Esteban Paulón gets married to Pablo Cirlini

In the four years since Argentina became the first Latin American country to pass a marriage equality law 9,362 same-sex couples have decided to get hitched according to the latest numbers released last week.

The law would not have become a reality without the years of patient and expert lobby work of the Argentine LGBT Federation (FALGBT) and this week the agency decided to mark the anniversary by accompanying a Russian lesbian couple as they received their marriage license (same-sex couples can get married in Argentina regardless of immigration status or nationality).

Marina Mironova and Oxana Tamofeeba are seeking political asylum in the South American country and news of their wedding came on the same week that Russian president Vladimir Putin arrived in the country to visit Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Putin has been pillared as of late for his lack of action and outright defense of several so-called "anti gay-propaganda" laws that have flowered in Russia under his watch and as the relationship between Russia and the United States has increasingly deteriorated he has looked to left-wing governments in Latin America for support.

Last week alone he touched ground in Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil and Argentina and met their respective presidents Raúl Castro, Daniel Ortega, Dilma Rouseff and Cristina de Kirchner and also connected with Evo Morales of Bolivia, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and Fidel Castro as well.  None challenged him on Russia's homophobic policies at least publicly.

In the meantime a more personal story was taking place behind the scenes.

Four years ago Esteban Paulón was single 32 years of age and fighting for marriage equality with the FALGBT as a volunteer. Yesterday at 36 and as president of the organization he married the love of his life Pablo Cirlini.

As Argentine Senator Rubén Giustiniani put it yesterday on Twitter "When we passed the marriage equality law one of its principal advocates used to say 'I don't even have a partner!', today Esteban Paulón gets married. Congratulations!"

Cuando sancionamos el Matrimonio Igualitario1 de sus principales impulsores decía:"yo no tengo ni pareja",hoy se casa.@epaulonlgbt Fecidades
— Rubén Giustiniani (@rgiustiniani) July 19, 2014

In the days before the wedding the couple made the usual arrangements and applied for a marriage license. To their surprise - four years after Argentina passed their marriage equality law - the marriage license application they were given at the Santa Fe notary still listed spaces where a "husband" and a "wife" could sign the document.

Esteban took to Twitter to say that it was a little shameful that the local civil marriage bureaus had yet to update their forms but said that having to sign the document as a "wife" was not going to keep the couple from getting married.

Others shared similar stories: @alejodip also said that when he and his partner applied for a marriage license in Santa Fe he also had to write his name in a line where the word "Ms." had been penciled out and the word "Mr." had been penciled in.

The Santa Fe government took no time to apologize to the couple on Twitter and vowed to work with the FALGBT to modernize documents in the near future.

At the end of the day all three couples are legally married, Congratulations to all three couples.

Boxer Ana Laura "La Monita" Esteche comes out after winning world championship belt

Professional boxers Ana Laura "La Monita" Esteche and Yohana "Yoki" Giménez (with the pink hair). Photo used by permission courtesy of Martín Canevaro and the 100% Diversity & Rights collective.

In what observers are calling a stunning upset, professional Argentine boxer Ana Laura Esteche defeated three-time defending light welterweight World Boxing Association champion Monica Silvina Acosta when the two met in San Clemente del Tuyú on January 20th (you can watch the whole fight here).

Friends since childhood, Acosta did not wait for officials to announce the fight score and instead took her championship belt from the official who was holding it and handed it to Esteche herself in a show of respect and admiration for the woman who had just defeated her. "It's yours, take care of it, you won fairly and let God guide you," said Acosta - an evangelical preacher outside the ring - to Esteche according to ESPN.

For Esteche, better known in Argentina as "La Monita," it was her second try at the championship and her first world title. It was also the night she became the second professional boxer to ever come out while still active in the sport following the steps of Puerto Rican boxer Orlando Cruz who came out in October of 2012.

In a ringside interview immediately following the fight, Esteche was asked if it had yet dawned on her that she was a world champion. Caught in the moment and overwhelmed by tears, Esteche began by thanking her trainers but extended those thanks to "her woman and my mother-in-law."

She also said she had gave her all during the match to demonstrate the tremendous day-to-day efforts she had put into the fight along with her trainers and "my woman."

Here is that interview after the fight and an additional interview done last week:

In that follow-up interview, which comes at the 4:16 minute mark, the sports anchor asks Esteche about those comments and, with a smile, she says the following of her partner:

Thanks to her, I wake up every morning at 6 or 5 in the morning because I am a bit weak when it comes to sleeping in and she always tells me "c'mon 'gorda', let's go, let's go because this is the time you will get it!' and later she would train with me and my physical trainer on my same level as if she had to fight four rounds and I had to fight ten.  So she would train with me and sometimes better than me because she is is great physical shape. And she would train and box with me, she is truly and excellent person.  And, to be sincere, I am very happy to have a woman like that

Photo via Ring Side

Amazingly, Esteche's partner - who you can see in the video standing behind her with her pink hair color - happens to be another WBA professional boxer who tied in a match earlier that same night:  Johanna "Yoki" Giménez.

In the video Esteche also dedicates her victory to her parents "because it has been a long time since I told them I love them."

Speaking to ESPN's Carlos Irusta, Esterche says that while she is not entirely distant from her parents they do not see each other often and says that they do not approve of her relationship to Giménez.

She also tells him they both come from such poor background that they have to make a living scavenging construction materials from building that have to be torn down in the poorest districts of Buenos Aires. "It builds muscles," Esteche jokes.

Finally, on her decision to come out, Esteche says "It's that it's something that you should not hide, after all happiness is not something you should hide, it's something to be shared and I - we - are happy."

