as a long-lasting rumor.

On March 23, 1813, the Assembly of the Year XIII suppressed the authority of the Inquisition.^[27] Homosexuality then entered a non liquet from which it did not emerge until well into the 20th century.^[28] In accordance with the Napoleonic Code, it ceased to be a punishable crime, so there are not testimonies of the sort, while at the same time it did not enter into conventional customs and was therefore not discussed.^[29] There are some testimonies that give an account of the homophobic mentality during the first years of independence, such as a note that a Buenos Aires resident named Juan Madera sent in 1813 to the police mayor, in which he accused various men of introducing sodomy in the city.^[29]

It is probable that some of Argentina's independence heroes were homosexuals, although there is no historical proof of this.^[29] A famous, long-lasting question is the alleged homosexuality of Manuel Belgrano, one of the main Libertadores of the country.^[30] The myth has its origin in defamatory gossip spread by his enemies during the revolutionary years, which pointed to his thin voice, his sensitive and polite manners and his intimate friendship with his physician John Redhead.^[30] Historian Felipe Pigna has suggested that these rumours were a reaction to Belgrano's defense of women's right to education.^[31] Proponents of Belgrano's heterosexuality—including Pigna—^[32] claim that his two illegitimate children are irrefutable evidence.^[30] Homosexual tendencies can be inferred in Juan Bautista Alberdi, a bachelor concerned with the arts and fashions who was criticized by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento as "an abbot for his manners and a woman for his voice."^[33]

Homosexuality in the time of Juan Manuel de Rosas is attested by the stigmatization of the Unitarians to the Federals with the term "sodomites" and of the Federals to the Unitarians as "maricones" (i.e. "faggots").^[33] This attribution of roles was also derived from the custom of the Mazorca members of sodomizing young Unitarians, as documented in Esteban Echeverría's El matadero (1839).^[33] The repressed homosexuality became visible during the Buenos Aires Carnival festivities, so much so that in 1836 Rosas prescribed its rules, prohibiting "wearing a costume that does not correspond to one's sex."^[33] There are no historical sources about lesbianism of the time, although a relationship between Manuela Rosas and her cousin Dolores Fuentes can be inferred, as documented in some love letters, in one of which the former wrote: "How inhumane are my uncles who have taken a friend from me who is as if she were my wife!"^[33][34]

Late 19th, 20th and 21st centuries[]

1880—1916: The Conservative Republic[]

Two crossdressing swindlers from Buenos Aires in 1912: Juan Montes aka "La bella Noé" (left) and Antonio Gutiérrez Pombo aka "La rubia Petronila" (right).

During the government of the Generation of '80, deviant sexualities were soon linked to Jewish and Italian immigrants, the latter associated with anarchism, socialism and trade unionism.^[35] In this context, literature contributed to the emergence of these stereotypes and prejudices; for example, Eugenio Cambaceres' En la sangre (1887), uses the image of an "invert" child to represent the anomaly of Italian immigrants, while Julián Martel's La bolsa (1891), represents the stereotype of Jewish homosexuality.^[35]

In 1886 a new Penal Code was promulgated, in which there was no mention of homosexuality.^[36] Consensual homosexuality between adults came to be considered a private act, although sodomy with minors or practiced in a violent way or with physically or mentally disabled people was punished.^[36] More than an advance of individual freedoms, the adoption of this theory meant the virtual and desired elimination of homosexuality from Argentine written works, so as to give a better image to potential European immigrants.^[36]

There was a complex and visible culture of homosexuals and travestis that extended in all the social classes of Buenos Aires during this period.^[37]

One of the first historical records of gay life in Buenos Aires were the criminal careers of several crossdressing swindlers, who were profiled by hygienists.^[38] A 1912 article published by Fray Mocho reported that this gang of crossdressing criminals made up of about three thousand men, which represented about 0.5 percent of the male population of Buenos Aires at that time.^[38]

The medical journal Archives of Psychiatry and Criminology Applied to Related Sciences (Spanish: "Archivos de Psiquiatría y Criminología Aplicadas a las Ciencias Afines"), published by physicians Francisco de Veyga and José Ingenieros between 1902 and 1910, are the best record of Argentine queer life at the beginning of the 20th century.^[39]

The authorities' fear of "militant homosexuals" shows that the ideas of German and English homosexual activists such as Havelock Ellis and Magnus Hirschfeld had arrived to Buenos Aires and, indeed, the document evidence point out that the maricas of Buenos Aires consistently used the discourse of German activists to resist that of science men.^[40]

As for lesbianism, tango singer Pepita Avellaneda is said to have disputed with Carlos Gardel the love of a lady named Jeanne.^[41] Avellaneda and other female tango singers such as Linda Thelma,^[42] Rosita Quiroga and Paquita Bernardo presented a highly masculinized image in their performances.^[43]

1930—1945: The Infamous Decade[]

Adolfo José Goodwin, one of the main gay men persecuted as part of the infamous cadet scandal of 1942.

During the 1930s, military and ecclesiastical power were increasingly articulated.^[44]

In September 1942, a sex and political scandal known as the "cadet scandal" (Spanish: escándalo de los cadetes) or the Ballvé Case (Spanish: Caso Ballvé) broke out in Buenos Aires, regarding the involvement of young cadets from the Colegio Militar de la Nación in alleged sex parties held by gay men of the upper classes.

On June 4, 1943, the GOU—a nationalist secret society within the Argentine Army—staged a coup d'état that ended the Infamous Decade and formed a military junta which ruled the country until 1945. The new authorities intensified the repression of homosexuality, as part of the censorship and control they exercised over radio programs, periodicals and theater. The expulsion of Spanish singer Miguel de Molina was part of this process.^[44]

1945—1955: During the Peronist era[]

A group of travestis c. 1945, during a private celebration in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, away from the Federal Police.

