The March of Pride (Spanish: Marcha del Orgullo) is an annual pride parade in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The march promotes the equality and rights of LGBT people. It takes place in November in memory of the creation of the first Argentine and Latin American LGBT organization, Nuestro Mundo, in November 1967. [1]
The first March of Pride in Buenos Aires was held in 1992. Most subsequent marches have been held annually on the first Saturday of November. [2]
In November 1967, Nuestro Mundo was founded, making it the first LGBT organization in Argentina and Latin America. [1]
On 28 June 1969, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York, called the Stonewall Inn was raided by the police. Officers made 13 arrests before being confronted by bystanders and community members; this confrontation led to the Stonewall riots. [3]
On 28 June 1970 (exactly one year later), approximately five thousand people gathered on Christopher Street outside the Stonewall Inn in commemoration of the riots and marched up Sixth Avenue to Central Park. [4] This event is widely considered the first Pride March in history. [5]
The first March of Pride in Buenos Aires occurred on 28 June 1992. Participants gathered in front of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral and marched to the National Congress of Argentina. The march was made up of about 250 people, many of whom wore masks to avoid being recognized. [6] The group of marchers included members of the Radical Civic Union and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. [7]
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Argentina since July 22, 2010. Bills to legalize same-sex marriage were introduced to the National Congress in 2009 by deputies from the Socialist and New Encounter parties. Following much discussion, a unified bill passed the Chamber of Deputies on May 5, 2010 by a vote of 126 to 110, and the Senate on July 15 by 33 votes to 27. President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed the bill into law on July 21, and it went into effect the following day. Polling indicates that a majority of Argentines support the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. Argentina was the first country in South America and Latin America, the second in the Americas, the second in the Hispanic world, the second in the Southern Hemisphere and the tenth in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) rights in Argentina rank among the highest in the world. Upon legalising same-sex marriage on 15 July 2010, Argentina became the first country in Latin America, the second in the Americas, and the tenth in the world to do so. Following Argentina's transition to a democracy in 1983, its laws have become more inclusive and accepting of LGBT people, as has public opinion.
Laws governing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) rights are complex and diverse in the Americas, and acceptance of LGBTQ persons varies widely.
The term travesti is used in Latin America to designate people who were assigned male at birth and develop a feminine gender identity. Other terms have been invented and are used in South America in an attempt to further distinguish it from cross-dressing, drag, and pathologizing connotations. In Spain, the term was used in a similar way during the Franco era, but it was replaced with the advent of the medical model of transsexuality in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in order to rule out negative stereotypes. The arrival of these concepts occurred later in Latin America than in Europe, so the concept of travesti lasted, with various connotations.
Noemí Rial was an Argentine lawyer and politician who was Secretary of Labour and Vice Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Security from 2002 to 2015. She was appointed by former President Eduardo Duhalde (2002–2003) and confirmed by presidents Néstor Kirchner (2003–2007) and Cristina Fernández, elected in 2007.
The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people (LGBT) in Argentina is shaped by the historic characterisation of non-heterosexuality 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.
Ilse Fusková Kornreich was an Argentine activist, lesbian-feminist, and journalist.
Transgender and travesti rights in Argentina have been lauded by many as some of the world's most progressive. The country "has one of the world's most comprehensive transgender rights laws". The Gender Identity Law, passed in 2012, made Argentina the "only country that allows people to change their gender identities without facing barriers such as hormone therapy, surgery or psychiatric diagnosis that labels them as having an abnormality". In 2015, the World Health Organization cited Argentina as an exemplary country for providing transgender rights. Leading transgender activists include Lohana Berkins, Diana Sacayán, Mariela Muñoz, María Belén Correa, Marlene Wayar, Claudia Pía Baudracco, Susy Shock and Lara Bertolini.
Amancay Diana Sacayán was an Argentinian LGBT and human rights activist who fought for the legal rights of transvestites and transgender people in Argentina.
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. 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.
Claudia Roxana Castrosín Verdú, also known as Claudia Castro, is an Argentine LGBT activist. She presides over La Fulana, an organization that supports lesbian and bisexual women, and is also the vice president of the Argentine Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans Federation (FALGBT), through which she has contributed to laws sanctioning same-sex marriage, gender identity, and medically assisted reproduction. In 2007 she presented, together with María Rachid, her partner at the time, the first judicial protection for declaring the unconstitutionality of two articles of the civil code that prevented marriage between people of the same sex. After the approval of the Equal Marriage Law in 2010, she married Flavia Massenzio and adopted a daughter, Estefanía.
María Rachid is a politician, social leader of the human rights area and the collective LGBT community in Argentina. She served as vice-president of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism from December 2010, until 10 June 2011 when she was elected into the Buenos Aires City Legislature in the elections on 10 July 2011, and took office on 10 December.
Critical pride is the name of several annual protest demonstrations of LGBT people held in Madrid and several other Spanish cities. The organizers of critical pride demonstrations present them as an alternative to the original pride parades and festivals, which they consider depoliticized and institutionalized.
Claudia Pía Baudracco was an Argentine activist for the rights of women, sexual minorities, and LGBT people.
Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta is an Argentine lawyer, professor and politician. She was the first Minister of Women, Genders and Diversity of Argentina, serving under President Alberto Fernández from 10 December 2019 to 7 October 2022.
Carlos Jáuregui was an Argentine LGBT rights activist. He founded La Comunidad Homosexual Argentina in 1984. In the early 1990s, he set up Gays por los Derechos Civiles and organised the first Pride march in Buenos Aires. He died from an HIV-AIDS-related illness at the age of 38. In memorial, a national day of activism for sexual diversity was established. He was posthumously given the Felipa de Souza Award, and, in 2017, a station was renamed after him on the Buenos Aires Underground.
Maximiliano Ferraro is an Argentine politician who has served as National Deputy for Buenos Aires and is the Chairman of the Civic Coalition ARI.
Karina Dora Urbina is an Argentine transgender rights activist. Urbina, who was one of the first activists to speak out publicly in Argentina in support of transgender rights, is also considered the first openly transgender activist in Argentine history, and was a central figure of the trans rights movement during the 1990s. She was a leader of the organisation TRANSDEVI, alongside Yanina Moreno and Patricia Gauna, and she co-organised and participated in the first pride march to take place in Buenos Aires.
The Law to Promote Access to Formal Employment for Travestis, and Transsexual and Transgender People "Diana Sacayán–Lohana Berkins", identified as the Law 27,636, is a law in Argentina that establishes that the national public sector must reserve at least 1% of its positions and vacancies for trans people, and encourages the private sector to take similar measures. It was passed by the Argentine Senate on 24 June 2021, and enacted on 8 July 2021, during the government of Alberto Fernández. The law is named after trans activists Diana Sacayán and Lohana Berkins.