Related:

• "A love story" - Spanish language (ESPN, Jan. 20, 2014)
• "The 'Monita' who never dressed in silk" - Spanish language (La Nación, Jan. 25, 2014)
• World Boxing Association website here

Might update as additional details emerge.

And the first same-sex couple to marry in Uruguay is...

CORRECTION: An original version of this post contained the following phrase "Uruguay is the second Latin American nation to adopt a national marriage equality law following Argentina." Taking under consideration reader comments and after discussing the issue with marriage equality advocates based in Brazil, the phrase now reads "Uruguay is the third Latin American nation to adopt a national marriage equality law following Argentina and Brazil.

Same-sex couples in Uruguay began to marry yesterday after a required 90-day waiting period from the day president José Mujica signed a marriage equality bill into law.

But none of those couples earned the title of "first to marry". That's because on August 5th, the first day on which couples were able to apply for a license, a Civil Court judge headed to a hospital and granted a marriage license "in-extremis" to a man dying of cancer and his partner who sat by his bedside.

The name of the couple might never be known since they requested to remain anonymous.

Add caption

On August 19th, the state also recognized the marriage of Omar Salsamendi y Federico Macerattini (pictured  to the right) by recognizing their marriage a year earlier in Argentina.

Rodrigo Borda and Sergio Miranda, the first couple to apply for marriage in Montevideo on the 6th, hoped theirs would be the first marriage as the law went into effect yesterday and invited media to wait for them outside the private civil court ceremony at 11:30am.

International news agencies called them the first and AFP posted a video of the happy couple after the civil ceremony in which Miranda states “While in Russia they incite violence and hunt us down and kill us like the Nazi regime, in Uruguay we can get married, we can celebrate love. So I’m very happy to live in a country like Uruguay and not like Russia. That’s all I have to say.”

Uruguayan press, though, report that Rubén López and Mario Bonilla, together for 21 years, were married earlier yesterday morning in the city of Mercedes. It was also the first time that they were able to register as the joint parents of Camilo whom they adopted 17 years ago.  Screen cap of the couple with their son at the emotional wedding ceremony above, video below.

Of course, of the 20 or so couples who applied for a marriage license on Aug. 5th, no one knows if other couples married earlier than they did and kept their ceremonies private.

Uruguay is the third Latin American nation to adopt a national marriage equality law following Argentina and Brazil.

UPDATE: Over at Reddit, a user posted this photo of the U.S. Embassy in Uruguay. Supposedly it's in celebration of the marriage equality law going into effect :)

REACTIONS:

• Same-sex couples begin marrying in Uruguay (The Advocate)

Did Pope Francis back same-sex civil unions in Argentina?

If you have read any coverage of newly anointed Pope Francis this week and his views on LGBT issues you will no doubt be familiar with the following quotes (via GLAAD):

• On Marriage Equality: “Let's not be naive: This is not a simple political fight; it is a destructive proposal to God's plan. This is not a mere legislative proposal (that's just it's form), but a move by the father of lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God.”
• On Adoption: In 2010, he claimed that adoption by gay and lesbian couples was a form of discrimination against children. His rhetoric was so strong that Argentina's President, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, said his tone was reminiscent of "medieval times and the Inquisition."

And yet, today the Associated Press reported the following:

According to the new pope's authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, [Jorge Mario] Bergoglio was politically wise enough to know the church couldn't win a straight-on fight against gay marriage, so he urged his bishops to lobby for gay civil unions instead. It wasn't until his proposal was shot down by the bishops' conference that he publicly declared what [Esteban] Paulon described as the "war of God" — and the church lost the issue altogether.

That was from the marriage equality fight in 2010 and it should be said that it was as a last stand against passage of the marriage equality law.

In an article published in Perfil on July 24 of 2010 an anonymous source claimed Bergoglio felt "used" in the run up to the marriage equality vote and hoped to eventually regain his progressive reputation by letting it be known he wasn't a homophobe.

The anonymous source also brings up Bergoglio's role in the passage of the 2002 same-sex civil union law that was approved by the Buenos Aires legislature.

An excerpt:

After the law was passed, the Jesuit once more sought refuge in the silence of prayer.  In the meantime, those who are near to him insist in presenting him as a progressive bishop, perhaps even from the "left", who had never used those terms when speaking about those issues.

"He doesn't have anything against gays nor transgender individuals and he never discriminated them during his duties as a pastor.  What prevails within him is christian charity," is the way a confident defends him.

And they add that Bergoglio felt trapped between two fires -- that of the government and that of his internal rival Héctor Aguer, the conservative archbishop of La Plata -- and he reacted as "a soldier of God."

Kirchner entered the game and she played to kill or be killed in the tradition of Saint Ignatius," say his closest friends.

In 2002 he has backed civil unions when they were passed by the Buenos Aires legislature and in April of that year he had proposed that the Church do the same on a national level.

What happened between April of 2002 and now, who is the real Bergoglio? It's a question that is often asked by the Government and within the church.

I have yet to find independent reports that Bergoglio did indeed back civil unions in Buenos Aires back in 2002.That law made Buenos Aires the first city in Latin America to adopt such laws.

UPDATE (3/18/13): Here is further indication Bergoglio would have backed civil unions for same-sex couples in exchange for scuttling the marriage equality law that Argentina adopted in July of 2010.

Just four months before the legislative vote, Bergoglio's spokesperson Federico Walls went on the record with Info News and said the following:

We do not seek to discriminate against unions between same-sex individuals. We don’t have a fanatic vision. What we are asking is that the laws be respected. We believe that we must propose more comprehensive civil union  bill than currently exists, but not marriage (H/t: Millenial).

