Pride swells in the face of hatred in Argentina
The LGBTIQ+ flag flew above the Pride March in Buenos Aires on November 12, 2022. Photo © Camila Godoy.
Reportage • Agustina Ramos • October 30, 2025 • Leer en castellano
Agui Serna and Vane wanted to raise their daughter in a peaceful environment. In 2022, they bought a plot of land in Cañuelas, 60 kilometers from Buenos Aires, Argentina. They built a blue house with plenty of windows surrounded by grassy fields.
But one of their neighbors, Orlando Alcides Lutz Fogar, was harassing another queer couple in the area. When Serna and Vane—who asked us not to use her last name—confronted him, they too became targets for his surveillance and harassment.
Lutz Fogar took photos of them and sent threats. One day, they saw him pointing a laser at them and they fled their home, fearing for the worst.
Three years after deciding to build their home in Cañuelas, the harassment continued. It was right around then that President Javier Milei attended the World Economic Forum in Davos. On January 23, 2025, he made a series of attacks and spread misinformation about the LGBTIQ+ population, comparing homosexuality to pedophilia and talking about a supposed LGBT+ agenda that mandates “that women are men and men are women.”
Six days later, Lutz Fogar carried out his threat, setting fire to Serna, Vane, and their young daughter's house. Because they weren’t there at the time, they were unharmed, but they lost their belongings and were left without a home. The family is now saddled with debt, and faces ongoing issues stemming from the attack.
“We are in the red because of all our expenses. We are still raising funds to pay the lawyer, travel expenses, psychologists, psychiatrists, all in addition to our daily living expenses,” said Serna, a non-binary lesbian, in a conversation with Ojalá nine months after the fire. “It’s a nightmare that never ends.”
The scene of the attack was reminiscent of the brutal triple lesbicide committed in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Barracas last year.
On May 5, 2024, at 11:30 p.m., Justo Fernando Barrientos threw a homemade explosive into a boarding house where four lesbians lived. The room went up in flames, and the women were set on fire. Pamela Cobbas, her partner Mercedes Roxana Figueroa, and Andrea Amarante died. Only Sofía Castro Riglos survived.
A few days before the attack, Milei's lawyer, friend, and mentor, Nicolás Márquez, said on a popular radio program that “when the state promotes, encourages, and finances homosexuality, it is encouraging self-destructive behavior.”
The Barracas massacre highlighted overlapping discrimination and vulnerabilities the LGBTIQ+ population experiences.
Activists called for justice and focused on one demand: an end to the hate speech that legitimizes the violence suffered by Pamela, Roxana, Andrea, Sofía, Agui, Vane, their daughter, and so many others in Argentina today.
ix months after the massacre of three lesbian women in Barracas, a plaque was placed on the boarding house where they lived to remember Pamela Cobbas, her partner Mercedes Roxana Figueroa, and Andrea Amarante. Sofía Castro Riglos, the only survivor of the attack, is seen touching the plaque on November 6, 2024, Buenos Aires. Photo © Catalina Di Stefano.
Official hate
The next LGBTIQ+ Pride march will take place on November 1 in Buenos Aires, and it will be a powerful show of resistance against growing hostility towards sexual and gender diversity in the country.
Hundreds of thousands of people will fill the main streets of downtown Buenos Aires with color, brightness, and protest signs as they march from the Plaza de Mayo to the National Congress. Argentina’s main Pride March has been held since 1992, and complementary marches take place throughout the country in October, November, and December.
This year’s march is held following the resounding victory of Milei's party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), in the October 26 legislative elections. The results surprised many, including pollsters, and voter turnout dropped significantly.
LLA won more than 40 percent of the vote nationwide and 15 of the 24 districts, which strengthens the government’s ability to propose and pass laws and reforms, and to bypass vetoes that hold back its agenda.
The travesti-trans community has become one of the national government's sworn enemies over the past two years. Following the massive Federal Anti-Racist and Anti-Fascist Pride March held to protest Milei’s speech at Davos, the government amended the country’s Gender Identity Law (LIG) by decree. The law, passed in 2012, set international precedent in that it does not require any diagnosis or treatment for someone to prove their gender identity.
The decree signed by Javier Milei— which is still in force— prohibits gender-affirming hormone treatments and surgeries for people under 18.
The amended law established that in order to access comprehensive hormone treatments, minors had to submit consent via legal guardians, with the agreement of the minor. And, for total or partial surgical intervention, they also had to obtain the consent of the competent judicial authority in each jurisdiction.
But the president outright lied to the public, claiming there were 240 centers in the province of Buenos Aires where "children's genitals are being amputated." In response, families and specialists noted that in Argentina, surgeries are not performed on transgender children and hormone therapy is only administered to those 16 years of age and older.
