LGBTI+ Rights in Argentina

Argentina has Human Rights, including LGBTI+ Rights, at the core of public policy.

The country has ratified all international human rights instruments, while incorporating the main ones into the domestic legal order with the highest hierarchy, under the National Constitution.

Most of these treaties recognize the right to equality before the law and the principle of non-discrimination.

In the case of women and LGBTI+ people, international obligations regarding non-discrimination require the adoption of positive action measures by the State to counteract gender segregation and reverse the sociocultural patterns that explain it.

In line with the international commitments, Argentina has developed robust standards at the domestic level regarding the rights of LGTBI + people.

Some of the policies Argentina has adopted are:

Same Sex Marriage

Since 2010, same sex marriage is legal in Argentina. The law grants same sex couples the same rights and obligations as heterosexual couples, including adoption.

The country was the first in the region to pass such a law.

Gender Identity Law

This Law was passed in 2012 and allows trans people (transvestites, transsexuals and transgenders) to be registered in their personal documents with the name and gender of their choice, in addition to ordering that all medical treatments of adaptation to gender expression covered throughout the health system, both public and private.

Gender identity is understood as the internal and individual experience of gender as each person feels it, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, including the personal experience of the body. This may involve the modification of bodily appearance or function through pharmacological, surgical or other means, provided that this is freely chosen. It also includes other gender expressions, such as dress, speech, and manners.

Trans Labour Quota

Since 2020, a Decree requires that a 1% labor quota in the national public sector is to be established for transvestites, transsexuals and transgender people.

This initiative is accompanied by similar programs in the Legislative and Judiciary.

Every transvestite, transsexual or transgender person has the right to decent and productive work; just and favorable conditions of work; protection against unemployment, without discrimination on the grounds of gender identity or its expression.

Employability requirements that obstruct the exercise of these rights may not be established.

In addition, if the applicants to the jobs do not have a complete secondary education, they may enter to work with the condition of completing and completing the missing educational level.

Non-Binary ID

Starting July 21, 2021, Argentina’s National Identity Document and passports now include a third gender category, “X”.

This allows people to choose to be designated other than female or male.

In particular, the “X” category can be used for different situations: “non-binary, undetermined, unspecified, undefined, not informed, self-perceived, not recorded; or another meaning with which the person who does not feel included in the masculine/feminine binary could identify.”

Both citizens and non-national residents in Argentina may access the designation for their documents.

Argentina is the first country in Latin America to establish such a category.

Equal Rights Coalition

Argentina is a founding member of the Equal Rights Coalition, an initiative that coordinates actions and activities to advance the Human Rights of LGBTI+ people worldwide.

The ERC is a key area for coordinating positions and making calls for attention to serious violations of the rights of the LGBTI+ community. It is a mechanism that allows states to work side by side with civil society and sign joint declarations or take steps to effectively defend the rights of this vulnerable group.

In June 2019 Argentina assumed the co-presidency of the ERC, together with the United Kingdom.

More on LGBTI+ action in Argentina

In addition to these initiatives, Argentina has undertaken many other actions to promote and protect the human rights of the LGBTI+ community.

Criminal Law in the country considers crimes committed out of hatred “of gender or sexual orientation, gender identity or its expression” as aggravating circumstances, thus increasing sentences for these cases.

Likewise, all people who perform in public functions at all levels and hierarchies in the Executive powers, Legislative and Judicial of the Nation have to undergo mandatory training on gender issues and gender-based violence in accordance with the Micaela Law.

On December 10, 2019, the new Government that took office in Argentina decided to prioritize gender and diversity issues, placing them at the top of the public agenda, with the creation of the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity. This in turn responds to the international commitments assumed by the national State in matters of gender equality and the protection of women's rights and diversity.

This new Ministry has the mandate to adopt measures to dismantle situations of structural inequality that affect women and LGBTI + people, and to implement actions that ensure the effective exercise of human rights by these groups. Its guidelines include the design, execution and evaluation of policies on gender, equality and diversity; the production and management of knowledge; training, education and innovation; and the implementation of cultural and communication policies.

