Opinions
The hope of continuing to achieve rights in Argentina
President-elect Alberto Fernández takes office on Tuesday
Argentina in October elected center-left candidate Alberto Fernández as the country’s new president. On Dec. 10 he will become the ninth elected president since Argentina returned to democracy in 1983. Since then sexual minorities stopped being persecuted by the dictatorship and started to become visible and began to fight for their human rights. Will Fernández’s election mark a breaking point for the feminist and LGBTQA+ movement? Time will tell, but what we can confirm is that the Bolsonaro hate style that has recently spread across the region didn’t win in Argentina, although two far-right candidates ran for office for the first time.
Fernández was elected in a ticket that brings power back to Argentina’s first woman president, Cristina Kirchner, now as vice president. During Kirchner’s presidency from 2007-2015, the LGBTQA+ and feminist movements were able to achieve significant policy reforms that positioned Argentina as a world leader in recognizing and protecting marginalized communities and promoting equality. What happened after she left was just pinkwashing.
Outgoing President Mauricio Macri got to office using Trump rhetoric with Argentine style. “Poverty zero” was his main slogan. After four years in power with his center-right coalition, he leaves behind shocking statistics: A third of Argentines living below the poverty line, the economy shrinking by 2.6 percent, inflation soaring to 47.6 percent. Moreover, he significantly reduced the Ministry of Health’s annual budget and failed to recognize the right to legal abortion in a country that has had more than 350,000 illegal abortions that put lives at risk. His party also blocked debate in the Argentine Senate on a strengthened anti-discrimination law.
LGBTQA+ people under Macri’s government didn’t experience direct attacks to their fundamental rights, but people living with HIV were not able to get medication and transgender people lacked access to hormone replacement therapy, a right guaranteed under the 2012 Gender Identity Law. Violence towards LGBTQA+ people and other minorities at the hands of security forces rose significantly during his presidency. For example, a lesbian couple went on trial for kissing in a subway station after Buenos Aires police officers detained them and several gay couples suffered violent attacks on the streets of the Argentine capital.
Even though Macri created the Sexual Diversity National Secretary, he failed to create a budget with enough money to implement significant public policies to protect the rights of the LGBTQA+ citizens. Although he opened safe spaces for LGBTQA+ folks in the city of Buenos Aires his policies never tackled the violence, discrimination and hate that created the needs for the safe spaces in the first place. These efforts, in sum, were mere window dressing.
Fernández has previously worked as a bureaucrat in different governments. As president, he will have the opportunity to put that expertise to work when he manages the entire country’s heterogeneous political arena. He will fulfill his role accompanied by his family. Unlikely, the first lady will be his girlfriend since he is not married and previously divorced. His son has already been the target of the hatred of heterosexual fundamentalists, including Bolsonaro’s son, since he identifies as bisexual, performs as a drag queen and speaks openly about his sexual orientation. On this topic Fernández was questioned multiple times and declared, “I am proud of my son, how can I not be proud?” This marks a change with respect to his predecessor, Macri, who always tried to show a family model in the style of Trump: Traditional, white and heterosexual.
Fernández will face many challenges to put this South American country back on track, especially with the turbulent atmosphere the region has lately faced. He has the chance to be the president that will help move the LGBTQA+ and the feminist struggle to a proactive level in Argentina.
During the presidential debate, he stressed the need to create a National Ministry of “Women, Diversities and Dissidences” that will be responsible for creating and implementing public policies for sexual minorities and women. Additionally, he promised to roll back the decision that degraded the National Ministry of Health, implement measures to increase purchasing power, and reduce the rates of public services, among other things.
Fernández promises many changes that I hope to see reflected in the Argentine reality in the coming years. It is in his hands to implement substantive changes to continue deepening access to minority rights, reduce inequality and poverty. In short, we have renewed hope that this man will restore our dignity and bring us closer to full equality.
Opinions
Racism and misogyny are alive in America
Trump’s confounding victory will hurt many people who voted for him
A smart, compassionate, African-American/Asian woman, in a mixed marriage, runs for president and loses to a felon, found liable of sexual assault, twice impeached, and leader of a failed coup. What could be the reason?
I understand people are unhappy with the economy, immigrants coming into our country illegally, and many with their lives in general. But none of this can account for the huge numbers of white, African American, and Latino men, who voted for Trump. In a major shift, Trump won Latino men 54%-44% over Harris, and 50%-39% of white men according to NBC exit polls, and 20% of male Black voters nationally. We need to call that what it is and begin to have a real conversation in this country about it. They are all ending up voting for a man whose policies will hurt them. Whether it be a tax on all the goods they buy, or being anti-union, applauding Elon Musk for firing strikers, or giving tax breaks not to them, but to millionaires and billionaires. African-American men should know he refused to rent them apartments in New York. Latino men should understand he will be knocking on their doors looking for possible family members to deport. All of this overridden by their macho fear of being in a country led by a woman. We have seen this before in Hillary Clinton’s race in 2016. Unless we have an open conversation about this, it will continue to happen.