According to historians Omar Acha and Pablo Ben, the definition of gay men as a singular group was established during the first government of Juan Perón, even though the concept of homosexuality that characterized the time was different from the one that prevails today.^[44]

During the Peronist era, the gay men of Buenos Aires mostly lived in apartments in the city center—mostly those who belonged to more well-off social classes—and, above all, in pensions.^[44] Unlike the United States—where gay bars existed in the most populous cities already before the 1940s—that possibility did not exist in Buenos Aires until the late 1950s, and private meeting spaces were basically limited to the dwellings.^[44]

Peronism maintained an ambiguous relationship with homosexuality: on the one hand, it organized the contraventional regime in 1946 but, on the other hand, it meant a certain relaxation in customs.^[45] According to Pablo Gasparini: "Peronism seems to have, however, something of a party. The eroticism that arises from this meeting of classes is powerful. The relationship of the middle-class marica with the chongo from the villa not only filled lamentations but also saunas. Personal testimonies show the existence of gay saunas in Buenos Aires in the 1950s, when there were none in New York."^[45]

In 1946, Miguel de Molina returned to Buenos Aires at the request of Eva Perón.^[44]

Much has been said about the good relations that Eva Perón had with the gay community.^[37] Nevertheless, the testimonies of Paco Jaumandreu—Evita's beloved couturier—paint a different picture:

I learned of the fear of going through a corner where there were two or three boys together, no matter how acquainted they were. I learned about the fear of the screeching scream from the cars. I learned of the fear of the film that was cut and the lights that came on and the screams of the boys from the henhouse – now they call him Pullman. I learned of the disgust of the proposals barely attended in the shadows of the night, I knew of the anger of the high-pitched voice when he saw me pass, of the elbows, of the surplus smiles. But I felt pure. And to respond to a Mataputo phrase by Zully Moreno, he instructs her: “Do you know, my love, that everything you proclaim, that everything you buy in Paris, is invented by people like that? Perfumes and silks, shoes and coats, prints and creams. You see how you need homosexuals and they do not need you ”.^[46]

1955—1966: Anti-Peronism and political instability[]

In the 1950s and 1960s, film theatres and public bathrooms were the only possible spaces for gay sociability.^[47]

1967—1975: First activist organizations[]

Members of the Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH) during the inauguration of President Cámpora in Plaza de Mayo on May 25, 1973, where were they insulted by peronist guerrilla groups.

It was during Frondizi's presidency that a large-scale "extermination" of homosexuals was planned for the first time, under the direction of police commissioner Luis Margaride, who also held high police ranks during the later governments of José María Guido (1962–1963), Juan Carlos Onganía (1966–1970) and Perón (1973–1974).^[48] A key figure in sex discrimination, Margaride was known derisively in the gay community as "Tía Margarita" (lit. 'Auntie Margarita'), a name that was later extended to the police in general.^[48][49] Margaride's policies reached their largest scale during the de facto rule of Onganía, dismantling gay bars and other homosexual meeting places.^[50] He also carried out two major operations; one consisted of closing the subway entrances in a crowded hour to arrest thousands of suspects who prowled the bathrooms and platforms; and the other was a raid carried out in the three classic film theatres of homosexual encounters on Corrientes avenue.^[50] Margaride's anti-homosexual campaign was part of a broader "anti-sex" effort, which included the arrest of heterosexual couples for kissing in public and the raiding of motels (colloquially: "telos"), calling the respective spouses when those detained were adulterers.^[48] In parallel, prosecutor Guillermo de la Riestra exercised "antisexual terrorism" prosecuting films, plays and books that he considered to be pornographic.^[48]

Members of the FLH in a July 1973 interview for Así magazine. On the right, a young Néstor Perlongher.

In late 1967 trade unionist and communist Héctor Anabitarte founded Nuestro Mundo (lit. 'Our World'),^[51][3][52] the first gay rights organization in Latin America, anticipating the Stonewall riots by nearly two years.^[53][54] Anabitarte had been part of the Communist Party's youth organization Federación Juvenil Comunista (FJC; English: "Communist Youth Federation"), but was invited to leave in 1967 for being a homosexual.^[55] Most of the members of Nuestro Mundo were middle and lower middle class workers, mostly postal employees linked to union movements.^[56] In contrast to the more "radical" positions of the gay liberation movement of the following years, the first generation of activists of Nuestro Mundo ascribed, according to Anabitarte, "more to a reformist than to a revolutionary style."^[56] The group published a series of bulletins, that were distributed to journalists in mimeographed and fastened sheets, of which the total number of issues is unknown.^[56] In August 1971, the Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH; English: Homosexual Liberation Front) was created at Pepe Bianco's house in Balvanera, formed by Juan José Sebrelli, Manuel Puig, Blas Matamoro, Juan José Hernández and Héctor Anabitarte.^[57] The FLH was initially a coalition of Nuestro Mundo and a group called Profesionales—formed by professional writers—and new organizations joined in the coming years, including the consciousness raising group Alborada, a lesbian group known as Safo, the anarchist Bandera Negra, the radical student collective Eros, and three religious groups of different Christian denominations: Emmanuel, Católicos and Grupo Cristiano.^[58]

The FLH was analogous to the gay liberation movement that was taking place in the United States at the time, and its creation was located within an international context of flourishing cultural expressions and political organization of the baby boomer generation, with the rise of the counterculture, the May 68 protests in France, and the anti-Vietnam War movement in the U.S.^[59]

Most studies about the FLH have been anecdotal or have concentrated on the magazine Somos, which the group published between December 1973 and January 1976.^[58] However, the height of its political activity came before 1973, when the FLH expanded, became publicly visible, and built multiple alliances with other organizations, something that has been overlooked as scholars have focused on discourse analysis of what the FLH published rather than its history of political activity.^[58] Throughout its short life, the organization gravitated between leftist Peronism and Marxism and advocated for both to include the homosexual community's claims.^[4] During this peak period between 1972 and 1973, the group tried to reach out to other organizations, such as Montoneros.^[59]

