In emotional ceremony, Argentinian president hands out new ID cards to transgender individuals

Photo: Several transgender leaders from Argentina received brand new government ID's at a ceremony officiated by president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in celebration of passage of a groundbreaking gender identity law.  Among them, Kalym Adrian, holding the white and rainbow-colored flag of the Argentinean LGBT Federation (YouTube screen capture).

Last week I was talking to a reporter about the marriage equality and gender identity laws in Argentina when she asked about my coverage of those stories on this blog over the years.  I told her that when I began to write about them it was a way to share my excitement at the fact that these tremendous advances were taking place in Latin America and because there was so little coverage of them in English-language media.  But then I joked that there was no point in writing about them anymore because media powerhouses such as The Associated Press and Reuters had caught wind of what they were missing out on and were now on the Latin American LGBT beat on a regular basis.

I bring this up because there was an incredibly moving ceremony that took place yesterday at the Argentinean government palace in Buenos Aires, better known there as The Pink House, and I thought I'd have the English-language exclusive today.  Except those pesky upstarts at the AP were all over it overnight and beat me to it ("Argentine leader proudly delivers new identity cards to transsexuals, saying equality matters").

So, yes, as the AP reports, Argentinean president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner celebrated passage of the world's most progressive gender identity law by inviting a number of transgender leaders and personally handing them their new identity cards.  The law was adopted by the Argentinean congress in May by a vote of 55-0 and became law last month after getting the president's signature.  It allows transgender individuals to change their name and gender on government documents without having to prove that they have undergone gender reassignment surgery or need for court approval as had been the case before. It also grants government health coverage for transgender individuals who want to undergo a gender reassignment surgery.

Here is video of President Fernandez de Kirchner's comments at the event as posted on the government's YouTube page (in Spanish):

If you see lots of children in the room it's because the Argentinean president also signed a presidential decree yesterday which put an end to a legal loophole that kept same-sex parents who began raising children before the 2010 marriage equality law passed from registering as co-parents of those children.  If I understand correctly, the decree gives same-sex parents that weren't covered by the marriage equality law a full year to legally register their children as their own.

During her speech and before an image of Eva Perón, the president seemed to tear up a couple of times as she repeatedly invoked her husband Nestor Kirchner's name as having been key in securing passage of the marriage equality law.  Her husband, a former Argentinean president himself, died in October of 2010.

"Today is a day of tremendous reparation," the president said at the start of her speech, "today we do not shout for liberation but instead we shout for equality, which is just as important as freedom."

Referring to Kalym Adrian, who was sitting in the front row holding the flag of the Argentinean LGBT Federation (FALGBT), the president then stated that Mr. Adrian had known he was a man as early as when he was four years of age and said that it was only now at 42 years of age that he was finally being recognized for who he was. "He has waited all his life!" someone shouted from the audience which the president acknowledged by repeating "All his life".

Noting that the average age at which transgender individuals die in Argentina is 32, the president argued that part of it was due to the stress of being repressed and ignored and being denied legal rights. She said she hoped this law would change all that.

"I do not want to use a word that bothers me greatly: Tolerance. No. I do not believe in 'tolerance'. To tolerate is to say I'll allow you to be because I have no other choice", she said, "I want to talk about equality and I want to talk about all of you who will now have the same rights I have enjoyed from the moment I was born and the rights that so many millions of Argentinians have enjoyed from the moment they were born.  This is the society we want."

She later added "There is nothing new under the sun and let's see if we all can agree on that.  All these issues we are acknowledging today in a legal way are nothing new. They stem from the history of humanity and it's time for us to accept that reality is not how we'd like to be if I think in a certain way or someone else wants it to be but that reality is what it is."

The President then alluded to the days of the dictatorship when children were taken away from families and the Mothers of the Plaza began their silent protests to get their children back and championed a history of peaceful protests in Argentina in demand of human rights.  She compared it to the history of non-violent demonstrations by the Argentinian LGBT community and began thanking the LGBT activists and organizations present in the room until Alex Freyre shouted out "And those who are missing as well!"

