Report by Rocío Varela, Sol Rodríguez, and Gabriela Zampedri : Dissident sexualities marched in the fourth Argentine feminist demonstration, #NiUnaMenos, which unfolded in downtown Buenos Aires. This time, the main demand was for a law legalizing safe and free abortion in Argentina. Despite the cold and rain, a multitude of women wearing green scarves gathered at various points in the city center starting at 4:00 PM, before marching from Plaza de Mayo to the National Congress. "Not One Less. Stop femicides and transphobic murders: hatred towards women, lesbians, transvestites, bisexuals, and trans people is murderous. Machismo is fascism," declared—among other urgent demands—the document read at the closing (full document at the end of this article).

🇦🇷 The demand for #JusticeForDianaSacayan is also joining the #NiUnaMenos #StopTransMurders #WeWantToBeAlive pic.twitter.com/5xkMAx0XCu

— Presentes Agency (@PresentesLGBT) June 4, 2018

"We march because to say #NotOneLess we must stop criminalizing our existence, we must stop persecuting those of us who defend ourselves against heterocispatriarchal violence like Joe Lemonge and Mariana Gómez," said Agustina, from the Permanent Lesbian Assembly. In addition to the Permanent Lesbian Assembly, which marched alongside the Campaign for Legal, Safe and Free Abortion, members of the Free Children Association, led by Gabriela Mansilla, and students from the Mocha Celis Trans High School, among other sexual diversity groups, also marched with their flags.

🇦🇷 [NOW] #NiUnaMenos 🎼 This is how the column from @infanciaslibres, led by Gabriela Mansilla, pic.twitter.com/grIErdqT14

— Presentes Agency (@PresentesLGBT) June 4, 2018

Another of the demands of the March was that #JusticeForDiana Sacayán.

🇦🇷 The demand for #JusticeForDianaSacayan is also joining the #NiUnaMenos #StopTransMurders #WeWantToBeAlive pic.twitter.com/5xkMAx0XCu

— Presentes Agency (@PresentesLGBT) June 4, 2018

Also for an end to violence against trans women and transvestites. Solange said she marched for her friend Cynthia Moreira, a young trans woman murdered in February in Tucumán. "I'm here in her honor and in honor of all women," she said.  

 

Eme, a lesbian and feminist activist, said that "it's important to be in the streets alongside our lesbian sisters, trans women, women, and non-binary people who suffer sexist violence every day. We have to be organized so that the patriarchy falls!" Around 7:00 p.m., on a stage set up in front of Congress, activists and leaders read different paragraphs of the final document, in which they demanded the end of gender violence, (Stop femicides and transvesticides and “hatred towards women, lesbians, transvestites, bisexuals and trans people”); They demanded the approval of the law legalizing abortion and called for a halt to the national government's austerity policies and the agreement with the IMF.

This is the complete document that was read at the end of the event:

In 2015, the force of our steps and our voices shook the earth to its core. We set in motion a revolution. In Argentina, one million of us raised a single cry: STOP KILLING US. NOT ONE LESS. WE WANT TO LIVE. The earthquake didn't stop there. Today, for the fourth time, cis and trans women, lesbians, bisexuals, and transvestites are here, and in every province of Argentina, to shout Not One Less once again. We are a powerful, diverse, and heterogeneous movement that has demonstrated that every act of violence perpetrated against us stems from the violence inflicted by states and governments each time they subject us to the exploitation of our bodies, each time they fail to uphold our human rights, and each time they perpetuate neoliberal and capitalist economic models that generate more hunger and violence. We are the ones who stand up against all the governments that have sought and continue to seek to impose upon us a regime of exploitation, plunder, and hunger, in which the most vulnerable are working women, the unemployed, and the excluded: the poorest of the poor. We are not victims; we grow in the power of our collective dance. Our feminisms of struggle are Latin American and international, like the raised fist of the Irish women who won the right to abortion. It is a debt owed by states and governments that we have come to collect, for those who rebel and organize in every corner of the planet. We are much more than those of us who are here; we are the heirs of the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, we are the people's fighters, we are women, trans women, lesbians, bisexuals, non-binary people, transvestites, Indigenous women, Afro-descendants, migrants, women from the slums, and women living with HIV. We are each of the activists who began this struggle in 2005 alongside the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion. We are the ones who, while demanding an end to the victimization of us, affirm our right to pleasure, to decide our own destinies, to control our own time, and to not be exploited or forced to fulfill desires that are not our own. We stand up against the Macri government, the Cambiemos alliance, and the governors, the business owners, and the hegemonic, employer-controlled, white, misogynistic, heteronormative, racist, sexist, patriarchal, neoliberal, and capitalist justice system of the rich and powerful. Today we come to this Plaza in front of Congress to say that they will no longer discipline us, that we do not accept that the State and its powers believe they own our bodies, that we do not accept being told how, when, where, and with whom to live, give birth, or have sex. And we tell them that we are making history! We are alive and we assume a responsibility for those who are no longer with us. We are organizing to demonstrate to ourselves and to show those who will join us tomorrow that together we can tear down patriarchy and capitalism, and say no to the illegitimate pact that traps us in debts we will not pay with our lives, and say yes, again and again, to the autonomy of our bodies, yes to legal, safe, and free abortion. WITHOUT LEGAL ABORTION, THERE IS NO ONE LESS! NO to Macri's pact with the IMF! Not One Less! We Want to Live! The State is responsible!