My friend Mariano Lake writes to me from Argentina:

For Bergoglio, backing civil unions was a way to deny gays the right to marry and that's what the Argentine LGBT Federation fought for: The same rights with the same names. Bergoglio did not want us to be able to marry and a civil union was not a marriage.

Rachel Maddow on Argentina's marriage equality law and the new Pope

It's rare to see a cable network devote more than a few minutes to Latin American LGBT issues particularly during prime-time hours so it was refreshing to see Rachel Maddow spend five minutes last night talking about how marriage equality became law in Argentina back in 2010.

The Rachel Maddow, March 14, 2013

The groundbreaking law has gained new relevance this week after Argentine Jesuit priest Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named as the new Pope and christened Pope Francis. He was also the leading opponent of the Argentine marriage equality law back on 2010 as Cardinal of Buenos Aires - - and ended up on the losing side of history.

While Maddow went on to discuss what this all means for the future of the Catholic church you should also take a look at this Michael K. Lavers story at The Washington Blade on how LGBT advocates in Argentina are receiving the news ("Argentine gay activist Esteban Paulón criticizes Pope Francis").

And here is a statement released yesterday by the organization Esteban Paulón leads: The Argentine LGBT Federation (FALGBT):

The appointment of a Pope who affirmed Marriage Equality was the Plan of the Devil, is a bad sign for LGBTI rights 

The Argentine LGBT Federation expresses its deep regret for the appointment of the Archbishop of the City of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, as the new Pope.

The election of Jorge Bergoglio as the new Pope marks a clear desire of the Vatican to radicalize its position against the recognition of diverse family structures.

Bergoglio was twice the President of the Argentine Episcopal Conference and led the campaigns against the laws of Marriage Equality (2010) and Gender Identity (2011/2012), obstructing the legislative advances obtained through the hard work of the FALGBT and the sexual diversity movement of Argentina.

During the campaign for Marriage Equality, Bergoglio called it "the plan of the devil" and led a crusade against it and called it “God’s War.”

During his public arguments against Marriage Equality in 2010, Bergoglio stated that “in the next few weeks the Argentine people will have to confront a situation whose result can gravely hurt the family: A same-sex marriage bill."

At stake, he claimed, was “the identity and the survival of the family: father, mother, and children. At stake is the life of so many children who will be deprived from the human development that God wanted by giving them a father and a mother. At stake is a direct rejection of the law of God, also engraved in our hearts."

In those same declarations Bergoglio expressed: “We remember what God himself said to his people in a moment of much anguish: ‘This war is not yours but God’s.’ May they assist, defend, and accompany him in God’s War.”

Currently, Pope Francis is an active militant against the right for secure, legal and free abortion, still awaiting debate in the Argentine Parliament despite the enormous social and parliamentary consensus that the ruling has.

Likewise, the performance of Bergoglio during the last military dictatorship is being investigated, especially regarding the theft of babies and disappearance of priests of liberation theology.

In that respect Esteban Paulón, president of the FALGBT, expressed: 

"While we have no expectations of change from the Vatican the choice of someone who promoted 'God's War' against marriage equality is disappointing. His radical position on this issue, on the gender identity law and on safe, legal and free abortion, keeps us from being optimistic."

Paulón added, “Perhaps the fact that Pope Francis has lived for the last two and a half years in a country where Marriage Equality is a reality and none of the catastrophes he predicted have come to pass might make him reconsider his negative stand on issues related to equality. At the very least, he will no longer be able to make arguments from a lack of knowledge as Argentina today is a more equal and peaceful country in which families have been strengthened and diversified thanks to the Marriage Equality and Gender Identity laws."

Finally, Paulón stated “beyond anyone's personal convictions, the Church continues to hold great sway on global public opinion and on the decisions made by other countries. It would be extremely positive if the Vatican, under Pope Francis, changed its ways and finally supported the United Nations Declaration Against the Penalization of Homosexuality by signing on to the statement."

Related:

• Argentine gays not thrilled with the new Pope (AP)
• Translating the Argentina Gay Marriage Story One Tweet at a Time (Mediaite)

Argentina: President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's blistering 2010 statement against the new Pope

A couple of days before Argentina became the first Latin American country to pass a nationwide marriage equality law in 2010 president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner broke her silence on the landmark bill and secured its passage by throwing hell full support behind it. It was an impassioned speech carried live on Argentine television from a diplomatic trip to China and a full-throttled response to increasingly rabid homophobic opposition by Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.

Transcript:

To begin with, I am a bit surprised about the tone, the tenor, and the content the dialogue has taken.  The truth is that it's worrisome to listen to expressions such as 'God's Battle', 'The Work of the Devil', things which actually bring us back to the times of the Inquisition, to Medieval Times, it seems to me. Particularly coming from those who should promote peace, tolerance, diversity and dialogue. Or at least that's what they've always said in their statements. And all of a sudden [we have] this aggressive language, this dismissive language invoking 'natural law' arguments.

To bring it back to our own history, when the civil code was approved, Vélez Sársfield has taken 'marriage' from Canon law. That's why they could only get married through the church! There was no possibility for people to get married in a civil registry in Argentina.

When immigration began - there are many people who are not Catholic, who are not affiliated with any religion, or are anarchists, or Communists, or are Jewish or Muslim - and it turns out that the only way they could get married was through Catholic rites.

And so, a reform to the civil code was proposed, which was incorporated in 1,888 through which 'civil marriages' were created.

I sincerely believe what's being presented before the current norm is something that the community already has. I believe it's fair - it's fair - to recognize this right for the minorities. And I believe it would be a terrible distortion of democracy if the majorities - the actions of those majorities - denied rights to those minorities.