Donald Trump is a threat to all decent people around the world. He admires dictators and he will emulate them. He will override our judicial system, using the Justice Department to get back at his enemies. We know this.
On the abortion issue it appears women voted overwhelmingly to pass every ballot initiative, except the one in South Dakota, to keep abortion legal. It went down in Florida because though 57% voted for it the legislature managed to say it would only pass if it got 60% of the vote. Yet clearly, even many of the white women who voted for these initiatives, didn’t see the danger in then voting for Trump. It is very hard to rationalize. I hear all sorts of explanations on the various news/talk fests on cable TV. People pontificating on all sorts of things. Trying to determine who in the Democratic Party is to blame. In 2016 they blamed the candidate, Hillary. She didn’t do enough, went to the wrong states at the end, didn’t connect with voters. This year they are trying not to blame Harris who was thrown into a campaign only three months before the election. So, many are blaming President Biden for not announcing two years ago he wasn’t going to run again and allowing Democrats to hold a real primary. Who knows, maybe they are right. Harris could never escape the animus toward the Biden administration. She tried valiantly, and I think ran an amazing campaign. As I wrote online, we may have lost an election, but many like me ended up falling in love with Kamala Harris.
There are a few high points from Tuesday’s election, like the victories of two Democratic, African-American women senators, Lisa Blunt Rochester from Delaware, and Angela Alsobrooks from Maryland. Then Delaware had a double victory, electing Sarah McBride to Congress, where she will become the first elected transgender woman to serve in the House of Representatives. When I write this it looks as if Democrats may actually lose only three senators: Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Jon Tester in Montana, and Republicans won the open seat in West Virginia. Tammy Baldwin will keep her seat from Wisconsin, and in races still too close to call we could see Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, and Jacky Rosen in Nevada, keep their seats. Then Ruben Gallego in Arizona, and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, have a shot at winning their races in what were open seats. All these results potentially showing the schizophrenia in the electorate in states that Trump won. They all out-performed Harris in their states. After all, a woman senator they know may be OK, but not a strong, African-American/Asian woman, as president.
We will be dissecting this election for years to come, historians will be looking at how Trump could have won. But the reality for those of us living in the United States now, those who Trump has insulted and degraded, including women, African Americans, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, the disabled, nearly everyone one can think of, we will have to live with him and fight back where we can. Hopefully joining hands to do it, as there is strength in numbers. We shall overcome!
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Opinions
What’s next for the LGBTQ movement?
Trump’s win requires us to organize, focus on protecting trans community
These are frightening times for those of us on the target list of Project 2025, the blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term that he secured in landslide fashion on Tuesday.
Many of us are wondering how this could happen again. Kamala Harris is one of the most qualified presidential candidates to run in our lifetime. She ran against a 34-times convicted felon who staged an insurrection against the government and who faces a sentencing hearing in just three weeks for his crimes. A man who was twice impeached, who courts Vladimir Putin’s attention and approval, and who was found liable for sexual assault. Despite that last fact — and Trump’s bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade — 44 percent of women voters supported him, far more than the polls and pundits predicted.
Those polls turned out to be pretty accurate and Harris was brought down by lingering concerns over the economy and the toll inflation has taken on lower and middle class Americans. Sure, sexism, and racism played a role in this, but too many of us live in a bubble, insulated from the everyday concerns of disaffected blue collar Americans. While many of us crowed about last week’s Wall Street Journal lead story on the booming U.S. economy being the envy of the world, voters in the former “Blue Wall” states were struggling to put food on the table. When you can’t feed your family, you’re not going to vote for the incumbent vice president.
So what’s next? We’ve seen this movie before. Trump will appoint a series of sycophants to run the government; he will undermine the federal workforce and try to fire as many longtime civil servants as he can. He will have a compliant GOP-majority Senate to rubberstamp his Cabinet and judicial appointees. He will probably ban transgender service members from the military on day one. The list goes on.
“The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors,” Project 2025 begins. “This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity, equity and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender awareness, gender-sensitive … out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contracts, grant regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”
Indeed, Project 2025 seeks to send us all back to the closet. But, as Harris rightly intoned throughout her short campaign: We are not going back.
The good news — and there is some — is that voters for the first time elected two Black women to the U.S. Senate to serve at the same time, Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester in Delaware. Sarah McBride becomes our nation’s first out transgender member of Congress. She’s a formidable figure and will be an important voice for trans equality in the face of Trump’s inevitable attacks. At this writing, control of the House hasn’t been decided. If the Democrats can manage to flip it, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a capable strategist, becomes the face of our resistance.
