By Paula Bistagnino. Santiago Magariños has been acting for over a decade, and this summer he was a sensation in Mar del Plata in the play "El ardor" (The Burning): he won the Estrella de Mar award for Best New Actor, and when he took the stage—after dedicating the award to his parents and boyfriend—he surprised everyone with his plea for #JusticeForDianaSacayán and #StopTransMurders on Public TV. "When I was nominated, I thought about what I could say if I won. And I felt that I couldn't pass up that opportunity to be on live television for the whole country. How often do we hear about transphobic murders and transphobic murders in the media? How often is Diana Sacayán ?" says the actor, who before that had already campaigned among his colleagues to raise awareness of the trial for the murder of the trans activist. A native of Buenos Aires, the son of two literature professors, his artistic and spiritual sensitivity grew with him, and he began training as an actor at a very young age while studying at the Belgrano Popular School. “My parents were always very open, very kind people, art lovers…,” says Santiago, who didn’t have to struggle to pursue his acting vocation. He was part of the cast of *Para vestir santos* and * Medea*, directed by Pompeyo Audivert and Cristina Banegas. He also worked at Disney as the lead in a children’s series with an environmental message; he participated in *Teatro x la identidad* (Theater for Identity); he played a teenager with HIV in a series produced by Fundación Huésped; and he appeared in the documentary “La educación prohibida” (The Forbidden Education). He was nominated for a Martín Fierro Award for his role as a gay teenager in * En terapia* (In Therapy) , and this summer he won the Best New Actor award for his role in *El ardor ), directed by Luciano Cáceres, who also stars in the play alongside Valentina Bassi and Joaquín Berthold.

-How much does history weigh when choosing a job?

– Actors don't always get to choose. But I definitely look for and try to find a story that resonates with me in some way. I don't want to lend my body to deliver a message that doesn't interest me. I do believe that you connect with certain things and that things just fall into place. I find more meaning in art and acting if they have something to say, if they have a message to convey, something that touches and moves others. To reach the other person's conscience. That makes me feel better. And even if I have to do some more commercial or frivolous projects, my commitment to social awareness, to the environment, or to various causes remains with me, and I don't stop doing other things.

-Do you feel that being an actor gives you an extra responsibility to use that platform to say things?

I don't think it's a requirement, but I do value those who do it because I believe that being well-known gives you a very powerful tool. So when you start reaching more people, it's fantastic to use that to communicate and to raise awareness of issues and causes that aren't covered by mainstream media. Sometimes it hurts me because I can't understand when an artist doesn't do it. But I respect all paths, and everyone chooses their own. I do it because that's how I feel, and because my path makes much more sense to me if it goes hand in hand with this kind of involvement. I'm not an activist for a particular issue; rather, I try to be involved in the things that interest me and that I believe are worth fighting for, and also to support people who do work that deserves to be known.  

This is how I received the 2018 #EstrellaDeMar #Revelation for #ElArdor. Thank you all! And we hope to see you at the show! pic.twitter.com/XRxyqjjYLY

— Santiago Magariños (@SanMagarinos) February 10, 2018

[READ ALSO: “Transvesticide, the final link in the chain of daily violence against transvestites and trans people”]

-You're also an activist for LGBTI causes and you promoted a campaign among your fellow artists for "Justice for Diana Sacayán". How did that commitment come about without being an activist?

I think it has to do with growing up and realizing that you don't fit into the binary system that surrounds you. My sexual orientation, which is very open, definitely influenced it: I've been in a relationship with a guy for over three years now. But I don't like to label myself and say I'm gay, because I don't need to categorize myself. I was reading the other day the interview you guys did with Benito Cerati on Presentes, and he said this too. I think that's thankfully changing, and it's fantastic: being able to move away from labels. And I think it's part of the revolution that the trans and travesti collective's message is generating: deconstructing oneself, moving away from labels, and asking oneself where one stands and what's behind what one thinks one is. To discover that that label is often something others put on us because it makes sense to them.

-Also when you received the award for Best New Actor your words were #JusticeForDianaSacayan and #StopTransvesticide.

The transvestite-trans collective is waging the toughest battle of all, fraught with violence and discrimination, but that's precisely why it's so revolutionary: because against all of that, they are bringing a truly illuminating message. It's been many years: Lohana Berkins and Diana Sacayán have come before, Susy Shock and Marlene Wayar are still here. There is the Trans Memory Archive… And then there are all the girls who are always there, fighting every single day. Sometimes when I hear them, I get goosebumps; it pierces me, it moves me, it sensitizes me, it makes me better, it fills me with love. I want to hug them, I want to be with them. I want to be with them. Not for what I can give them, but for what they are teaching me. Because the urgent message is, of course, don't kill them, but the message is much deeper: they aren't asking to be accepted, they are asking for a paradigm shift: for education to change, for categories to change, for the structures and concepts in which we live and organize ourselves to change.

[READ ALSO: Trans Memory Archive: “This one left, this one was killed, this one died”]

-Are you optimistic about the change that this struggle will bring?

Yes, I trust and hope that this is a stage of struggle and that one day we won't need it anymore. But we have to get through it, and I think things are changing. And it's terrible because there will continue to be transphobic murders and discrimination, persecution, and horrifying news stories, as we always see. Transvestite and trans people are emerging from marginalization and the periphery through their own struggle, because they are earning that space against a society that denied it to them, and I think their prominence will grow to the place it needs to be. And it will be central in a future society that I believe in, because we are realizing, we have realized, that patriarchy has reached this point and has led us to a horrible world. I keep linking it and drawing a parallel with the destruction of the environment, and I think the paradigm shift will come from these two areas. I think we are witnessing an evolutionary moment in humanity, a change that transcends us and will continue to transcend us. And in which feminism, and especially the transvestite-trans struggle, are protagonists.]]>