By Luciana Sánchez* Illustrations: Florencia Capella The resignation of Alejandra Gils Carbó as head of the National Public Prosecutor's Office and the reforms to Law 27148, proposed by Senators Miguel Angel Pichetto (PJ) and Federico Pinedo (Pro), may seem like abstract, unrelated issues. However, they profoundly affect our daily lives as LGBTQ+ people. Law 27148, from June 2015, had an enormous impact on access to justice for lesbians, transvestites, queer people, and gay men. This law created the UFEM (Specialized Prosecutor's Unit for Violence against Women), the specialized prosecutor's office that received the plaintiffs against Cristian Aldana, singer of Otro Yo, arrested for abuse and corruption of minors. It is the same prosecutor's office that, from the beginning, along with the family's legal team, has maintained the hypothesis of transvesticide in the brutal murder of Diana Sacayán, bringing one of the murderers to trial. The UFEM (Special Prosecutor's Office for Violence Against Women) is working on this issue at the international level for the recognition of transphobic murders as hate crimes and femicides. The PROCUVIN (Office of the Prosecutor for Institutional Violence) was also created to receive complaints from trans women and lesbians regarding institutional violence and to rule on the cases. There, trans activists Yhajaira Falcón and Emilce Lobo denounced the abuses they suffered while deprived of their liberty. The same is true for trans women detained in Once and Constitución during 2017. PROCUVIN confirmed the lesbophobic bias of the police repression following the March 8th (International Women's Day) march and strike, which resulted in the arrest of a dozen lesbians and bisexuals. In October, PROCUVIN received the complaint of Rocío Girat and Mariana Gómez, who were detained for kissing in Constitución station.

[READ MORE: It was ruled that there was lesbophobia in the police repression of #8M]

The DOVIC (Directorate for Guidance to Victims and Witnesses) was created, with interdisciplinary teams specializing in children and adolescents, institutional violence, gender, and trafficking. They accompany these individuals, and many more, throughout the criminal process, during evidentiary hearings and other proceedings. All of this lasts for years, years of their lives. And there is ATAJO, the community access to justice program, which goes beyond the city center to the neighborhoods where they receive inquiries and reports. Thirty percent of these are for gender-based violence.

What possibility of justice is there for a hate crime when genocidal criminals are free?

The push for cases involving human rights violations committed during the state terrorism throughout the country is a fundamental part of Gils Carbó's administration. It constitutes the policies against impunity. Because what possibility of justice is there for a hate crime when genocidal perpetrators are free on the streets? The democratic inclusion of transgender workers in the Public Prosecutor's Office is the result of an administration that implemented policies of workplace inclusion in different areas of the prosecutor's offices and departments. "It is necessary that any person who has been attacked, and particularly those who belong to a group that has been so marginalized, feel confident approaching the justice system without fear of being revictimized," she stated. Gils Carbó told the Soy supplement last year (Page/12). “We are trying to provide answers to people who work in the MPF who have approached us because they are beginning a transition process within the framework of their gender identity, which is very positive as it reflects an openness to discussing these issues freely.” The reforms to Law 27148, promoted by the national government and its allies, put an end to these policies, leaving hundreds of workers appointed since 2013 unemployed or at risk of being fired. They are likely to be approved this week in the Senate. Alejandra Gils Carbó was the head of all prosecutors. She didn't have control over the prosecutors, but she did have the power to dictate policies and allocate resources for the investigation of crimes related to the enforcement of human rights. Given that this law is being repealed in fundamental aspects, it is very worrying what will happen to the policies, the workers, and also the many legal cases that were being pursued by the special units that the new law dissolves.

How to criminalize dissident sexual identities

Along with Security Minister Patricia Bullrich's protocol for the detention of the LGBT community (presented days before the Pride March in Buenos Aires), practices are being institutionalized that link dissident sexual identities and migrants with specific types of crimes, which correspond to a particular exercise of state and judicial violence. Unlike the internal security paradigm of the edicts in force until the 1990s, which linked sexual dissidence with moral criminality—obscene displays, prostitution—this new internal security paradigm inscribes us as dangerous subjects within the harshest lines of criminalization. It identifies transvestites, migrants, and Afro-descendants as dangerous subjects in the war on drugs. It labels cis and trans lesbians, anarchists, Mapuche people, hippies, teachers of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), and communicators as terrorists or instigators of public violence. Trans men, trans people, non-binary people, queer people, bisexuals are considered suspects, and are detained for identity verification and charged because they resist and oppose authority.

[READ MORE: The UN demands that Argentina put a stop to the persecution of transvestites and trans people]

The new Public Prosecutor's Office law confirms that prosecutors, guided by whomever the government appoints, will imprison those who sell drugs on the street for subsistence and personal use, not those who profit from illegal drug trafficking. They will focus on criminalizing... lesbians They're going to arrest us for kissing instead of searching for girls who have disappeared into human trafficking networks. They're going to imprison us for marching for #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less), but they won't imprison the femicide perpetrators. Luciana Sánchez is a lesbian and feminist lawyer, member of COPADI (Collective for Diversity). ]]>