Freedom: A short trilogy of the stolen words. The rise of the far right

The Federal Pride Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist March was carried out on 1st February in Argentina against the words of the president Javier Milei in Davos, and the intention of the government to backtrack the legal framework that protects women and diversity rights: the organising assembly states that more than 800 thousand people marched all over the country, and it was supported all over the world, in South America, Central America and Europe. The second release of this small trilogy about the rise of the far right, shows how people stand up to defend the real meaning of the word Freedom.

Initially called by an LGBTIQNB+ self-convened assembly, held after Argentinian president Javier Milei’s discourse in the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Federal Pride Anti-Fascist and Anti-Racist March carried out on 1st February in more than 160 spots in the country and replicated in many parts of the world, had the support of an immense social and political range. And it showed the strength, the creativity and the capacity for organisation of a plural movement for human rights and a dignified life for majorities, only ten days after the president’s aggression. “That´s our compromise with antifascism: to multiply ourselves through the difference, to defend life against the domination of the unique, the equal, the same”, they stated from the Assembly.

With more than 1.200 adhesions, the march unified not only the inherent diversity inside the LGBTIQNB+ and feminist movements, but also embraced all the different sectors that have been impacted by La Libertad Avanza (LLA)´s measures. Workers of Health and Education, retirees, Afro-descendants, indigenous people, unemployed and picketers´ movements, fired workers of Human Rights, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, trade union organisations, and a wide political arc, joined the mobilisation.

In his speech, Milei identified feminism and sexual diversity as the main enemies inside what he named as “the wokism”, calling “Western democracies” to fight against it. The first Anti-fascist LGBTIQNB+ Assembly was a spontaneous response to this aggression, and they state in a document: “Incitements to hatred pronounced by the president Javier Milei at Davos Conference aren’t new, but they do set a precedent in the radicality of its violence, in its manifest desire of extermination”.

This aggression is not perceived as isolated towards feminisms and the LGBTIQNB+ movement, but rather as part of an advance of the government against different sectors, such as workers, retirees, the public University, and the culture.

Argentina reached 52,4% of poverty in the first semester of 2024, as data from INDEC states; the minimum wage is currently 279.718 pesos (266, 21US) and the minimum monthly payment for retirees 329.598 (313,68 US). According to different sources, it is estimated that during the first year of Javier Milei´s government, 220.178 registered jobs were lost, with many of the unemployed people turning to work in delivery and passenger transport apps. Consumption in small supermarkets registered a fall of 18% in December 2024.

Not only words

Together with Milei’s discourse at Davos, the Argentinian government announced it would try to push forward a series of juridical changes that would affect the legal framework that protects women and sexual diversity rights, affecting the democratic gains of the last decades, in line with international gender law. These are some of the changes that the government wants to apply:

–To eliminate the concept of femicide from the penal code – Act 26.951. Penalty aggravation, incorporated in 2012 to recognise the violences suffered by women for the only fact of being women, and killed in most cases by men who have a sex-affective bond with them, couples and former couples.

–To repeal the law Micaela – Act 27.499. Sanctioned in end-2018, this law established compulsory education in gender perspective for all the people working in the three powers of the State. Micaela García was a 21-year-old young woman raped and killed by a man with criminal records for gender violence.

–To repeal the law Brisa – Act 27.452. This law was sanctioned in 2018 and determines a financial compensation for the kids of women victims of femicide. It has the name of Brisa, the youngest daughter of Daiana Barrionuevo, who was killed by her former couple.

–Employment quota for transgender people – Act 27.636. It establishes a minimum of 1% of trans people working in the State, a policy approved in 2021 which aimed to guarantee access to better work for this population.

–To eliminate the decree establishing the national identity document for non-binary people and to repeal the Gender Identity Law – Act 26.743. Since the approbation of the Gender Identity law in 2012, trans and transgender people have had the possibility of being legally registered with their chosen names and their self-perceived identity. Nine years later, with decree 476/2021, non-binary people could access their national identity documents, overcoming the categories of male and female with an X in place of the gender.

–To eliminate gender parity – Act 27.412. Sanctioned in 2023, the law of Gender Parity determines that the lists of candidates to the National Congress must alternate women and men from the first candidate to the last one, to guarantee the same amount of female and male people in the state organs.

At the same time, the law of Integral Sexual Education 26.150 (ESI for its acronyms in Spanish), which established in 2006 the education in gender perspective in all levels of the educative system and has proven to be a strong tool to detect sexual abuse in childhoods, has been completely unfunded and is permanently under attack by conservative sectors.