One of the only public demonstrations of the FLH was during the presidential inauguration of Héctor José Cámpora on May 25, 1973, in the midst of massive celebrations in the Plaza de Mayo.^[59] The group—which were no more than fifteen people—carried a banner with a fragment of the Peronist March, which read: "So that love and equality reign in the people" (Spanish: Para que reine en el pueblo el amor y la iguadad).^[59]

The alliance with feminist movements such as the Unión Feminista Argentina (UFA; English: Argentine Feminist Union) was crucial in the development of the FLH's sexual politics, and both groups created the Grupo Política Sexual (GPS; English: Sexual Politics Group) in 1972.^[58]

Starting in 1973, extreme right-wing terrorist groups began threatening homosexuals.^[50]

Since December 1973, the use of homosexuality to discredit radical movements intensified, especially after the FLH was interviewed by Así, after which Buenos Aires was covered with posters associating left-wingers with homosexuality and drug addiction.^[58] In 1975 the right-wing publication El Caudillo, run by people connected to the government, called for the "eradication" of all homosexuals by either confinement or mass murder.^[58][60] The intensity of political repression was such that the FLH found it difficult to operate at the most basic level and thus decided to dissolve, with activists like Anabitarte and Perlongher fleeing the country.^[58]

1976—1981: State terrorism during the dictatorship[]

Unlike a good part of the organized experiences of LGBT activism, the Argentine case, which began in the late 1960s, was truncated by the last civic-military dictatorship.^[61]

Although the FLH was later seen as a "total failure" (as expressed by Perlongher), the memory around the so-called "sexual disobedience", term used in their magazine Somos, laid the foundations for new organizational attempts in the following decades.^[61]

A coup d'état in 1976 overthrew President Isabel Perón and established the last civil-military dictatorship of the country. As part of the United States-backed Operation Condor, it carried out the infamous "Dirty War", a regime of illegal repression, indiscriminate violence, persecutions, systematized torture, forced disappearance of people, manipulation of information and other forms of state terrorism that forever changed Argentine society.

LGBT repression intensified after the declaration of the state of siege in 1975 and, after the 1976 military coup, reached its highest peaks in history, framing itself within a general framework of state terrorism and repression against all political activities.^[62]

Activism often denounces that there were at least 400 LGBT people among the desaparecidos and that these crimes are yet to be visible and punished.^[63] This iconic number was introduced by Carlos Jáuregui in his 1987 book La homosexualidad en Argentina.^[64] He later expanded in NX magazine in 1997:

Our community, like every minority in dictatorial times, was a privileged victim of the regime. The late rabbi Marshal Meyer, a member of the CONADEP (National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons), created during the radical government, stated to me in 1985, that the Commission had detected four hundred homosexuals in its payroll of ten thousand people denounced as missing. They had not disappeared due to this condition, but the treatment received, said the rabbi, had been especially sadistic and violent, like that of the Jewish detainees.^[63]

During the time of the dictatorship, the city of Tigre in Buenos Aires Province became a famous place of refuge for LGBT people, since the police did not operate there, but the Naval Prefecture, which did not make arrests.^[65]

1982—1991: Flourishing of gay life and activism[]

The Grupo Federativo Gay (GFG) in 1984, one of the several small activist groups that made up the coordinating committee Coordinadora de Grupos Gays.

In May 1981, Carlos Jáuregui attended his first pride parade in Paris, France—held in support of socialist François Mitterrand's presidential election—and later visited New York City, where he came into contact with its vibrant gay culture.^[66] Following these experiences, Jáuregui was inspired to fully dedicate himself to activism when he returned to Argentina in 1982.^[67] By that time, it was increasingly recognized that military rule would not last much longer following the country's defeat in the Falklands War.^[54][67] Nevertheless, between January 1982 and November 1983 a former member of the FLH and at least 17 other gay men were murdered, and in June 1982 a paramilitary group known as the Comando Cóndor declared its intent to "wipe out" homosexuals.^[54] In 1983, after the dictatorship had collapsed and democratic elections were held, lesbian and gay life in Argentina flourished, with the opening of many bars and clubs that took advantage of the liberalization.^[54] The alternative magazine El Expreso Imaginario reported that in the presidential elections, "100% of the members of the gay population of Buenos Aires" voted for Raúl Alfonsín, who represented, on the one hand, a "guarantee of tranquility" against Peronism's confrontational discourse and, on the other, a "social democratic nuance" that heralded a change from the oppressive climate of the past.^[68] This "Alfonsinist spring" for gay people only lasted a little over six months,^[68] as the Minister of the Interior Antonio Tróccoli resumed the raids against homosexuals, whom he referred to as "sick".^[69] In the first years of Alfonsín's rule, police raids in nightclubs, arbitrary arrests, persecutions and threats to gays, lesbians and travestis were carried out; partly due to the fragility of the new democratic system against the power of the military and police apparatus during those years.^[70] In this manner, the rebirth of activism was due as much to the new freedoms as to the continued repression.^[54] Activist Marcelo Suntheim explained in 2011: "Democracy began and we all thought that all guarantees and individual freedoms were automatically restored, but reality taught us that many things from the [dictatorship] remained. Murders of [travestis] were quite frequent ... nothing was ever investigated ... It was enough to look gay while walking down Santa Fe Avenue for the police to stop [you] and apply the famous police edict ... that stated that scandal was not allowed in the streets."^[4]

The Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA) taking part in a human rights demonstration, c. 1986.