We need our LGBTQ allies and advocacy groups more than ever. If you have the resources, donate to Lambda Legal and other legal groups gearing up for the many battles ahead, including over marriage equality. (Some more good news on that front, as California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 3, which will enshrine marriage rights in the constitution of our largest state.) Volunteer your time with your local equality group, especially if you live in a state like Florida with draconian anti-LGBTQ laws on the books.
No one said being part of a social justice movement would be easy. Sometimes pioneers in these fights don’t live to see the end of the road. Now’s the time to double down on hard work, determination, and compassion, especially for the trans community, which sadly will take the brunt of the incoming attacks. Those of us who are a bit older need to reassure younger voters and activists that their efforts this time are not in vain. Harris’s meteoric ascent to the top of the Democratic ticket and the incredible campaign she ran will make it easier for the next woman to run. That final, ultimate glass ceiling will fall in our lifetime.
So for now, take a breath. Hug the dog. Take a walk in the woods, whatever you need to refocus. Four years is a blip and will fly by. The Democratic bench is deep. And the march toward full equality for our community is unstoppable. Setbacks are inevitable but we learned a long time ago that love wins. So fight on.
Opinions
Independent parliamentary candidate campaign fulfilled my right as a queer Motswana
Botswana’s 13th general election took place Oct. 30
I had the privilege to run as an independent candidate for parliament during Botswana’s recent and most historic election. While I was not elected, my privilege to exercise my right to stand as a citizen was fulfilled, most notably, as an out and proudly queer feminist nonbinary individual in my youth.
There are many reasons that lead to my decision to run, one of them being the anti-LGBTI developments that were occurring in my country, along with several others across Africa. Most notably, when our speaker of parliament attended a regional meeting on African sovereignty and values veiled against anything human rights related: Including reproductive and queer rights.
I could not understand how a member of parliament could question the fundamental basis of having three arms of government because of a court of appeal ruling that affirmed our rights as queer people. I could not understand how the church could protest against a constitutional review bill but not the corruption, gender based violence or poverty across the country. I could not understand how elected leaders could not publicly defend the rights of indigenous peoples that were consistently trampled on by the executive. I could not, sit with all I know and advocate for, allow for public discourse to perpetuate harmful gender norms and a lack of accountability from government. What I could do was stand for my rights in contrast to what I have done before in my activism — as a parliamentary candidate.
This is a mark of progress, from a country that previously denied LGBT registration to decriminalizing same-sex intimacy. It has been a frustrating journey of gaslighting erasure on a personal and professional level. I’ve had several undesirable encounters with law enforcement ranging from threats to be shot to having my phone confiscated. I have seen government absolve itself from accountability to its people while presenting itself as a beacon at the United Nations in Geneva and New York. These are not in isolation and neither am I special, as many queer Batswana continue to be questioned because their national identity cards present differently from who they are or how they dress in person. More importantly, how countrywide poverty, inequity disenfranchised my people are. Including those living with HIV, with disabilities, sex workers, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, and migrants among many others.
We continuously have to fight for our dignity as stigma and discrimination strip away at our personhood and humanity. Whether in convenience stores, banking halls, or government service point — identity serves as a barrier to “Setho” in Setswana or “Ubuntu” in Zulu. All these challenges aside, I have often questioned how many more sanitary pads to donate, petitions to make, and radio interviews to do to achieve meaningful change. The many theories of change and M&E frameworks I have contributed to have not done enough. The projects I have designed, campaigned through, and deemed a “success” have yet to meaningfully shift realities across the country.
It is this conundrum I have to fight with. Where my conscience has to answer whether it’s enough to raise awareness or translate human rights documents into local languages. Whether it’s enough that I have written too many reports to count or assisted too many survivors as a form of my own healing. While these questions linger at the back of my mind, I am privileged to draw from the likes of Hajiya Gambo Sawaba (Nigeria), Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela-Mandela (South Africa), Dr. Stella Nyanzi (Uganda), and many other feminists who have stood against injustice and taken up general elections candidacy in their quest for justice. I find glee in the fact that this gives opportunity to another somewhere within our challenging continent, to take up the battle for queer liberation in an era that continuously wants to deny us belonging and becoming.
Dumi Gatsha is a consultant and founder of Success Capital Organization, a grassroots NGO working in the nexus of human rights and sustainable development at grassroots, regional, and global levels.
-
Politics4 days ago
A message from organizations committed to advancing LGBTQ freedom beyond the 2024 elections
-
Politics4 days ago
Kamala Harris addresses country after Trump victory
-
Politics4 days ago
LGBTQ voters moved away from Trump as other Americans embraced him
-
Politics4 days ago
Aime Wichtendahl becomes Iowa’s first trans legislator