The Politics of Sexuality in Latin America: A Reader on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights

“Con Discriminación y Represión No Hay Democracia”: The Lesbian and Gay Movement in Argentina

“Con Discriminación y Represión No Hay Democracia” The Lesbian and Gay Movement in Argentina Stephen Brown L  gay activism now circles the globe, but it is vastly understudied. Not even the latest syntheses of contemporary social movement theory discuss lesbian and gay movements to any significant degree (see McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald ).₁ Even the most important works on “social theory” tend to ignore sexuality (Warner , ix). A lack of activism cannot explain this deficiency, since formal lesbian and gay organizations have existed in the United States since the s, and have become prominent in North America and Western Europe in the past thirty years. During the past decade,many developing countries have become the sites of burgeoning movements as well. Lesbian and gay organizations now exist in every country in Latin America, some of them dating back to the mid-s (Drucker , ). [. . .] Argentina hosts a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement that is sometimes quite visible and results in concrete political advances,² such as the inclusion in  of a clause in the municipal constitution of Buenos Aires that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Explaining how the lesbian and gay movement emerged and later expanded in Argentina, and why and it did so when it did, I argue that a conjunction of local and global cycles of protest, depending on the earlier diffusion of lesbian and gay identity, led to the birth of activism in the late s and early s. These favorable conditions were then eclipsed by constraints 86 that were solely domestic, causing the abrupt end of activism in the mid-s. During the s, however, lesbian and gay activists, most from a new generation, took advantage of new political opportunities—essentially the return to democratic rule, the human-rights discourse, and some international support—to form a movement. Thus, our analysis is enriched by adopting the political-opportunity-structures approach to social movements, even if the literature underestimates the significance of identity and identity formation. Clearly, activism requires the prior diffusion of lesbian and gay identity, though identity and opportunities do not in themselves automatically produce a movement. Although one cannot draw definitive conclusions from a single case study, this article suggests that social movement theorists should question more deeply the nature of identity, especially when looking at sexuality, and examine both its origins and its consequences. [. . .] Providing historical background on lesbian and gay activism in Argentina, and describing the movement as it is organized today, I will use the political-opportunitystructures approach to explain the emergence of the movement, and demonstrate the centrality of identity to a more nuanced understanding of the movement’s current structures and strategies. I will speculate about the movement’s future, which will be defined by how its goals are articulated and its alliances chosen. Historical Background and Current Situation In November , while Argentina was under military rule, the Grupo Nuestro Mundo (Our World Group) was founded in Buenos Aires, becoming the first gay political organization in Latin America (though informal social groups had previously existed). In  the Grupo Nuestro Mundo and several others, including mostly male left-wing university students, anarchists, and religious organizations, joined to form the radical Frente de Liberación Homosexual (Homosexual Liberation Front, hereafter ). Even after the democratic elections in  and the return to power of Juan Perón, the  remained an essentially clandestine group, closely associating itself with the fight for women’s and workers’rights, both in Argentina and around the world.After Perón’s death in , during the presidency of his widow, Isabel, there was a rapid upsurge of right-wing paramilitary attacks on homosexuals. In a short period of time, the number of  members fell from a hundred to a dozen. Some of them were tortured or murdered after the military coup in March . Several left the country, and those who remained suspended their public activities. The  dissolved in June of that year.³ Under the brutal military dictatorship, formal lesbian and gay activism disappeared . By the end of , however, a few new groups had emerged and created a coordinating committee (Coordinadora de Grupos Gays). By that point it was increasingly recognized that military rule would not last much longer. However, between “Con Discriminacíon y Represión No Hay Democracia” / 87 January  and November , a former member of the  and at least seventeen other gay men were murdered...