In this context, the coordinating committee Coordinadora de Grupos Gays (English: Gay Groups Coordinator) was created in late 1982,^[54] whose first antecedent was the Grupo 10 de Septiembre (lit. 'September 10 Group')—named in homage to a massive raid—which brought together autonomous groups from Buenos Aires, such as Oscar Wilde, Venezuela, Dignidad, Contacto, Nosotros, Camino Libre, Vómito de buey, Varones antimachistas, Pluralista, Liberación, the GAG and the CHA.^[70] In the 1980s, the LGBT movement formulated strategies that were not so linked to traditional politics, through alliances between feminist, gay and travesti groups, human rights organizations—such as Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo—, countercultural movements and spaces linked to the artistic experimentation.^[70] Thus, the political scene of activism was transformed by a process of singularization where new practical and theoretical references were put in place to deal with a set of repressive policies still enforced by the state, mainly the implementation of police edicts and the application of the Ley de Averiguación de Antecedentes (lit. 'Background Check Law'), which had mostly been used to persecute LGBT people.^[70] In 1983, the Grupo de Acción Gay (GAG; English: "Gay Action Group") was created, formed by artists, university students, academic as well as gay activists from the 1970s, among them Jorge Gumier Maier, Carlos R. Luis, Oscar Gómez, Marcelo Pombo, Facundo Montenegro, Gustavo Gelmi, Jorge Alessandria and Alejandro Kantemiroff.^[71] One of the references incorporated by the GAG was the international gay liberation movement, which gained greater notoriety with the media impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic by renewing its agenda to fight for new legal and medical policies.^[70] In February 1984, a police raid took place in a gay club in Balvanera, where around two hundred people were arrested.^[67] The event inspired the organization of an assembly to coordinate a local gay movement, which took place in José Luis Delfino's nightclub Contramano.^[67] On April 19, 1984, the Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA; English: Argentine Homosexual Community) was founded and Jáuregui was elected as its first president.^[67] Unlike the other groups, by the end of the 1980s the CHA consolidated itself as the organization with the greatest symbolic, political and institutional weight, counting on a consensus and a majority degree of representation for the homosexual community.^[70] The CHA had two very specific initial demands: the repeal of the police edicts and the Ley de Averiguación de Antecedentes.^[72] In addition, one its most important initial objectives was to make homosexuality visible in Argentine society.^[67]

The so-called "Homosexual Dignity Day" manifestation on June 28, 1986, the first gay rights demonstration in the country since the return of democracy.

In April 1984, Jáuregui and fellow CHA activist Raúl Soria appeared on the cover of magazine Siete Días under the title "The risk of being homosexual in Argentina", in what is considered the first public exhibition of two men lovingly embracing each other and a landmark in gay visibility in the country.^[73][74] The entry of homosexuals into the public arena had the effect of the progressive transfiguration of the stereotype, and the effeminacy of the maricas came to be seen as an inconvenience to negotiate integration into society.^[69] In contrast, the GAG reclaimed the figure of the marica, which caused tensions with the CHA.^[69] The 1980s saw the emergence of new ways of relating and identifying as gay in Buenos Aires and, although the marica model was still in circulation, a rugged and masculine Tom of Finland-like look became popular, in keeping with trends in international gay culture.^[69][75]

On June 30, 1986, activists gathered in Parque Centenario, Buenos Aires, in commemoration of the Stonewall riots. They called it the "International Homosexual Dignity Day" and it became the first demonstration of homosexuals in the country since the return of democracy.^[76][77] It was attended by the CHA, the GAG, the Alternativa Socialista por la Liberación Sexual—a mixed group that worked within the Movement for Socialism (MAS)—and independent people.^[70]

In the 1980s, the Pan-American Highway—which separates the City of Buenos Aires from the Buenos Aires Province's different districts—established itself as the most important area in which travestis worked as prostitutes,^[78] and thus became one of the definitive aspects of the travesti identity for Argentine society and media culture.^[79][80] In the second half of the decade, these travestis working in the Pan-American Highway began to be violently attacked and murdered, cases that were not investigated by the police and were recorded as "accidents".^[81] The murders were reported by magazines such as Libre,^[65] Flash and ¡Esto!, the latter which counted 28 travesti deaths in 1987.^[81] A popular hypothesis claimed the existence of a serial killer, although researchers such as Marce Butierrez and Patricio Simonetto challenge this view as an urban legend, pointing out that the murders on the Pan-American Highway had different characteristics depending on the area in which they occurred.^[81] The Pan-American Highway deaths triggered the first mobilization of travestis in the democratic era, when around twenty travestis gathered in the Plaza de Mayo on December 21, 1986.^[81] A much larger demonstration was organized later, which was attended by travestis from other parts of the country and even Uruguay.^[65]

1992—2002: The birth of trans activism and the civil union law[]

Transsexual activist Karina Urbina protesting in front of the Palace of Justice in September 1991, raising a banner that reads: "We are persons".

The 1990s were marked by increased social visibility and intense work with the gay community, although initially with the protagonism of gay men.^[4] Early in the decade, under the presidency of Carlos Menem, Argentine popular movements in general were on the decline, but LGBT groups proliferated.^[54] Sexual diversity organisations began to multiply and spread beyond the city of Buenos Aires, and a heterogeneous movement was created that included specific organisations for male gays, trans people, women and travestis involved in prostitution, feminist lesbians and members of co-maternal families, as well as the novel "diversity branches" within most political parties.^[4]

View of the first Buenos Aires pride march on July 3, 1992, in which many participants wore masks to conceal their identity.

In 1992, the group Lesbianas a la Vista (lit. 'Lesbians in Sight') was founded, which for the first time put on the agenda the question of lesbian invisibility.^[82]

In the early 1990s, queer theory and its resulting activism emerged in the United States and soon reached Argentina. The first developments of queer activism, at least in Buenos Aires, appeared in 1993 with the formation of the student collective Eros in the University of Buenos Aires' School of Philosophy and Philology (Spanish: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras).^[83]

On June 28, 1992, the first Buenos Aires pride march took place, organized by activist groups Gays DC, Sigla, Cuadernos de Existencia Lesbiana, Iglesia de la Comunidad Metropolitana, Grupo ISIS, Colectivo Eros and Transdevi.^[77]

In the second half of the 1990s, the Argentine LGBT movement was reconfigurated in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.^[84]

2004—2011: The Equal Marriage and Gender Identity laws[]

In the early 2010s, Argentina established itself as a pioneering country in terms of LGBT rights, with the passing of the Equal Marriage Law (Spanish: Ley de Matrimonio Igualitario) in 2010—becoming the tenth country to do so—and the Gender Identity Law (Spanish: Ley de Identidad de Género) in 2012—which allows people to officially change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery, psychiatric diagnosis or judge approval.