But what worries me the most is the tone in which these issues are being discussed, invoking questions such as the Devil, or the war.

I heard someone talk about 'God's War'! As if we were still in the time of the Crusades! I can just imagine Roland going to conquer the Holy Sepulcher! The truth is I don't believe this is good...It's not good because it establishes, as a society, a place which I don't think any of us wants to have. 

We are all willing to debate, discuss, dissent, but do it within a rational frame, without stigmatizing others because they think differently, and, fundamentally, also without violating the constitution.

But in reality I don't think it's a question that should be taken lightly. We are talking about whether we are going to be a society which recognizes the rights of minorities. This is the axis. Or if we are going to require that when someone signs official paperwork, instead of writing an ID, they should write "gay" or "lesbian" so some public official can say "Yes, I will see you", "I won't see you", "You have the right to in vitro fertilization", "No, you don't have the rights".

Bergoglio is not mentioned by name but he had just made the statements that the fight against same-sex marriage was "God's battle" and that those fighting for it were doing the "work of the Devil".

Bergoglio became Pope Francis today. He has chosen to downplay his opposition to the recognition of LGBT rights since he lost the marriage equality battle in 2010 which means that he might have learned a lesson from the experience. Or it might mean that the Vatican hopes that they will be able to hold the line and perhaps roll back significative advances that have taken place in Latin America when it comes to LGBT rights.

Related:

• Pope Francis Brings Lessons Of Argentina's Marriage Fight To Rome (Buzzfeed)

Latin American online LGBT media pioneer Gabriel Oviedo has died

SentidoG: Gabriel Oviedo, the founder and chief editor of the online LGBT news site SentidoG, has passed away in Buenos Aires at the age of 38.  Oviedo had been hospitalized since December from undisclosed "health complications" and died Thursday night according to a statement posted on the website.

Since its initial launch at the end of 2001, SentidoG became a go to source for Spanish-language international LGBT news and quickly gained a readership well beyond the Argentine borders.

Last year SentidoG was officially designated by the Buenos Aires City Council as a "Social Site of Interest" and Oviedo received honors "for his journalistic work and for his commitment to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans issues; as well as the dissemination of content that promoted rights for all and strengthened the fight against discrimination".

Cesar Cigliutti and other members of the Argentine Homosexual Community (CHA) who worked closely with Oviedo over the years and accompanied him on that special occasion released a brief statement mourning his loss and championing his work on behalf of the LGBT community.

The Argentine LGBT Federation (FALGBT), who are sometimes at odds with the CHA, also released their own statement.  "Gabriel's passing is an important loss for the movement, particularly for the drive and effort that led to the launch of one of the most important LGBT news portals in the world," said FALGBT president Esteban Paulón.

Controversy: In past years, Oviedo and SentidoG were not immune to controversy. While most of the site's content is original, Oviedo sometimes would post copyrighted content from other sites including material from the The Bilerico Project in the United States.

SentidoG's lax copyright policies led to confrontations with a rival Argentine LGBT news site called AG Magazine which broke out into the open in 2008 when their director Martín Peretti Sciolli accused Oviedo of stealing their material and their design.

The rough patch between both online publications seemed to have disappeared four years later when AG Magazine publicly congratulated Oviedo on SentidoG's and their 10th anniversary.

In his own words: During the decade that Oviedo spent at the helm of SentidoG, Argentina went from approving same-sex civil unions in 2002, to approving marriage equality in 2010 to passing the most progressive gender identity law in the world in 2012.

Last June he sat down with editors of the weekly Página/12 LGBT news supplement "Soy"and spoke of those ten years.

Oviedo said that SentidoG began as an online radio station with the idea of providing support for the civil union bill which was still in its infancy at the time and that it soon grew into something else.

He took the U.S. publication The Advocate as a reference and launched SentidoG. There were other sites such as Gay.com in Spanish and the monthly Argentine publication NX but he felt there was a need for a news site that provided content updated on a daily basis. "Today any jerk can launch a blog and believe it's a news network," he said.

Oviedo said that over the years he'd begun to characterize SentidoG's coverage as being queer rather than LGBT and argued he tried to stay away from the overt consumerist angle of other LGBT publications but admitted that what usually drew the most readers was sex and eroticism which is why they sometimes featured features such as "The Gods of Rugby".

A year earlier Oviedo had also sat down with Verónica Dema of La Nación who interviewed him for a blog she runs on LGBT issues called Boquitas Pintadas.  Dema asked Oviedo to share the high point and low point of his run at SentidoG, and she caught his response on camera:

The high point - Passage of the marriage equality law in 2010:

The story that was the most beautiful to me - because I lived through it while being there - was the passage of the marriage equality law.  I was outside [congress] in one of the tarps at the same instant the vote came in and it was a truly emotional moment. We truly crossed over to being legally recognized and it felt as if we had stepped out of the closet completely.

The low point - Having to report on hate crimes against the LGBT community:

It is always sad and it always saddens me when I have to report a hate crime - directly or indirectly. Directly when a hate crime takes actually place or indirectly when the State has exclusionary policies that lead some to commit suicide; that's a hate crime by omission. And Argentina has experienced tremendous change - particularly since last year. But when one stops to think - and I've discussed this with my friends - that only thirty years have passed since we went through an extremely bloody military coup in which people were taken away for - four hundred people were disappeared simply due to their sexual orientation - to think that twenty years after the coup ended you saw the passage of a marriage equality bill! For those people who survived it was truly an incredible story.

