LGBT history in Argentina

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History of Argentina
Pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples in Argentina Inca Empire
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Peronism Juan Perón and Eva Perón General Confederation of Labour
Post-WW II (1955 to 1976) Revolución Libertadora Arturo Frondizi 1963 Argentine Navy revolt Arturo Umberto Illia Argentine Revolution Montoneros and ERP
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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.

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.^[1]

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.^[2] The arrival of the last civic-military dictatorship in 1976—with its subsequent intensification of state terrorism—dissolved these activist efforts,^[3] and the local movement often denounces that there were at least four hundred LGBT people among the desaparecidos.^[4] 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.^[5]

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.^[6] 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—^[7] and the country became the first in Latin America to recognise non-binary gender identities in its national identification cards and passports.^[8][9]