2012—2018[]

Between 2010 and 2012, a judicial strategy was carried out jointly by ATTTA and the Federación Argentina LGBT's (FALGBT; English: "Argentine LGBT Federation") legal team, resulting in a series of judicial appeals that established antecedents in the recognition of travesti and transgender identities.^[85] On May 9, 2012, the Argentine National Congress passed the Gender Identity Law (Spanish: Ley de Identidad de Género), which made the country one of the world's most progressive in terms of transgender rights.^[86][87] It allows people to officially change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery, psychiatric diagnosis or judge approval.^[88] The law has been celebrated as a great victory for the local LGBT movement.^[89][90] Nevertheless, activist Marlene Wayar soon criticized the law claiming that travestis can only choose to change their legal gender to "female", a disacknowledgement of their perceived identity.^[91]

Upon assuming presidency on December 10, 2019, Alberto Fernández institutionalized a new Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity (Spanish: Ministerio de las Mujeres, Género y Diversidad), with the aim of promoting the "integral autonomy of all people, without establishing hierarchies between the different sexual orientations, identities or gender expressions".^[92] Minister Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta described it as a "product of the historical fight" of the women's and LGBT movements.^[93]

2019—present[]

Since the implementation of the Gender Identity Law, there have been efforts by activists in search of the legal recognition of non-binary genders such as travesti.^[94] In early 2020, activist Lara Bertolini made news for claiming that her national ID should be legally registered as "travesti femininity" (Spanish: "femineidad travesti").^[95] She initially obtained a favorable ruling from a Buenos Aires judge, which was later rejected by the Chamber of Appeals (Spanish: Cámara de Apelaciones), with its three judges citing the Real Academia Española's official definition of "travesti" as their reasoning.^[95]

On June 24, 2021, the Argentine Senate passed the Cupo Laboral Travesti-Trans law (English: "Travesti-Trans Work Quota Law"), which established a 1% quota for trans workers in civil service jobs and outlines that government officials must be trained in recognising discriminatory behaviour.^[96][5] The decree on the country's official gazette read: "Every travesti, transsexual or transgender person has the right to decent and productive employment in equal and satisfactory working conditions and protected against unemployment without discrimination for motives of gender identity or its expression".^[5]

On July 21, 2021, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to recognise non-binary gender identities in its national identification cards and passports.^[6][7]

Health[]

Housing[]

Access to housing is one of the problems that most affects the travesti and trans women community.^[97] 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.^[98] 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.^[99]

Violence[]

A group of travestis carrying the coffin of one of their murdered friends in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, August 1987.

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%.^[100] 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.^[100] 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%.^[100] 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.^[100] They are followed by the provinces of Chaco, La Rioja, Entre Ríos, San Juan and Santa Cruz with 1.32%.^[100] Finally, with 0.66% representing one case per province: San Luis, Corrientes, Neuquén and Chubut.^[100] In 1.32% of the cases, there is no record of the geographic location where the events occurred.^[100]

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%.^[98] The same study indicated that they die on average at the age of 32, well below the average life expectancy of the country.^[98] 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."^[98] In recent times, the concept of "travesticide" (Spanish: travesticidio)—along with "transfemicide" or "trans femicide"—^[101][102] has been extended to refer to the hate crime understood as the murder of a travesti due to her gender condition.^[103][99] 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".^[104] 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".^[101]

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.^[98] 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.^[98] 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.^[98] 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."^[105]

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.^[106]

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.^[107]

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.^[108] The iniciative was replicated by the legislatures of the city of Córdoba and of Santa Fe Province in 2016,^[109][110] and of Río Negro Province in 2020.^[111]

Arts and culture[]

Archives[]

Claudia Pía Baudracco (left) and María Belén Correa (right) in 1993. Image from the Archivo de la Memoria Trans.

In 2011, the blog Potencia Tortillera (English: "Tortillera^{[note 1]} Potency") was created, the first digitized documentary archive of lesbian activisms.^[82]

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.^[114] It is a unique collective project in the world,^[115] dedicated to compiling and recovering the cultural heritage of the Argentine trans community.^[116] 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."^[65] The archive began to professionalize after the incorporation of the photographer Cecilia Estalles, who prompted Correa to digitize the images.^[65]

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.^[117] A popular term in local gay culture is chongo—the opposite of loca—which refers to masculine, straight passing men.^[117] 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.^[117]

The Argentine LGBT community uses the pejorative term paqui or paki to refer to heterosexual people.^[117][118] 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.^[119] The word paqui apparently comes from paquidermo, which means "pachyderm" in Spanish.^[117][119] The lesbian community claims to have invented the term in the 1960s, because they saw heterosexuality as "clumsy and boring in bed."^[119] 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.^[119]

After travestis and gay men began to be imprisoned during the 1946–1955 government of President Juan Domingo Perón, they developed their own argot known as carrilche, which was nourished by prison jargon.^[120] According to anthropologist María Soledad Cutuli, today this jargon is known as the teje and: "consists of taking up elements of prison jargon or "[police] lunfardo", deforming some syllables of certain words, and also using invented terms such as cirilqui to refer to the police, or even the polysemic teje (roughly "weave"), which can mean, depending on the context, 'lie, story, argument, affair.' To say that someone is a tejedora (lit. 'weaver') implies a subtle way of qualifying her as a liar; to ask 'what are they tejiendo?' (lit. 'weaving') refers to assuming that a meeting or conversation may have ulterior motives".^[121] Activist Marlene Wayar described the word teje as "the complicit word between us [travestis], which we don't want the other to find out about: bring me the teje, because of the cocaine; or look at the teje, it is when [the client] has a wallet with money. And that is the name of the magazine.^[122]

Drag queens[]

Drag queens from Buenos Aires in 1995, advertising a show in nightclub Morocco.