In a few words, that summarizes the improbable and moving path to equality for the Argentine LGBT community: From a repressive and bloody dictatorship to marriage equality and beyond.

When news broke of Oviedo's passing on Twitter last week, the response might have even surprised him.

From Argentina came reactions from SentidoG, CHA, FALGBT, AG Magazine, Peek G and renown journalist Osvaldo Bazan...

Falleció Gabriel Oviedo, creador de SentidoG.com p.ost.im/p/daa68W #sentidog
— SentidoG (@sentidog) February 1, 2013

Con mucho dolor y toda nuestra solidaridad y afecto para con su familia y amigos. Lamentamos comunicar la noticia... fb.me/1j3x9o435
— CHA Argentina (@CHAArgentina) February 1, 2013

Nuestro pesar por fallecimiento d Gabriel Oviedo, fundador portal de noticias LGBT SentidoG prensa-falgbt.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/profun… #lgbt twitter.com/epaulonlgbt/st…
— Esteban Paulon (@epaulonlgbt) February 1, 2013

La partida de Gabriel Oviedo, creador de @sentidog, es una gran pérdida para el periodismo #LGBT, del cual fue y será un gran protagonista.
— AGMagazine (@AGMagazine) February 1, 2013

Profundo pesar por la muerte de Gabriel Oviedo, fundador de SentidoG bit.ly/11dnqW2
— Peek G (@infopeekg) February 1, 2013

Me acabo de enterar de la muerte de Gabriel Oviedo,uno de los periodistas LGTTB más importantes del país. ChauGaby, te quiero siempre!
— OB (@osvaldobazan) February 1, 2013

From the International LGBTI Association (ILGA) and All Out...

We are deeply touched and saddened for the untimely death of Gabriel Oviedo, ILGA LAC communication officer for 2 years. We'll miss him.
— ILGA (@ILGAWORLD) February 1, 2013

All Out expresa su pesar por el fallecimiento de Gabriel Oviedo, fundador de SentidoG. sentidog.com/lat/2013/02/fa…
— All Out en Español (@allout_es) February 1, 2013

From Spain the online LGBT news site Dos Manzanas, the LGBT Statewide Federation (FALGBT) and FALGBT member Toni Poveda....

Fallece Gabriel Oviedo, creador de shrd.by/5RkTbz. Nuestro más sentido pésame. shrd.by/OEeQmB
— dosmanzanas.com (@dosmanzanas) February 1, 2013

Desde Área Internacional de @felgtb lamentamos el fallecimiento de Gabriel Oviedo, que denunciaba LGTBfobia incansablemente desde @sentidog
— InternacionalFELGTB (@InternacFELGTB) February 1, 2013

Desde Área Internacional de @felgtb lamentamos el fallecimiento de Gabriel Oviedo, que denunciaba LGTBfobia incansablemente desde @sentidog
— Toni Poveda (@ToniPoveda) February 1, 2013

From Mexico, condolences from CODICE, Foro No Heterosexual, trans rights activists Patty Betancourt and Código Diverso producer Gabriel Gutierrez Garcia...

Lamentamos el fallecimiento de Gabriel Oviedo creador de SentidoG.com Un luchador incansable de la comunidad LGBT
— CODISE A.C. (@CODISE_AC) February 1, 2013

Nuestro más sentido pésame y apoyo a todos en @sentidog por el sensible fallecimiento de Gabriel Oviedo su creador sentidog.com/lat/2013/02/fa…
— Foro No Heterosexual (@enehache_com) February 1, 2013

siempre te recordaremos Gabriel Oviedo tu lucha seguirá en pie.
— Paty Betancourt (@paty_betancourt) February 1, 2013

Mi recuerdo y reconocimiento a Gabriel Oviedo Fundador y Director de @sentidog como dijera el: !dale Gaby!
— Gabrielgtzg (@Gabrielgtzg) February 1, 2013

From Chile, the online lesbian magazine Rompiendo el Silencio...

Lamentamos el fallecimiento del activista y comunicador argentino Gabriel Oviedo del portal @sentidog amigo de RS y siempre apoyándonos
— Revista Lesbiana (@ReviLesbicaRS) February 1, 2013

From Ecuador, Proyecto Transgénero...

Sentido pésame para (SentidoG.com) Falleció Gabriel Oviedo
— PROYECTO TRANSGENERO (@transfeministas) February 1, 2013

From Paraguay, SomosGay and LGBT rights activist Simón Cazal...

Nuestras condolescias para amigos y familiares de Gabriel Oviedo. Muchas gracias Gabo por tu gran lucha a favor de la igualdad en el mundo
— SOMOSGAY (@SOMOSGAY) February 1, 2013

Ayer yo perdí un amigo y el movimiento un compañero militante como pocos. Gabriel Oviedo se te va a extrañar.
— Simon Cazal (@scazal) February 1, 2013

From the United States, trans rights activist Veronica Onassis...

@blabbeando I'm deeply heartbroken by this news.Gabriel Oviedo was a tireless LGBT rights activist who was passionate about his work.
— Veronica Onassis (@veronicaonassis) February 1, 2013

And the reactions continue. A true testament to Gabriel's work and how far it reached.

As for the highlight of his journalist career, here is a video of the reaction outside congress when the marriage equality law passed.

Everyone breaks out into chants of "Equality! Equality! Equality!"

Argentina: New ID's for 1,720 transgender individuals since 2012 law; 5,839 same-sex marriages since 2010 law

In 2010 Argentina became the first Latin American nation to adopt a nation-wide marriage equality law.

This summer, Argentina continued its bid to become the most LGBT-friendly country in the world when it also passed what some call the most progressive gender identity law in the world.

