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The video lasts almost two minutes and has more than 16 thousand views. While looking at the camera, the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works of the city of Buenos Aires, “Juanjo” Méndez, took advantage of Pride Day to share with his followers a reflection on the discriminatory comments you receive because of your sexual orientation.
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“Because of messages and situations like these, today we celebrate and commemorate the International Day of LGBTI + Pride,” begins the message from the Buenos Aires official. What follows next is a string of news exposing different acts of homophobia and violence against sexual minorities. From a report to the basketball player Sebastian Vega, who assured that at some point he thought of retiring because he felt that his sexuality and his profession did not go hand in hand, going through a homophobic attack in Palermo and Villa Urquiza; until the transvesticide of a woman in La Matanza. “They shot him 8 times and nothing was stolen from him,” the note says.
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After, Méndez shared some of the responses he usually receives on his Twitter account: many are insults that revolve around his sexual choice. “I am proud to be who I am. Pride means that no person should be ashamed of what he is, what he feels and who he loves. Pride is starting from the basis that everyone has the right to be who they are. It is to respond from encounter, love, dignity, to all the discrimination, exclusion and violence that heteronormativity entails. From our place we continue to raise our voices so that our rights are respected in every corner of the planet. So that a person is never again violated or excluded due to their gender identity or sexual orientation“, Held.
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Towards the end of the video, the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works of the city of Buenos Aires quoted a recognized phrase from Carlos Jáuregui, pioneer of gay activism in Argentina: “In a society that educates us for shame, pride is a political response”.
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For his part, the Chief of Staff, Santiago Cafiero, claimed “the fight to extend rights”, and He stated that “pride is a political response” to “transform reality”. Meanwhile, the Minister for Women, Gender and Diversity, Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, I affirm that “The historical struggles of LGBTI + people” are “the engine to continue advancing towards a more just country”. “Today we cannot meet on the streets, but we are present. The historical struggles of LGBTI + people and the flags we have held for years are the engine to continue advancing towards a fairer country, “Gómez Alcorta published on his social networks.
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On July 15, it will be 10 years since the enactment of the Equal Marriage law in Argentina. The Law No. 26,618 made our country a “spearhead”: it was the first in the region to approve same-sex marriage. During the first six months of the regulation alone, about 1,100 same-sex couples married. By 2015 the number of marriages had risen to more than 10,000 couples.
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