Nor has the government implemented the Travesti and Transgender Employment Quota Law, even as the most vulnerable within the LGBTIQ+ community are hit hard by severe socioeconomic difficulties.
The view from a float during the Buenos Aires Pride March, with the Obelisk in the background, on November 12, 2022. Photo © Camila Godoy.
Violence on the rise
Argentina’s hostile political environment appears to be feeding an increase in physical violence against the queer community.
According to the latest report from the National Observatory on LGBT+ Hate Crimes, between January and June of this year, 102 hate crimes were motivated by the sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression of the victims. This figure represents a 70 percent increase compared to the same period last year.
“The report recorded over 100 cases in six months, when in previous years cases averaged around 120 per year,” said María Rachid, a lesbian activist and member of the executive committee of the Argentine LGBT Federation, in an interview with Ojalá.
“All of this is taking place within a context that validates and legitimizes a sector of society that expresses verbal, psychological, and physical violence toward LGBT people,” she said. In total, there were four murders in the first half of the year: three gay men and one lesbian.
The reports show that, year after year, trans women are the most affected, accounting for 70.6 percent of cases (72) this year. They’re followed by cis gay men (17); lesbians (seven); trans men (five); and non-binary people, at one percent.
In mid-September, members of the Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires—led by legislator Victoria Freire, of the center-left coalition Unión por la Patria—held a roundtable discussion with LGBTIQ+ organizations to address the increase in violence against members of the community.
“The meeting brought together people with different perspectives to discuss the same issue: this growing violence,” said Geraldine “Sher” Lescano, a representative of the Argentine Travesti-Trans Movement.
Among the issues addressed was the targeting of travesti sex workers by police and the increasing social persecution they’re experiencing.
“We’re seeing something that wasn’t all that common before: organized groups of men who drive to red-light districts and attack [sex workers],” said Lescano. She’s currently working directly with two sex workers who experienced physical, psychological, and financial violence at the hands of police.
Another alarming finding in this year's report is that in 52.9 percent of cases, violence against was LGBTIQ+ people were perpetrated by security forces. In contrast, the figure was 23.8 percent the previous year. The Argentine Sex Workers' Union has consistently condemned the state violence experienced by its members.
For their part, migrants have become even more vulnerable since the national government issued Emergency Decree (DNU) 366/2025, changing the Migration Law without going through Congress.
Following the adoption of the Gender Identity Law, many travestis and trans migrants arrived to Argentina to be able to live freely as themselves. But under the new DNU, they now face the risk of deportation to their countries of origin, from which they fled years ago.
Survive, and resist
Argentina has become a regional leader in securing rights for historically marginalized groups, including migrants, travestis and transgender people, the broader LGBTQ+ community, and women.
By way of example, in 2010, Argentina was the first country in Latin America to approve same-sex marriage. In 2012, it passed the LIG, the law that depathologized transgender identities. In 2013, the pathbreaking Assisted Fertilization Law guaranteed all adults free and equal access to assisted reproduction, regardless of their marital status or sexual orientation. In 2020, Argentina passed the Law for the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy and, in 2021, the Travesti and Transgender Employment Quota Law.
Today, Argentina is backsliding. Laws won in through mobilizing in the streets, like the LIG, are under attack, and public policies and state agencies that address gender-based violence and inequality are being dismantled.
“What the executive branch is doing is dismantling policies and enabling aggression and hostility. The judiciary is not a friendly or welcoming space for supporting vulnerable people, quite the contrary,” Mónica Macha, a national deputy with Unión por la Patria and the president of the Women and Diversity Commission, told Ojalá. “I think that today, the most powerful place to advance this discussion is in the legislative branch.”
The commission Macha leads is working on various proposals that aim to support the community, defend the rights that have been enshrined, and challenge the decree that modifies the LIG.
Lescano previously worked in the Ministry of Gender and Diversity, which was dismantled by the government. She says that when the phone line that supported transgender people in accessing health care was shuttered, she created an email address so they could keep sending inquiries and complaints, which her organization works to respond to. Collective strategies like this abound.
There’s also the fight on the streets. The November 1 pride march in Buenos Aires, is expected to draw the biggest crowd out of the regional marches held around the same time. This year, the march slogan is: “Against hate and violence, more pride and unity.”
That call is echoed in protests in each district—sometimes using different words, but conveying the same meaning.
“The Pride March is a great opportunity to call on society as a whole to protest hate crimes and Javier Milei’s hateful policies,” said Rachid. “We need to put a stop to this violence and discrimination.”