The law requires the public health system to provide adequate health services for transgender individuals and grants them the right to change their name and gender designation on government ID's without having to show proof of gender reassignment surgery or a psychological diagnosis.

[In July I wrote about an extraordinary ceremony in which President Critsina Fernandez de Kirchner publicly and personally handed out the first new ID's processed under the law to a number of transgender leaders].

On Thursday the daily newspaper La Nación took a look at both laws and their impact since their passage and spoke to LGBT-rights advocates about what's next for the movement after these amazing victories.

Marriage equality: According to La Nación the latest government records indicate that 5,839 couples have gotten married in Argentina since the marriage equality law went into effect in July of 2010 with the bulk of them taking place in Buenos Aires and surrounding communities. When ranked per capita, other regions also stand out including Mendoza with 389 weddings (at 22.37 per 100,000 inhabitants), Santa Fé with 664 (20.79/100K) and Córdoba with 632 (19.10/100K).

The national number also includes five foreign couples who traveled to Argentina to get married after a March 2012 ruling by a Santa Fé court allowing foreign nationals to get married under Argentine law. The Argentine LGBT Federation says that they are aware of another 50 foreign couples who have registered to get married in 2013 and say that there is a waiting list for other tourists wishing to do the same.

In an article published earlier this month by UPI they put the numbers of same-sex couples married in Buenos Aires at 1,030 - which is lower than La Nacion's numbers by almost 400 couples - but that might just indicate that they were looking at earlier official estimates. Interestingly they note that of those 1,030 marriages only 191 took place in the first half of 2012 indicating a steep decrease in recent same-sex marriages in the nation's capital.

Gender identity law: As reflected by the graphic above 1,720 Argentine individuals have processed changes to their official identification records to reflect their current name and gender representation (there is an interactive version of the graphic on La Nación's webpage which also includes a separate graphic for same-sex marriages).

Those blue dots represent the per capita ranking of each region and what particularly striking is that there have been transgender individuals who have sought official recognition of their identity even in the most conservative areas of the nation.

La Nación also notes that there are only two hospitals in the entire nation accredited to perform gender reassignment surgeries which has resulted in months-long waiting lines for individuals who want to undergo gender reassignment surgery. Indeed, one of the pending challenges LGBT-rights advocates express in the piece is to expand the number of medical centers and staff accredited to provide health care to transgender individuals.

UPDATE: On December 14, 2012, Argentina's Ministry of Interior and Transportation said that all transgender permanent resident immigrants and refugees would also be covered by the gender identity law.  Additional information on the immigrant-friendly aspect of the policy can be found here.

Pending challenges: Combating bullying in schools & lifting a blood donation ban on gay and bisexual men: As LGBT-rights advocates turn their sights on 2013, they tell La Nación that there are two short-term goals.

First, they would like to work with legislators to develop and present an anti-bullying law that would penalize persecution and harassment of students based on their sexual identity and, second, they would like to put an end to discriminatory policies that bar gay and bisexual men from donating blood.

Second, in November of this year the the lower chamber of congress voted to lift a ban on blood donations by gay and bisexual men by an overwhelming vote of 158 in favor, 2 against and 4 abstentions.  A priority for LGBT-rights advocates will be to secure enough votes for a Senate vote expected to take place in March or April of 2013.

If passed and signed into law, Argentina would follow Mexico as the second country in the American continent to lift blood donor restrictions on gay and bisexual men.  The Mexican restrictions were lifted just last week.

Related:

• J Lester Feder: Posts tagged 'Argentina' (After Marriage)
• Argentina stands out as global leader for LGBT rights (Purple Roofs)

Reactions:

• January 2, 2012 Morning Meme (After Elton)
• January 2, 2012 Morning Pride (Think Progress)

Ecuadorian police use force to break up anti-homophobia rally in Guayaquil

Just as I pushed 'post' on that last story about an Ecuadorian court ruling allowing a lesbian couple to register their civil union in the nation's Civil Registry, I was alerted to a number of Tweets sent by a participant at a protest against homophobia that took place earlier today in Guayaquil, Ecuador:

• "Municipal police are KICKING us out of the rally against homophobia"
• "Municipal police tried to take away one of the cameras we used at the rally against homophobia"
• "An hour earlier there was a pastor holding a Bible trying to convert us. He wasn't thrown out."

My friend Silvia Buendía also posted photos of the police intervention on her Twitter account including the one I posted here.

The protest had been announced earlier in the week the Ecuadorian press had written about it as well so it shouldn't have taken the police by surprise.

Protest participants were rallying against comments made by a visiting Argentinian "bioethics psychologist expert" named Jorge Scala who made several derogatory comments about the Ecuadorian LGBT community.

Speaking at an event titled "Gender Equality: The Destruction of the Family", Mr. Scala alleged that "under gender ideology we cannot complement each other; everything is worthy and valid: Marriage, prostitution, bestiality, having sex with dead people."

He also stated that children raised by same-sex couples actually lacked a true parent because "a million gays won't amount to a single man and a million lesbians won't amount to a single woman."

Apparently in past visits to Ecuador the good "psychologist" has also claimed he can cure people from homosexuality.

"It's the second year that this self-described faith-healer from the church has said such things," said Lía Burbano, president of the Ecuadorian Lesbian Association who participated in the rally.

Police did step in eventually and were able to shut down the rally arguing that organizers had not received permission to stage it.  Organizers, who noted that the San Francisco Park in which he rally took place was a public area argued that they had the right to congregate in a public space.