Alex and José Maria Di Bello, who became the first same-sex couple to marry in all of Latin America when a court in Tierra del Fuego granted them a license in December of 2009, were sitting in the audience wearing their trademark red-ribbon sashes in memory of all those lost to HIV and AIDS.

The president took note and recognized that the fight for human rights sometimes left people feeling worn out but said that she was grateful for the altruistic efforts by some to not only fight for their rights but also the rights of others.

"It's better to have lived a worn out life than to always live like a flower or a butterfly without having achieved a thing," she said.

She finally closed by apologizing to people like Mr. Adrian for having had to wait for almost forty years to finally be recognized.

In the room, along with Alex and José, Kalym and members of the FALGBT were also Marcela Romero, Coordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Trans People (RED LACTRANS), Alejandro Iglesias, who revolutionized how people in Argentine felt about transgender individuals through his participation in the hugely popular Argentinean edition of "Big Brother", members of the Argentinean Association of Travesti, Transsexual and Transgender Individuals (ATTTA), Husbands César Cigliutti and Marcelo Suntheim who lead Comunidad Homosexual Argentina (CHA) who laid some of the groundwork for the gender identity law in the during the last decade, Diana Sacayan who leads the Anti-discrimination Movement for Liberation (MAL) and who was a recipient of one of the ID's handed out by the president, Maria Rachid, Esteban Paulón, María José Lubertino and so many other individuals who have played such integral parts in getting these laws passed.

The Argentinean fight for LGBT equality has not come without internal community tensions and ongoing differences between organizational leaders but it was a beautiful thing to see so many women and men I so admire sitting in that room at yesterday's event. I have covered their awesome work from afar and even met some of them during the past few years and I cannot tell you how much pride I have for them right at this moment.  Bravo!

Side-note: During her speech, president Fernandez de Kirchner held a puppet version of herself which she dubbed "Cristinita". She joked that some of her critics had called a witch in the past and that perhaps the puppet should carry a broom.

The puppet was one of many created one of the lesbian couples who received a co-parenting certificate - including puppet versions of Nestor Kirchner and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. The president said they would be offered for sale at government chambers.

Shamefully, in their coverage of the event, Spain's EFE treated the reason for the ceremony as a side note and focused mostly on the president's joke about the puppet ("Argentine president presents her doll 'Cristinita'").

Extra: Video of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner handing out new ID's to transgender leaders as well as co-parent certificates to a number of lesbian couples.

Previously:

• Argentina on the verge of adopting far-reaching transgender rights law (April 23, 2012)
• Stunning LGBT campaign ads from Argentina (November 21, 2011)

Reaction:

• Argentina passes progressive gender ID law; will Australia follow? (Xtra)
• Argentine president: Equality as important as liberty (Michael-In-Norfolk)
• Quote of the Day - Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (JoeMyGod)

Argentina: A new government ID for Alejandro Iglesias as he becomes the poster boy for transgender rights

The end of "Gran Hermano 2011": This weekend brings the season finale of "Gran Hermano 2011" - the Argentinean version of the international "Big Brother" reality show franchise.  As you know, if you have been following this blog, the show started with a bang when it was revealed to viewers that one of the contestants - Aejandro Iglesias - was a transgender man.

Surprisingly viewers quickly warmed up to Alejandro and some media observers named him an early favorite to become the winner. That didn't happen: He was voted out in March after having spent three months as a contestant (pretty respectable, considering he outlasted two of the guys in this weekend's final only to see producers bring them back into the house).

Interviewed after leaving the house, Alejandro said he had no regrets about participating in the reality show and revealing his identity in such a public way.  His hope, he said, was that his visibility might have helped others going through the same struggles he experienced earlier in his life as he realized his true identity and that his participation in the show might have led to a national dialogue on transgender rights.

"What I'd like?," Alejandro said to an interviewer, "To have the law passed so it won't be as tough to get to where I am... because people like me might be fighting the same battles and when they realize there is so much they have to do, they become depressed, they shut down."