Axis 1. Without #LegalAbortion there is no #NotOneLess.

We demand the approval of the bill from the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion—no other! We want legal abortion now! Through our strength and mobilization, we forced the National Congress to debate the right to legal, safe, and free abortion. And with our green scarves held high, we demand that Congress approve the Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy bill drafted by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion. We reject bills that seek to confuse by proposing only “decriminalization”—we demand legalization! We don't want churches interfering in our lives. We reject conscientious objection as an excuse to obstruct our rights. We demand the separation of church and state and the cessation of subsidies to the Catholic Church and religious education, which this year amount to $32 billion. Our demands are comprehensive: sex education to empower us to make informed decisions, contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and legal abortion to prevent death. We demand that the legalization of abortion guarantee its availability and coverage under the mandatory medical plan in both public and private hospitals. This includes the public production of high-quality, authorized Misoprostol for gynecological and obstetric use, ending the monopoly that currently drives prices to exorbitant levels. We demand guaranteed access to and free distribution of Misoprostol within the public health system, as well as its sale at affordable prices in pharmacies. Stop forcing rape victims to give birth! Immediate implementation of the National Protocol for Comprehensive Care for Persons with the Right to Legal Abortion throughout the country. Budget to guarantee legal abortions in all hospitals nationwide. We demand the continuation of Sexual Education and Sexual Health and Responsible Procreation Programs. We demand the regulation and implementation of the Comprehensive Sexual Education Law. We want comprehensive, secular, and gender-sensitive sexual education at all levels and in all provinces of the country. OUT with the Church in education! We denounce the hypocritical State that forces us to have clandestine abortions, often risking our lives due to the same conditions of poverty and precariousness to which we are forced to live under this social system. We demand the right to access the necessary economic and health resources to decide whether or not we want to be mothers. We condemn the governments that continue to prohibit abortion in Latin America, and in particular the governments of El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Suriname, and the Dominican Republic, which criminalize the right to abortion. We demand that the right to decide over one's own body be respected in these countries and throughout the world. Motherhood is a choice and a right of women, not an imposition. We want the legalization of abortion in Argentina to be the spearhead of a movement that sweeps across Latin America. Not one more death from unsafe abortions! Respect our decisions if we do not want to give birth!

Axis 2. No to Macri's Pact with the IMF.

