"Transfeminist and dissident": 11 years of the El Bolsón Diversity Festival

Until Sunday, January 6, musicians, artists, photographers, and writers will be presenting on stages, in workshops, and in discussion panels at the event, which is celebrating its 11th edition this year.

January 4, 2019

By Cristián Godoy Garcia, from El Bolsón

Photos: Facundo Nívolo

The already legendary Festivxl of Diversity kicked off in El Bolsón, Río Negro province, with a transvestite and trans summit. Until Sunday, January 6, musicians, artists, photographers, and writers will present their work on stages, in workshops, and in panel discussions at the event, which celebrates its 11th edition this year.

"The festival is self-managed. The organizers have planned a series of activities, including workshops on sex work by and for dissidents, another on dissident relationships, and how patriarchy infiltrates us. But more will be added, because it's about coming together to reflect on ourselves," Azul Etchegaray, a member of the festival's organizing committee, told Presentes.

The event began in 2008 as an intervention by a dissident group who decided to organize in response to the city's festival, where the National Hop Queen is chosen. That day, they climbed onto the hood of a Renault 12 and elected their own king and queen.

"Since that day, we've met every year to eat, chat, and hug each other to see how we're doing. Always with joy, because revelry and celebration are also political. We are here to show them together, and we can," Ada Augelo, a member of Transmutante, told Presentes.

The transvestite-trans summit, led by Marlene Wayar and Susy Shock—the festival's godmothers—took place at the Community Integration Center. "Here we are rehearsing the world we want, after that heterosexual failure. For that, we have to work on rebuilding our sense of community, of tribe," Susy Shock told the more than 150 participants.

Together, strategies were devised ranging from care networks in the face of the advance of neoliberal and conservative governments, to the urgent need for a national law on transvestite and trans labor quotas and the implementation of the Comprehensive Sexual Education Law.

The slogans that will be used in the closing march on Saturday, January 5, will come from the workshops. The march will cross several neighborhoods of El Bolsón until it reaches the city's main square.

[You can see the full schedule here]

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