Argentina’s right-wing government bans gender-affirming care for under-18s
Protestors during a pro-LGBTQ+ rally in Buenos Aires. (Getty)
Argentina president Javier Milei has announced a ban on trans healthcare for anyone under the age of 18.
The right-wing populist president reportedly implemented a decree on Thursday (6 February), following similar moves in the UK, Sweden and Finland.
“Gender ideology taken to extremes and applied to children by force or psychological coercion clearly constitutes child abuse,” a spokesperson for the president’s office said.
There is no evidence that children are being forced to begin gender-affirming care in Argentina.
The decree also forces transgender prison inmates to be held in jails according to their gender at birth.
Milei’s action marks a significant rollback of queer rights in a country that was once considered among the best for equality in the world. In 2012, among several pro-LGBTQ+ policies, Argentina became the first country to enact a self-identification law.
LGBTQ+ rights group ILGA World condemned the new policy, saying it “promotes the stigmatisation and criminalisation of diversity.”
A spokesperson for the not-for-profit organisation said: “Argentina was a beacon in the region, by recognising the right to gender identity without pathologisation or judicialisation. This regression, imposed by decree without parliamentary debate or the participation of the sectors affected, constitutes an abuse of executive power and a blow to democratic institutions.”
They went on to call on the country’s supreme court to repeal the decree.
The announcement comes just days after thousands of people rallied in favour of LGBTQ+ rights in the capital, Buenos Aires, after Milei – who has reportedly branded the pope “a filthy leftist” and praised gangster Al Capone as a hero – called progressive policies, including trans rights, feminism and climate activism, a “cancer that must be extirpated.”
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