No to paying the foreign debt. Down with Macri and the governors' austerity measures. Stop the layoffs, suspensions, and repression. We condemn the decision of Mauricio Macri's government to pursue an agreement with the IMF that means HUNGER. A pact that means austerity, layoffs, poverty, and precarious work for the entire working class, and especially for women, trans people, lesbians, bisexuals, non-binary people, transvestites, Indigenous people, Afro-descendants, migrants, slum dwellers, and women living with HIV. We denounce the demands of this organization, such as cutting the already meager budget for health and education—historically feminized sectors—and eliminating special pension schemes. Down with the pension reform! Down with the CUS and the Southern Hospital project, which aim to privatize public healthcare. We say NO to UNICABA and stand with the tertiary students. We demand the cancellation of the external debt and, instead, a larger budget for the implementation of gender policies that contribute to the fulfillment of our rights. The debt is owed to us. We are here to protest the austerity measures of the meager neoliberalism being implemented by Macri and the provincial governments. These measures cut our wages, make our jobs more precarious, and try to weaken us, but we stand together and join the struggles of state workers, subway workers, Telam employees, Radio Del Plata workers, teachers, INTI workers, Posadas Hospital workers, 144 bus line workers, and so on. We support all struggles against the wage cap that the government intends to impose with the complicit silence of the union bureaucracy. We demand the reopening of collective bargaining and reject the wage cap that seeks to impose an increase far below inflation, which has already exceeded it by 10% this year. We also reject the attendance and productivity bonuses, which amount to a wage cut, especially for women workers, and we reject the persecution of combative activism by the union bureaucracy and the national and provincial governments. Down with the fiscal pact! No to the modification of collective agreements! We say no to the labor reform that makes our lives more precarious! From this square, we demand a GENERAL STRIKE NOW! As we said at every strike, every March 8th, WE STOP, WE STOP! Learn from the example of the feminist movement that takes to the streets in unity to put a stop to these policies that seek the economic and emotional misery of the majority! We reject all forms of workplace violence against women, trans people, lesbians, bisexuals, non-binary people, transvestites, Indigenous people, Afro-descendants, migrants, women from impoverished neighborhoods, and women living with HIV. Because women workers are exposed to cuts in their rights and wages, and subjected to the threat of unemployment and the pressure to meet productivity targets. Because unemployment rises by two percentage points when it comes to women, because the gender pay gap averages 27%, and in the informal sector it reaches 40%. We demand equal access to all job categories. Enough with workplace discrimination; we demand full rights for women workers. We came to reiterate that migration is not a crime! Not one more migrant woman! We demand the repeal of Decree of Necessity and Urgency 70/2017 and the closure of the Migrant Detention Center. We condemn the violent dispossession of lands belonging to Indigenous and peasant communities, we oppose extractivism, and we denounce the poisoning caused by agrochemicals that are killing us. We denounce racism, discrimination, and xenophobia toward Black, Afro-descendant, Afro-Indigenous, and Afro-Argentine women, whom the slave trade forced to participate in the growth of the capitalist system we face today. We demand the historical reparations owed to us under Law 26.856, named after María Remedios del Valle, Captain of the Motherland, who, thanks to her courage, contributed to the independence of this country. Women living with HIV demand the enactment of the new law on HIV, STIs, and viral hepatitis. Stop the budget cuts that guarantee us prevention, prophylaxis, medication, treatment adherence, and reagents. Stop the violence against reproductive freedom. Stop the gynecological and obstetric violence against us. We are more than 40,000! HIV doesn't kill, stigma and discrimination do. THERE IS NO MORE TIME! Stop the repression. We demand the dismissal of charges and the release of all political prisoners. Freedom for Milagro Sala and all the imprisoned members of Tupac Amaru. We do not want the Armed Forces to be able to take over matters of Internal Security; they are seeking to pave the way to repress social protests. Santiago Maldonado and Rafael Nahuel: present! We reject Macri's attempt to reform the Penal Code to imprison activists. We stand with the subway workers who were brutally repressed for defending their wages. We stand against the dismissal of subway union representatives and the violence suffered by all the women who were repressed, beaten, and imprisoned by the City Police. We demand the dismissal of charges against all those arrested during the protests of December 14th and 18th. Stop police brutality in working-class neighborhoods. We do not want any more repression in the slums, nor illegal raids, beatings, and arrests like those of Iván and Ezequiel, comrades from La Poderosa. Repeal of the anti-terrorism law, the protocols and all repressive laws. Dismantle trafficking networks and the repressive forces of the State and their accomplices. Effective prosecution of pimps. Creation of public policies to complement the anti-trafficking law, as well as all instruments aimed at providing legal support and comprehensive protection to victims and their families. We denounce the closure of shelters for victims. Stop the repression, persecution, abuse, and police extortion of sex workers and people in prostitution. We demand the repeal of the articles of the provincial code that allow for the detention of any person without a warrant and that criminalize prostitution in 18 provinces. In particular, Article 68 of the Buenos Aires Province Code of Misdemeanors. We denounce the invasion of Indigenous territories by the genocidal state. Stop criminalizing and prosecuting us for the recovery of ancestral lands. Stop the institutional violence against Indigenous activists. Stop the racism and xenophobia. We repudiate the extractivist model that only benefits multinational corporations and the governments complicit in this dispossession. Stop femicides and territorial femicides. We want to be plurinational!

Axis 3. #NotOneLess. Stop femicides and transphobic murders: hatred towards women, lesbians, transvestites, bisexuals, and trans people is murderous. Machismo is fascism.