In the 1990s, drag queens became a fixture in the gay nightlife of Buenos Aires, featured in nightclubs such as El Dorado—the first one to hire drag queens—, Bunker and Morocco.^[123][124] One of the most well-known drag queens of the underground nightlife scene of the 1990s was Charly Darling, who worked as a hostess in clubs such as Morocco, Club 69, Palacio Alsina, Club Namunkurá, Kim & Novak, Shamrock and Cocoliche; as well as a model for photographers and as a muse for artists such as Darin Wixon, Gustavo Di Mario and Marcelo Bosco.^[125]

La Barby is a renowned drag queen and comedian influenced by Divine and Lady Bunny, who first rose to prominence in the Buenos Aires gay nightlife in the 1990s.^[126] She began her drag career in popular nightclubs from the decade such as Bunker and IV Milenio, and later developed a successful television career.^[126]

La Queen is a drag performer from the lower-class neighborhood of Fuerte Apache in Ciudadela, who first rose to prominence as a singer in the trap music scene but has recently moved towards a pop style.^[127]

In March 2021, Juego de Reinas, the first drag reality show in Argentine television, aired in Salta's Canal 10 free-to-air channel.^[128]

Cinema[]

In 1963, French transsexual entertainer Coccinelle caused a media sensation when performing in Buenos Aires and had a minor role in Enrique Carreras' film Los viciosos.^[129]

The sexploitation films^[130] made by director Armando Bó and actress Isabel Sarli in the 1960s and 1970s are celebrated by the gay community for their camp quality.^[131] Their 1969 film Fuego features one of the first representations of lesbianism in Argentine cinema.^[132] In addition to being a pop icon and sex symbol, Sarli is recognized as a gay icon.^[133] American director John Waters has declared himself a big fan of Sarli's films—including Fuego and Carne—and has cited them as an influence in his work.^[134][135]

Literature[]

Gay writer Manuel Puig in 1979.

Esteban Echeverría's famous short story El matadero—considered a foundational work in Argentine literature—portrays the federales as bloodthirsty sodomites.^[136]

An important starting point for the history of gay literature in Argentina was Carlos Correas' short story "La narración de la historia"—published in magazine Revista Centro in 1959—in which homosexuality does not appear as a pathology but as a normal trait of the main character.^[137] The text caused a great scandal, leading to the closure of the magazine and a judicial process for immorality and pornography.^[137]

Manuel Puig is a foundational figure in Argentine gay literature and homoeroticism of the second half of the 20th century, especially through his novels La traición de Rita Hayworth, The Buenos Aires Affair and El beso de la mujer araña.^[138]

La traición de Rita Hayworth is analyzed as both a chronicle of the 1930s and 1940s culture—the decades in which the fiction takes place—as well as a document of the 1960s, the time when it was published.^[138]

The paradigmatic figure of Eva Perón has been a source of fascination for Argentine gay writers.^[139]

The work of punk poet Ioshua—who started his writing career in the 2000s and passed away in 2015—is celebrated for its explicit portrayal of lower-class gay life in the suburbs of Buenos Aires.^[140][141]

Tango[]

Several men dancing the tango on the banks of the Río de la Plata, 1904.

Many authors argue that the tango was originally danced between men, with a few even suggesting that it was generally a homosexual dance between gay men.^[142] This hypothesis is not shared by other authors, for whom the original tango was a heterosexual dance, between a client and a prostitute.^[142] The tango emerged at the end of the 19th century in the low-class neighborhoods of southern Buenos Aires, led by the emblematic figure of the compadritos, a subculture of young men that were accused of being faggots (Spanish: "maricas") for their mannered personas and careful personal grooming.^[143]

During the so-called "golden age of tango" between the 1940s and 1960s, a more massive and less sexualized form of the dance was popularized, with well-defined gender roles and sexist content in its lyrics.^[142]

The early 21st century saw the emergence of the so-called "queer tango" (Spanish: "tango queer"), which signaled a series of cultural changes, related to the greater visibility of sexual minorities, the growing popularity of gay tourism and the recent emergence of young people in the Buenos Aires tango circuit.^[142] In queer tango, dancers choose between the traditionally defined feminine or male role, regardless of their actual gender identity.^[142]

Theatre[]

The first scenic representations of non-heterosexuality in Argentina were tied to the medical and legal paradigm of the early 20th century, in a moralizing and victimizing manner.^[144] José González Castillo's famous 1914 play Los invertidos (Spanish for "the inverts") is a prime example.^[144]

Showgirl Vanessa Show, one of the first travesti entertainers of the country, pictured in 1976.

The 1970s are considered an era of "artistic travesti 'uncover'" (Spanish: "destape"), which began with the arrival of a Brazilian travesti who performed in a well-known theater in Buenos Aires.^[145] Her show paved the way to later performances by local travestis.^[145] The stage became the only place where travestis could publicly dress as women, as it was forbidden to do so on the streets.^[146] Around 1964, travesti artists—at that time named lenci, in reference to a type of cloth, because they "were like little rag dolls"—met at an apartment on Avenida Callao, where they rehearsed musical acts and prepared to go out to theatre shows.^[146] Travestis emulated a contoured figure—which emphasized breasts and buttocks—through paddings called truquis,^[121] piu-piú or colchón (lit. 'mattress'), first using cotton fabrics and later foam rubber.^[78] While padding had been in use since at least the 1950s, the arrival of lycra in the 1960s allowed them to "build more realistic physical contours."^[78] María Belén Correa argues that the emergence of travesti stage performers such Vanessa Show, Evelyn, Brigitte Gambini and Ana Lupe Chaparro in the 1960s and 1970s constituted "another way of activism".^[147] According to Evelyn—one of the first people to popularize transformismo in the theater scene—the "first travestis to appear in Buenos Aires" were a group called Les Girls in 1972, followed by Vanessa Show and Ana Lupez.^[148] She also mentioned the travestis of the "following era", which included Graciela Scott, Claudia Prado and herself, who debuted in 1977.^[148]

Leading underground performer and poet Batato Barea in 1986.