The law Alejandro mentions in the interview is a gender identity bill expected to be introduced for debate in the Argentinean legislature later this year. If approved, the law would make it easier and faster for transgender individuals to request a new government-issued national ID, or DNI, which better-reflects their current gender.

With Alejandro becoming a pop-culture phenomenon, the Argentinean LGBT Federation (FALGBT) and the Travesti, Transexual and Transgender Association of Argentina (ATTTA) realized Alejandro had also created a tremendous opportunity to educate the public on the bill and, after reaching the producers, they were given a chance to address "Big Brother" viewers back in March. Here is the 14-minute clip of their appearance on the show, which I've translated (turn annotations on).

It's quite an amazing clip, considering it was shown on mainstream Argentinean television as part of one of the top rated shows in the country.

The gender identity bill: In the clip, FALGBT President Esteban Paulón explains that the gender identity bill is now the top priority for the organization that led the successful push for marriage equality in the country (in 2010, Argentina became the first Latin American country to pass a law granting marriage rights to same-sex couples).  He explains that the bill would allow transgender individuals to request a change of name and gender on their government-issued ID without having to be diagnosed as suffering "gender dysphoria" and without being required to show proof of having undergone gender-reassignment surgery.

Paulón also says that there are similarities between the successful campaign the Federation mounted for marriage equality and the current campaign for the gender identity bill.

He says that the Federation worked with a number of same-sex couples who went to the courts to demand the right to marry on the basis of discrimination and that nine of those couples were granted the right to marry months before marriage equality became the law of the land.

Similarly, he says that the Federation is working with several transgender individuals who have gone to court to argue the current regulations for changing their ID's are discriminatory and places an unfair burden on them and the courts have ruled in favor of three transgender individuals since December (Paulón says that there are another 30 cases pending in the courts of Buenos Aires and 100 cases total pending in Argentinean courts).

Photo: "Gran Hermano 2011" contestants Luz Rios and Alejandro Iglesias (wearing red-ribbon sashes) meet gay Argentinean hubbies Alex Freyre and José Maria Di Bello, the first gay couple to marry in all of Latin America (photo courtesy of Alex).

"Gender Dysphoria": You might never have heard of the term "gender dysphoria" but, thanks to Alejandro, most people in Argentina probably have heard of it by now.  On his casting tape, he used the term "disforia de género" as an issue he wanted to highlight as a contestant in the show and, as he "came out" as a transgender man inside the house, he also explained to them that he had "gender dysphoria" (Search for "disforia de género" on Google News and you'll get hundreds of news articles that have followed Alejandro's lead and used the term when talking about him).

In my original blog post about Alejandro I alluded to the discontent that exists out there about the term "gender dysphoria" in certain segments of the transgender community.  I did this by linking up to a blog post by Alexandra Billings in which she reacted to the casting tape clip of Alejandro I posted on my blog ("Big Latin Brother", January 6, 2011).

Basically, the argument is that "gender dysphoria" is a medical term long used to designate being transgender as a pathology or illness.  The insidiousness of the term is that it is also a diagnosis that transgender individuals must seek if they want to have access to gender-reassignment surgery or a change in their government ID in many parts of the world, including most of the United States.

What's interesting about this clip is that Marcela Romero, Director of ATTTA, takes the term - as well as Alejandro's embrace of "gender dysphoria" - head on.

"Throughout the world the transgender community is fighting to remove 'gender dysphoria', it doesn't exist" Romero says at the 8:00 minute mark, "France already removed it from its health manuals, 'gender dysphoria' doesn't exist. What exists is the guideline for a court judge to say that you have 'gender dysphoria' in order to grant you a document and delay it for four years, ten years in my case".

She also speaks directly to Alejandro, who is in the audience, at the 13:50 minute mark and says "I wanted to tell you, Ale, that 'gender dysphoria' no longer exists, let's stop 'gender dysphoria', let's stop it" to which Alejandro meekly responds "Yes, of course" and defends himself by saying "It was the only concept I had."