In particular, regarding the development of policies to ensure equality and non-discrimination of LGBTI+ people, there is a Undersecretariat for Diversity Policies, which is responsible for promoting positive actions for the inclusion and integration of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, transsexual, and transgender people, among other diversities, in such a way as to ensure equal treatment and the effective exercise of rights by this group.

In this sense, beside the actions mentioned before, some of the most relevant initiatives include:

-  The Program for Strengthening Access to Rights for Transvestite, Transsexual and Transgender People, which aims to develop a specific device for care, accompaniment and comprehensive assistance to transvestite and trans people that guarantees effective access to fundamental rights -such as the right to health, education and work - in conditions that ensure respect for their gender identity and expression, in coordination with other bodies at the national, provincial and municipal levels.

- The National Action Plan against Gender-Based Violence (2020-2022). This Plan is the result of a broad participatory process, which allowed incorporating the proposals and concerns of people from all regions of the country, other agencies of the National Public Administration, community organizations and civil society.

This Plan aims to address a widespread and structural problem in a comprehensive, federal, multi-agency, transversal and intersectional manner. It starts from the premise that gender-based violence constitutes serious human rights violations and that it is the State that must adopt the necessary measures to guarantee the promotion and protection of these rights, and to ensure that women and LGBTI + people can develop autonomous life projects free of violence. Hence, the Plan includes more than 100 commitments of direct responsibility of 42 organizations, between Ministries and decentralized agencies of the National State, in matters of prevention, assistance, protection and reparation of gender-based violence.

It should be noted that this Plan includes specific actions aimed at preventing, eradicating and repairing the violence perpetrated against the LGBTI + community.

- Actions in the framework of the health crisis, due to COVID-19. The health emergency revealed the situation of extreme vulnerability of the transvestite population, which historically goes through a situation of structural exclusion where the impossibility of guaranteeing the means of subsistence is added to the habitual marginality, the precarious housing situations are intensified and it becomes essential to provide answers to hunger.

In this scenario, a series of specific actions to address the differentiated impact of the pandemic on the LGBTI + community were implemented.

On August 18, 2020, the Executive Branch created the “National Cabinet for the Mainstreaming of Gender Policies”, made up of top-level authorities. Among the main functions of this body is to agree on actions to incorporate the gender perspective in all the policies promoted by the national government, both in the budgetary component and in the management and execution component.

On the other hand, the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism is developing through a participatory and federal process a second National Plan against Discrimination, it will consist of a set of State Action Commitments with a strategic vision to be implemented during the 2022-2025 period, in order to deepen and consolidate the legal and institutional advances in relation to the right to equality and the principle of non-discrimination achieved.

It is essential to have disaggregated statistics that allow us to know the specific problems that affect each group in a vulnerable situation. Therefore, the next National Census includes the gender identity category in the questionnaire that is carried out to the entire population, disaggregating the various identities as female, male, trans woman / transvestite / trans male, other and ignored. This will allow accounting for the reality of trans people in our country to be able to relate it to the other socioeconomic data that are analyzed in the census.

Likewise, the publication of data on households composed of same-sex couples and their children will continue.

At the international level, Argentina is recognized for having human rights as the transversal axis of its foreign policy, in which its strong commitment to the promotion and protection of the rights of LGTBI+ people is also inscribed. Our country is part of all the "LGBTI+ core groups" existing in the various global and regional forums (in the United Nations General Assembly, in the Human Rights Council and in the Organization of American States).

Since September 2016, Argentina is co-president of the LGBTI+ Core Group of the General Assembly together with the Netherlands.

On September 23rd, the Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship gave some opening remarks to the High Level Event of the LGTBI+ Group of the United Nations in which the multiple and interrelated forms of discrimination suffered by the LGBTI+ community were addressed, as well as what is being done to work towards their inclusion.

Under the Human Rights Council, Argentina has promoted, together with other countries in the region, the resolution for the "Protection against Violence and Discrimination based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity", which created the mandate of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Independent´s Expert first visit was to Argentina country in 2017. Subsequently, in 2019, work was done to renew his mandate.