In the years immediately before and after the end of the dictatorship rule in 1983, a scene known as the "underground" or "counterculture" emerged in Buenos Aires, which housed alternative artistic proposals to the institutional or hegemonic ones.^[149] In the theatrical field, pubs, discos and bars formed the off-Corrientes circuit, where some of the performance art of the 1960s and the Di Tella Institute were revived.^[149] One of the most prominent spaces of the underground scene was the Parakultural cultural center, which ran between 1986 and 1989.^[150]

Through this cultural movement, a greater visibility of homosexual entertainers was seen, including the trio made up of Batato Barea, Humberto Tortonese and Alejandro Urdapilleta, who carried out several of their performances at the Parakultural.^[149][150] Barea's group works were part of the so-called nuevo teatro argentino (English: "new Argentine theatre") movement, characterized by the use of improvisation and a lack of specific authority roles.^[149] Barea is regarded as "one of the first figures who contributed to make homoesexuality visible from the aesthetic point of view in a time of repression."^[150] He defined himself as a "literary transvestite clown."^[150]

In 1995, Cris Miró debuted as a vedette at the Teatro Maipo and caused media sensation for the gender bender aspects of her image.^{[151][152][153]} She is now regarded as a symbol of the postmodern era^[79][154] and of the Argentine 1990s.^[155][156] As the first Argentine travesti to become a national celebrity,^[79][155] her presence meant a change in the Argentine showbusiness of the era and popularized transgender and cross-dressing acts in Buenos Aires' revue theatrical scene.^[157] She paved the way for other Argentine travestis and trans women to gain popularity as vedettes, most notably Flor de la V.^[158][152]

In 2019, soprano María Castillo de Lima became the first transsexual opera singer to perform at the prestigious Teatro Colón.^[159]

Periodicals[]

The first issue of clandestine magazine Somos, published by the Frente de Liberación Homosexual in December 1973.

Between 1973 and 1976, the Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH; English: "Homosexual Liberation Front") published the magazine Somos (lit. 'we are'), which was edited and distributed clandestinely and featured texts that were either not individually signed or signed with a pseudonym, due to the repression and violence towards homosexuals.^[160]

In December 1983, the women's magazine Alfonsina—led by María Moreno—appeared, which featured texts written by prominent figures of the Argentine feminist and lesbian movements.^[161]

Between 1984 and 1985, the Grupo de Acción Gay (GAG; English: "Gay Action Group") published the magazine Sodoma, which only had two issues.^[162] The publication was mainly in charge of Jorge Gumier Maier and Carlos Luis, with the close collaboration of Elena Napolitano and Néstor Perlongher from Sâo Paulo, Brazil, among other authors.^[162]

The first issue of Sodoma, published by the Grupo de Acción Gay (GAG) in 1984.

The twelfth issue of the CHA's official bulletin, May 1986.

An important contribution to lesbian activism were the Cuadernos de Existencia Lesbiana (English: "Notebooks of Lesbian Existence"), a project carried out by Ilse Fuskova and Adriana Carrasco between 1987 and 1996 that is considered the first lesbian publication in Argentina,^[163][164] The Cuadernos collected testimonies, photographs, translations and original writings of lesbian literature and news about local and international lesbian life and activism. Influenced by Adrienne Rich, Fuskova and Carrasco conceived the publication as a way to fight against the invisibility and silencing that lesbians suffered in society and within feminism.^[165][166] According to investigator Paula Torricella, "until 1986 the reflection on lesbianism had been very little even within feminist groups, and public demands were not even consolidated until a few years later. There were no networks willing to import foreign material that talked about the subject [and] local production was very scarce without a social movement that nurtured and demanded reflection."^[165]

The activist organization Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA; English: "Argentine Homosexual Community") published various magazines and newsletters between 1984 and 1992.^[167] The first one was the bulletin Boletín de la CHA—published during Carlos Jáuregui's presidency of the group between 1984 and 1986—which was followed by Vamos a Andar.^[167] The CHA simultaneously released other publications, including the weekly Boletín informativo (lit. 'newsletter'), Artículo 19 and Vamos a Andar MUJER.^[167]

NX was the most emblematic gay magazine of the 1990s, released continuously and monthly between October 1993 and December 2001.^[168] It was the first attempt at lasting gay journalism in Argentina and a model for others in Latin America that imitated its style.^[168] The magazine included the publication NX Positivo, with updated information on HIV, means of prevention, and places of consultation and care.^[168]

In the early 1990s, transsexual activist Karina Urbina founded the organization TRANSDEVI, which published the bulletin La Voz Transexual (English: "The Transsexual Voice") that, in addition to focusing on transsexuality, included articles on abortion, HIV and the Catholic Church.^[169]

Between 1992 and 1996, the magazine Ka-buum was published in New Jersey, U.S. by Sam Larson and distributed by mail to the Latino homosexual community residing in the United States and to activist groups in Latin America—especially Argentina, Chile and Uruguay—and Spain.^[170] The magazine featured texts by a variety of international activists, including several from Argentina.^[170]

Between 1998 and 1999, the Córdoba-based lesbian group Las Iguanas (lit. 'The Iguanas')—a reference to North American parthenogenetic lizards—published a bulletin of the same name, which they described as: "a meeting space where we can gather to share life stories in relation to our sexual identity."^[171]

In November 2007, the first issue of El Teje, the first periodical written by travestis in Latin America, was published in a joint initiative between activists—led by Marlene Wayar—^[122] and the Ricardo Rojas Cultural Center in Buenos Aires.^[172][173]

Photography[]

Lesbian activist llse Fusková ventured into photography in the early 1980s under the influence and friendship of photographers Grete Stern and Horacio Cópolla.^[149] Her 1988 photographic series S/T—made alongside Adriana Carrasco, Vanessa Ragone and Marisa Ramos—deal with lesbian desire and shows a couple of women painting their bodies with menstrual blood.^[149] Fusková and her group intended to break the use of lesbians as sexual objects for male masturbation.^[149]

Popular music[]

Gay[]

Virus frontman Federico Moura, one of the most influential figures in Argentine gay culture of the 1980s.