Paulón also puts Alejandro on the spot by asking him to commit to working with the Federation and tells him that the Federation is committed to work with him not only to make sure Alejandro gets a new ID but also in assessing whether he wants to go to the courts and demand that the state respond to the need of transgender people who want to undergo gender-reassignment surgery as a health issue.  Paulón says that this is part of a second transgender rights bill that the Federation is working on which would require the government to respond to the integral health of all Argentineans, including transgender folk.

Alejandro, who is sitting next to Luz Rios - a lesbian contestant who was his closest ally during the current season of "Gran Hermano" - commits himself to working with the Federation and ATTTA just as Luz is seen to become overwhelmed with emotion and starts to cry.

It's really an amazing clip. Perhaps I'll get to translate it down the line.

Alejandro gets his new ID: Last week, Paulón came through on one of his two promises to Alejandro. Working with Maria Rachid, Vice President of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI), Alejandro received his new government ID on Thursday morning.  He is now officially registered as "Alejandro Iván Iglesias" and as a male for all intents and purposes.  Here is a (translated) clip of the ceremony in which he was handed the new documents...

Imagine the marriage equality movement in the United States working as closely with transgender rights activists in this way?

Of course, the battle for the right of transgender folk to change the name and gender on their ID's is not unique to Argentina.

In the United States there are varying policies on changing one's ID documents, most requiring a transgender person to show they've had a psychiatric evaluation and show proof of having undergone gender-reassignment surgery.  Last month, three transgender individuals sued New York City arguing that the city's requirement for proof of surgery and a psychiatric evaluation made it extremely difficult for most transgender New Yorkers to get their ID's changed.

Pakistan was in the news earlier this week after their Supreme Court granted transgender individuals to register for a "third gender" category on their government ID's.

But I am am so glad I picked up Alejandro's story early on when he was introduced as part of the "Gran Hermano" contestants back in December. It's really been an incredibly moving story.

Related:

• Genderkid: Thoughts on gender by a queer Argentinean trans boy (Blog)

Argentina: Bears attacked

On Tuesday, January 18th, three members of the Buenos Aires Bear Club in Argentina visited the offices of the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) and filed a claim detailing a number of recent homophobic attacks against the club and its members.

Club coordinator Gabriel Sánchez tells Tiempo Argentino that on the night of January 15th, as club members and their friends began to arrive to a monthly grill-and-meet event, twenty or so individuals living in a nearby hotel started harassing them and asking them for money.

When members refused to give money, Sánchez says that some of the assailants began to shout "You getting together to fuck, fat faggots!"

As the tone got more aggressive, club members went inside the clubhouse and shut the door.  Outside, assailants pulled a discarded mattress and some trash bags against the door and set them on fire, as captured in this photo which was posted on the paper's website.

Club members were able to open the door and put out the fire with a fire extinguisher. By then, Sánchez says, the police had arrived and kept guard preventing further violence.

"We are well aware of the different economic situation and the reality of living in an overcrowded hotel, but were never hostile to them," said Sánchez, "These people are enraged by sexual diversity, something that has never been a problem in the neighborhood."

Sánchez says that the problems began a month earlier when the hotel accepted a number of new residents a month before the latest incident.  Bear club members started to complain of being verbally harassed as they made their way to the clubhouse or that their vehicles were damaged after refusing to pay them a bogus parking fee.

AG Magazine says that, in their complaint to INADI, bear club members describe the assailants throwing rocks and glass bottles which left a few of their members hurt. They also say that while the police did eventually arrive, they treated the altercation as a minor problem between neighbors but refused to arrest anyone or to register a complaint.

Maria Rachid, a former president of the Argentinian LGBT Federation who was appointed as Vice President of INADI in December by Argentinean president Cristina Fernandes de Kirchner, said that the government-led agency would accompany the members of the bear club and help them to file criminal charges on the basis of any personal damages or injuries as well as attempted murder.  She also vowed to approach the local police department to address the way their officers responded to the attack.

Rachid was also instrumental in pushing and securing marriage equality rights for all gays and lesbians in Argentina.

