#CondemnedForKissing: "They want us invisible and silent."

By Mariana Leder Kremer. They want us invisible and silent. The justice system, the media, this whole system that teeters a little more each day in the face of some of our most revolutionary acts: our kisses and our love. So the system, threatened, begins to tighten its grip, until it reaches…

June 28, 2019

By Mariana Leder Kremer. They want us invisible and silent. The justice system, the media, this whole system that teeters a little more each day in the face of some of our most revolutionary acts: our kisses and our love. So the system, threatened, begins to tighten its grip, even going so far as to sentence Mariana Gómez to a one-year suspended prison sentence for kissing her wife, Rocío Girat, at Constitución station in October 2017. They want us invisible and silent. And today, June 28th, 50 years after the Stonewall riots, they intend to continue silencing us. The justice system and the media—the list is long, isn't it: Clarín, Infobae, La Nación—they all narrate it the same way, they talk about "his girlfriend," "the girlfriend of." No, friends, Mariana and Rocío are wives. Or are they going to ask them for the marriage certificate again, like the police did 20 months ago at the station?

[READ ALSO: #ConvictedForKissing Mariana Gómez was found guilty, 1 year of suspended prison sentence]

They intend to continue violating us. Out-of-touch colleagues, guys with their cameras, without a shred of humanity in their professional careers: looking for that shot, the one of Mariana fainting and lying on the ground as she left the courtroom. We had to ask them to stop snapping. "Men back," I heard a colleague say. And yes, they should keep that in mind more often, because it's time for men to back down, and it's time to fire these miserable photographers who arrive at this stage of a story and ask, "Who is Mariana?" so they know who to photograph. Do your job properly, and if you're going to do it badly anyway, at least don't perpetuate the violence we've been mobilizing against. And the struggle, the struggle continues, as always, and as Rocío, Mariana's wife, said at the end: We're not going to stop, we're going to keep demanding Mariana's acquittal and the removal of Marta Yungano, the lesbian-hating judge who issued the ruling today.

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