Virus lead singer Federico Moura is one of the first Argentine gay icons of foundational importance,^[174] and an emblematic singer in Latin American homosexual culture.^[175] Many of Virus' songs subtly made reference to 1980s gay men culture, such as cruising for sex, male prostitution and underground parties; and Moura displayed a flamboyant, sexualized stage persona that caused a homophobic reaction by much of the Argentine rock culture at the time.^[174] The most emblematic event took place during the 1981 Prima Rock festival, when they were received with indifference by an audience that threw tomatoes, oranges and other objects at them.^[175]

Moura passed away in 1988 and became the first AIDS-related public death in Argentina.^[176]

Lesbian[]

Lesbian pop duo Sandra y Celeste, formed by singers Sandra Mihanovich (left) and Celeste Carballo (right).

Marilina Ross' composition "Puerto Pollensa"—first recorded and popularized by Sandra Mihanovich in 1981—is considered the first Argentine popular song to thematize love between women,^[177] although not in an explicit way.^[177] It became an enduring gay anthem,^[178][179] especially among the lesbian community,^[180][181] released at a time when the secrecy of non-heterosexual relationships was a source of shared codes and interpretations of cultural products.^[182][183] According to lesbian journalist Marta Dillon: "thirty years later lesbians of all ages continue singing the entire lyrics by heart".^[180] "Puerto Pollensa" had an important role in the process of visibility of homosexuality that took place in Argentina after the return to democratic rule in 1983.^[184] Ross later recorded her own version of the song and included it in her 1982 album Soles.^[185] In contemporary shows and journalistic articles, the songwriter made it clear that "Puerto Pollensa" described a personal experience, although she always refused to reveal the name or gender of her lover.^[180][184] Although she did not publicly deny or affirm her sexual orientation, Mihanovich became a sex symbol for some lesbians and an icon of a burgeoning "gay culture".^[184] In 1984, she released "Soy lo que soy", a Spanish-language version of "I Am What I Am", which she discovered in a gay nightclub in Rio de Janeiro when a drag queen performed to Gloria Gaynor's version.^[186] Mihanovich's version is regarded as another enduring gay anthem for the local LGBT community,^[186] and is played at the end of each Buenos Aires' Pride March.^[187] In her 1984 live album Sandra en Shams, female members of the audience can be heard praising the singer's body and, in its autobiographical closing track "La historia de nunca acabar", she sings: "It is not difficult for me to start with men. But I could never...", with the public laughingly shouting "finish" and ending the song.^[184]

In the late 1980s, Mihanovich formed the pop duo Sandra y Celeste alongside singer-songwriter Celeste Carballo, with whom she also developed a romantic relationship.^[188] The 1990 release of their second studio album Mujer contra mujer is regarded as a landmark for the local lesbian culture,^[187] with its title track—a cover version of Mecano—openly dealing with a lesbian relationship.^[188] The album is noted for its controversial artwork—depicting both singers naked and embraced—^[189] which was wallpapered throughout the city of Buenos Aires as part of its advertising campaign and made great impact.^[188] The album's release and promotion discussed and made lesbianism visible in the Argentine society of the time.^[190] Their intimate performance of "Mujer contra mujer" in Susana Gim��nez is also remembered as an iconic moment for lesbian visibility in the country.^[191][192] Carballo famously came out in 1991 when promoting Mujer contra mujer at Juan Alberto Badía's TV show Imagen de radio, telling the host: "Sandra and I love each other".^[188][193] She also stated: "There are many people like me, (...) and they are among us. And there are many who keep their mouths shut and who do not speak and who hide. And there are many girls who paint their nails and it bothers them at night. (...) I understand that people get scared and feel rejection, but it does not seem normal and natural that I always have to speak with second words and never use the correct one because then... I continue to attack this prude and macho society that Argentina really is."^[190] On March 7, 2021—the Day of Lesbian Visibility in Argentina—the Kirchner Cultural Centre held a show in tribute to the 30th anniversary of the release of Mujer contra mujer.^[194]

Cumbia santafesina singer Dalila is the only cumbia singer with an explicitly lesbian song, titled "Amor entre mujeres".^[195] Nevertheless, she disliked the song becoming an anthem for lesbian cumbia fans and refused to sing it at a lesbian party on one occasion, claiming she did not want to "get attached to it."^[195]

Modern lesbian musicians include Lucy Patané, Lu Martínez, Flopa, Ibiza Pareo, Juli Laso, Leda Torres, Viviana Scaliza, Larro Carballido, Paula Trama, Inés Copertino, Luciana Jury, Marcia Müller, Juana Chang, Flor Linyera, Juliana Isas, Cata Raybaud, Vale Cini and Cam Bezkin.^[194]

Politics[]

In 2015, Cristina Campos became the first transgender person to be a candidate for provincial senator.^[196]

In early 2020, trans woman Alba Rueda was appointed subsecretary of the Diversity Policies of the Nation (Spanish: "Políticas de Diversidad de la Nación") within the new Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity, created as part of President Alberto Fernández's cabinet.^[197]

Sports[]

In 2020, trans woman Mara Gómez debuted as a forward in Argentine association football, becoming the first transgender athlete to participate in a professional league.^[198]

See also[]

• Feminism in Argentina
• History of Argentina
• HIV/AIDS in Latin America
• LGBT in Chile
• LGBT in Colombia
• LGBT in Mexico
• LGBT rights in Argentina
• Same-sex marriage in Argentina
• Timeline of LGBT history
• Transgender rights in Argentina

Footnotes[]

References[]

Bibliography[]

External links[]