• Related: Rex Wockner: Buenos Aires Bears clubhouse attacked (Bay Windows, Jan. 24, 2011)

Argentina: Alejandro Iglesias shocks the viewers of "Big Brother 2011"

UPDATES

• Alejandro tells his "Big Brother" housemates he is a trans man (Jan. 6, 2011)
• Trans man Alejandro is voted out of the "Big Brother" house (March 24, 2011)

While a new season of "Big Brother" won't be in the air in the United States until the summer of 2011, the Argentinean version of the reality show just began its new season over the weekend.

The format is basically similar as that of the US version: Put a bunch of strangers inside a heavily monitored house and turn the cameras on 24/7. House members participate in challenges that give them immunity or the power to vote off cast members. Last person standing wins a pot of money. The "Gran Hermano 2011" website offers free live feeds all day long. Which might pique your interest... or not.

As with most shows of this nature, producers have thrown in a couple of gay participants: Emiliano Boscatto, who holds the title of Mr. Gay Cordoba 2008, and Luz Ríos, who producers describe as having "changed her sexual orientation" - sigh! - and is now proud to be a lesbian.

Announced as well, before the season started, was a "mystery houseguest". His identity was revealed in the season's opening episode. Meet 26 year old Alejandro Iglesias...

...and now you know why the producers kept his identity hidden.

YouTube video goes viral: I am incredibly struck by the public reaction to his very public declaration of being a transgender man.

I posted the video above on YouTube on December 12th and added English-language subtitles later. A couple of days ago, it became the 4th most watched YouTube video in Argentina that day. Today, four days later, the view count is 15,000+ and the 'likes' to 'dislikes' ratio is 25-3. I do moderate comments but I have been just amazed by the level of support people are expressing for Alejandro. There is only one extremely homophobic comment I rejected and the second worst comment the video has received was for the quality of my translation (I still think it's pretty accurate).

The fact that it has gone viral in itself has made news. "The video has been seen almost 10,000 times in 72 hours" says El Dia, "The video was translated to several languages" says Jornada (it's one language, but you get the point), Impulso says the video is what fans of the show search for the most, Lubfal says the video has traveled around the world, etc.

By all reports, though, Alejandro has emerged as the public favorite to win "Gran Hermano" this year - if only he can survive the first house vote.

In the first few days at the Big Brother house, Alejandro is said to be having a tough time ingratiating himself with other guests and, particularly, other male contestants. He's been described as shy and withdrawn. But...

Telling the other Big Brother houseguests: On tonight's show, Alejandro shared his "secret" with a few of the other houseguests (go to minute 2:44). He eventually tells them "I am trans" even as one of the women first cheers him and then confesses she doesn't know what that means. I'm not sure if that will change voting dynamics. But I am certain that, whether Alejandro leaves the show this week or early in the season, he has already moved the ground on the understanding of trans issues in Argentina.

Transgender identity law: Interestingly enough, even though I doubt it's been mentioned in the show, Alejandro's participation in the show comes at a time when LGBT advocates in Argentina have been pushing for a national law that would allow transgender individuals to change their name and identity in personal identification papers.

On September of 2008 an Argentinean court allowed a transgender woman, Tania Luna, to officially change her name without requiring gender reassignment surgery - the first in Latin America - and earlier this month the Argentinean newspapers ran stories about transgender rights advocate Luisa Paz and her own efforts to do the same and, just this week, transgender actress Florencia de la V became the second trans woman to be granted a new ID card without being required to prove she'd undergone gender reassignment surgery (here is video of the press conference that took place after she was granted her new ID card).

LGBT rights advocates, including Maria Rachid, the former president of the Argentinean LGBT Federation (FALGBT) - who was so instrumental in the passage of a marriage equality law in Argentina - are now turning their eye to passage of a national transgender rights bill which includes the right to change one's ID papers.

I truly believe that the Argentinean public's embrace of Alejandro Iglesias in "Gran Hermano" will do wonders to humanize the issue before the community at large.

Related:

• Big Latin Brother (Stilletos and Sneakers)
• Trans in Argentina (Genderkid)