We came to this plaza to speak out against all forms of gender-based violence . A woman is murdered every 30 hours, and the Macri government and Fabiana Túñez have frozen the budget of the National Institute for Women, allocating a mere $8 for each woman's care. We demand funding for the implementation of Law 26.485, the Law for the Eradication of Violence Against Women. We demand safe shelters for victims of violence with adequate psychological and legal support. We demand decent work and housing for victims of violence and their children. We demand the reopening and funding of gender-based violence support centers in municipalities, universities, and every public space where Law 26.485 mandates that victims be assisted. There is a law; we want it enforced! We denounce the Judiciary of the Argentine Republic as one of the enforcers of patriarchy. The judiciary is sexist, misogynistic, racist, lesbophobic, and transphobic, and it renders us invisible, discriminates against us, and revictimizes us. We demand that the State immediately activate the procedures for the removal and dismissal of all judges, prosecutors, and judicial officials who perpetrate institutional gender violence and systematically violate Law 26.485, almost 10 years after its enactment. In the face of violence, harsher penalties do not deter crimes against life. It is punitive demagoguery in the face of social outrage. Do not invoke it in our name. The cry for more prisons does not solve the underlying problem. We demand policies for the prevention of gender-based violence, education with a gender perspective, training for the judiciary, and an effective state response to complaints. We stand in solidarity with our imprisoned sisters, understanding that the system oppresses them doubly: it stigmatizes them for being prisoners and for being women. We say no to the infantilization of women in prisons and no to psychological torture. Stop the repression, persecution, abuse, and police extortion of people in prostitution. Dismantle the trafficking networks. Bring back the kidnapped girls. Imprison the pimps, police officers, and politicians involved. Reparation for the physical, psychological, and economic damages inflicted on the victims and their families. We came to shout that compulsory heterosexuality and cisgenderism are violence! Stop the hate crimes of homophobia, lesbophobia, bisexuality, and transphobia. We demand the implementation of the Gender Identity Law: real access to the right to comprehensive healthcare, to expedited legal gender recognition, and to respect for one's own identity. We demand a national employment quota for trans people and special protection for their children and in their old age. Historical reparations and recognition of the transvestite and trans genocide—the State is responsible. For the integrity, respect, and autonomy of fat and intersex bodies that are stigmatized and pathologized. We demand that women with disabilities be taken into account in public policies. We denounce the precarious situation of older lesbians who reach adulthood without housing and without family. Stop gynecological violence. We came to this square to declare that we want to live, that we have the right to pleasure, to experience the night freely and without fear, to enjoy our sexualities without repression, without mandates, without harassment, without hierarchies. We have the right to celebrate and to love, we have the right to free time and to say yes whenever we want to say yes, just as we say no when we rebel against what is imposed upon us! ¡We came to this square because we're fed up and we're organized! And now that we're together, we demand justice for the transphobic murder of Diana Sacayán and all the other trans women killed in hate crimes! We came to shout that there is no "Not One Less" without demanding acquittal for Higui, for Mariana Gómez, for Yanina Faríaz, accused by a misogynistic justice system and stigmatized as a bad mother, and for Joe Lemonge, a trans man imprisoned for defending himself against patriarchal transphobia. There is no "Not One Less" movement without demanding justice for Marielle Franco, gunned down by security forces in Brazil under the Temer government. And without shouting loudly, "Freedom for the Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi!" We will not allow this white, misogynistic, heteronormative, racist, and sexist capitalist social system to take away our right to inhabit the world as who we want to be. Against all forms of exploitation and oppression, we call on our sisters around the world to continue fighting for our lives. Our movement will continue to defend its anti-clerical, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal character, independent of the State and governments. We were the first to organize a national strike against this austerity government, and now we say NO to Macri's pact with the IMF and demand that the labor unions call for a national strike and a plan of action to defeat it. We will win our right to legal, safe, and free abortion. Separation of Church and State now. Let us all mobilize to Congress this June 13th and let all of Latin America turn green. Without #LegalAbortion there is no #NotOneLess    

🇦🇷 [NOW] After chanting "Legal abortion in hospitals, let it be law, let it be law!" the #NiUnaMenos at the National Congress. See you in the streets! ✊ 💚 pic.twitter.com/tATIYKyqNo

— Presentes Agency (@PresentesLGBT) June 4, 2018

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