Supposedly, Ecuador's 2008 constitution was the first one in the Latin American region to enshrine language that made it unconstitutional to discriminate against individuals based on sexual orientation.  There is still a long way from those constitutional principles to the street.

UPDATE: Video of the protest and the police disruption...

Previously:

• Ecuadorian court says Civil Registry must accept civil union registrations from same-sex couples (July 6, 2012) 
• Ecuador's Health Minister: 'Ex-gay' clinics are "shocking evidence of the prejudices we hod as a society" (Feb. 24, 2012)

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)

Chile, Colombia and Buenos Aires to lift gay blood donor bans?

Photo: "I am not allowed because I am gay" reads a flyer plastered on top of a poster that says "Thanks for donating blood". Image from a 2007 protest organized by the Argentinean Homosexual Community (CHA).

With a number of legislators renewing their push to have a blood donor ban on gay and bisexual men lifted in the United States, the Irish health minister doubling down against a similar push in the European country and the French health ministry taking the opposite road by announcing they are taking steps to lift their own ban, there seems to be an extraordinary amount of international movement on this issue. That includes several countries from Latin America.

Chile: On May 23rd representatives from the Chilean Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement (MOVILH) emerged from a meeting with the country's health minister, Jaime Mañalich, and announced that the government would stop enforcing a law banning gay men from donating blood. MOVILH had made a similar announcement in 2009 under a different presidential administration but nothing seemed to come from it.

Under current guidelines public and private clinics are required to ask potential donors about their sexual orientation and turn away men who have had sex with other men without protection. The new measure, which will take effect in July, would specifically prohibit clinics from asking the sexual orientation of prospective donors.  This time, the government appears to mean what they say.

In a statement posted on the health ministry's website on May 24th, Minister Mañalich stated that banning gay men from donating blood "made no sense from a scientific standpoint and even less when taking discrimination into consideration".

In the meantime, on June 5th, the MOVILH brought forward two cases in which gay men were kept from donating blood at two medical centers.  At least one of the clinics apologized that same day and said that it was a misunderstanding stemming from brochures left in the waiting room spelling out the old regulations.  The clinic announced they would remove all brochures and await new material from the government come July.

Colombia: Meanwhile, on May 28th, El Espectador reported that the Colombian Constitutional Court had ruled in favor of a man from Bucaramanga who argued that a clinic had discriminated against him when they asked about his sexual orientation and turned him away when he revealed he was gay.

Part of the Court's ruling reads as follows:

The risk of contamination depends on the behavioral risk and not on the donor population; hence, a heterosexual person who has multiple sexual relations with unknown persons without protection on a long term basis than a gay man with a long term partner who uses protection.  The [clinic's] guidelines do not take this into account, which makes them worthless or inadequate.  Furthermore, public policy should focus on selecting all donors based on high risk behaviors, instead of excluding donors based on who they choose to have sexual relations with.

Adding:

This Court has determined that individuals and state agencies should stop perpetuating discrimination against the homosexual community in a manner that sends a message of stigma as in the current case.

The Court also stated that using sexual orientation as criteria was unnecessary because all blood centers are required to test blood donations for HIV.  A 1996 regulation still in the books bans anyone who has had "homosexual relations" in the past fifteen years from donating blood.

The Court ordered the Colombian health ministry to draft new regulations. No word on the health ministry's response so far.

Argentina: In the meantime, a Buenos Aires councilmember has introduced a municipal bill that would ban clinics from asking blood donors about their sexual orientation.

Councilmember Maximiliano Ferraro's bill, introduced just this week, says "information will not be required from donors regarding their gender identity, personal or sexual life, or any other information that discriminated or violates a person's right to their privacy".

If it gains momentum and is passed, it would only apply to Buenos Aires.

In 2006, the Argentinean National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) recommended the Argentinean blood donor ban be lifted and the Argentinean health ministry agreed to take a look at ways to lift the ban.  But the process apparently has since stalled.

Argentina on the verge of adopting a far-reaching transgender rights law

Photo: Claudia Pia Baudracco, founding member of the Argentinean Travesti, Transexual and Transgender Association.

Taking the next step in becoming the most progressive Latin American nation on LGBT issues, Argentina is poised to adopt a far-reaching gender identity law that would grant transgender individuals the right to change their name and gender on their official identification records.  From ABS-CBN:

Pending in Congress since 2007, the bill hurdled Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies in December last year, with majority (167-17) voting in favor of it. It is now being debated in the Senate. If it becomes law, the bill is seen to benefit not only Argentina’s transsexuals or those who have had sex reassignment surgery.

Under the proposed measure, anyone who wants to change his or her gender and name no longer has to get a court order and comply with stringent requirements. He or she just has to go the Registro Naciona de las Personas (National Registry of Persons) with a request. Those below 18 have to get the consent of legal representatives, like parents and guardians.

The new gender and name will be used in one’s birth certificate, national identity card, and other government records.

The bill also requires government to subsidize the cost of surgery, hormone treatment, and other medical procedures for those who wish to have physical sex change.

As the article indicates, after passing the Chamber of Deputies by an overwhelming margin back in December, the bill was set to be introduced in the Senate last week.  Instead, it was side-tracked by emergency legislative action stemming from President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's decision last week to nationalize the YFP oil company from Spain.

AG Magazine says that they now expect the bill to reach the Argentinean Senate floor on May 2nd.

[Update (4/24/12): A Senate committee approved a draft of the bill that is identical to the one passed by the Chamber of Deputies.  The bill is expected to reach the Senate floor on May 9th and there are sufficient votes to insure its pasage, according to Parliamento. President Kirchner is expected to sign the bill into law once it reaches her desk.]

In the meantime, the team that produced this amazing transgender rights public service announcement for the Argentinean LGBT Federation (FALGBT) and the Argentinean Travesti, Transexual and Transgender Association (ATTTA) are back!  Director Juan Pablo Félix and Producer Matías Romero have launched this 2:30 minute spot featuring some of the leading advocates behind the push for the law.

Poignantly, it includes some of the last images captured of Claudia Pía Baudracco, a founding member of the Argentinean transgender rights movement who died of natural causes on March 18th at 42 years of age.

Baudracco always told her friends she dreamed to become the first transgender president of Argentina. She passed away before being able to see her ID reflect who she really was and before passage of a law in which she had such an integral part of making it a reality.

She leaves an impressive legacy and her spirit will undoubtedly be celebrated when the bill is signed into law.

Argentina became the first nation in Latin America to pass a comprehensive marriage equality law in 2010.

Related: Last week by a vote of 203 in favor, 0 against and 1 abstention the Argentinean Chamber of Deputies also approved a bill that would increase penalties for hate crimes committed based on “gender or sexual orientation, gender identity or its expression".  The bill now goes to the Senate as well.

Count us in: A Latin American call to include LGBT individuals in the census

In the United States, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has led efforts to push the government to adopt changes to the national census in ways that better reflect the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities through its "Queer the Census" project.

A U.S. House of Representatives panel took up the issue back in March but it still seems like an uphill battle ("House panel hears about adding LGBT to census survey", The Bay Area Reporter, March 15, 2012).  The idea is that with better data about who we are as a community, government will be able to provide better services.

It's a battle being fought in other parts of the American continent as well.  This might not be a comprehensive listing but it's a sample of similar efforts taking place throughout Latin America.

• Argentina: Passage of a federal marriage equality law in Argentina in 2010 forced the National Census to incorporate questions about same-sex partnership households. Perhaps among the most progressive of census agencies in the world, Argentina also allows transgender individuals to register with their current gender and name even if it's not reflected in their birth certificates or government ID's. 
• Bolivia: In 2011, the Bolivian Ministry of Justice announced that the 2012 census would include specific questions about sexual identity and whether a census taker was lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
• Brazil: In 2010, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics announced it would survey and record data about same-sex partners.
• Colombia: Although it has yet to adopt progressive LGBT policies when it comes to the national census, in 2011 the Colombian government announced it would survey prisoners as to whether they identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex. Some LGBT advocates raised alarms about the potential for violence should a person's sexual identity be exposed in a general prison setting but the National Penitentiary and Jail Institute insisted the measure would help them to safeguard the safety of every LGBTI person in the system.
• Cuba: Influential gay blogger Francisco Ródriguez, who blogs as Paquito el de Cuba, has mounted a personal campaign to have the National Office of Statistics and Information include questions in the 2012 census that would give visibility to the LGBT community in the Caribbean island. Ródriguez says that internal documents and conversations show that the Cuban government is very much interested in instituting these changes but, as of February, he lamented that the Cuban government was being less than forthcoming as to whether they would adopt these changes.
• Venezuela: In 2010, the Venezuelan National Statistics Institute eliminated an "error" message that appeared whenever a census participant tried to register having a same-sex partner at the request of LGBT-rights organization Unión Afirmativa.  It's one of the few positive developments when it comes to LGBT rights under the Hugo Chávez mandate but, officially, same-sex couples in Venezuela can register their partnership in the national census surveys.

Which brings us to Chile.

The Homosexual Liberation Movement (MOVILH) has worked closely with the current center-right Chilean government of Sebastian Piñera to improve the way the Chilean census reflects the reality of the LGBT community. Although not as progressive as the census changes in Bolivia and Argentina, in 2011 the Chilean government announced that it would survey the number of same-sex partnerships in the country.

Today, the MOVILH launched a national campaign urging same-sex couples to register as such in the 2012 census under the theme of "Acknowledge the other half of your orange" ("Tu media naranja" or "Your half orange" is a common term of endearment used in Latin America to refer to one's partner).

The campaign includes a stand alone interactive site and an amazing Census 2012 video which I have taken the liberty of translating. 

Here it is in full:

Reaction:

• Opinion: Do gay people count? (The American Prospect, April 27, 2012)

Stunning LGBT campaign ads from Argentina

A year ago, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to grant same-sex couples full marriage rights. Before this year is over, the Argentinean congress might very well pass a groundbreaking transgender-rights law extending health care protections to transgender individuals and making it easier for trans folk to change their ID's to better reflect their gender identity without requiring proof of gender reassignment surgery.

Getting to this point has certainly taken years of work by Argentinean LGBT organizations, activists, advocates and allies.  It has also inspired some pretty amazing television and online video ads.

The following two ads come from the Observatory for the Promotion of Sexual Diversity Rights in Salta or Obs.Salta for short and were made possible through grants from the United Nations (turn "annotations" on for my on-screen translation).

The second ad takes a similar take in a different setting...

The ads have actually been out for more than a year but somehow I missed them. You might also have missed a couple of really amazing ads I featured earlier.

The first one came as the ultimately successful marriage equality campaign was about to begin its final phase...

The most recent ad I featured is also a stunner and comes as advocates push for the transgender rights bill...

These are truly amazing ads.  When I try to think of any LGBT advocacy ads from the United States that are similar to these I am at a loss.  True, attitudes towards these issues might be different in Argentina than in the United States but does anyone know of any related ads produced in the U.S. that seem as immediate and vibrant as these ads?

Reaction:

• New gay TV ads (Wockner)
• Do Argentina's LGBT ads outshine the handful we've seen in the U.S.? (Instinct Magazine)
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