A map records cases of violence against lesbians and bisexuals in Argentina

A mapping project records cases of violence against lesbians, bisexuals, and other identities for being perceived as lesbians.

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December 16, 2019

By Alejandra Zani

In 2016, Marcela Crelz was stabbed to death after an argument with her mother, who did not accept her lesbian identity. This happened in Isidro Casanova, a town in the La Matanza district of Buenos Aires province. That same year, Higui was arrested after trying to defend herself against an attack by a group of men who attempted to rape her. In 2017, Marian Gómez was arrested by police at a Buenos Aires train station while kissing her wife, Rocío Girat, under the pretext of smoking in a prohibited area. In 2018, Sofía, a worker at FM La Tribu radio station , was repeatedly harassed in the Almagro neighborhood of Buenos Aires, where she was insulted, stalked, and physically assaulted. This year, Yesica Freytes was struck on the head with a metal bar while being called a "lesbian whore" in Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires province.

“After several years, the murder of Marcela Crelz remains unsolved. We don’t know the status of the case or if her mother was ever tried,” Paula Espino (34 years old), creator of the first map that tracks attacks motivated by lesbophobia and homophobia in Argentina . “LGBT groups have always been pushing for hate crimes to be recognized by name, as happened with the transphobic murder of Diana Sacayán, but here we aren’t doing enough to get these crimes recognized as hate crimes against lesbopeople.”

With these cases in mind, in November 2018 Paula, a lesbian, systems specialist, and social work student (UMSA), published a map that has already documented a total of 45 cases of violence against lesbians. Half of these cases are reports of institutional violence filed in the last four years. “This says a lot about what the Macri administration was like,” Paula explains. Furthermore, in 2019 alone, a total of 14 cases of violence against lesbians or other gender identities were recorded simply for being perceived as lesbians. This indicates that, on average, at least once a month someone in Argentina is attacked simply for being (or being perceived as) a lesbian.

Paula's work was motivated by the urgent need to make this situation visible in order to demand a series of public policies from the State to combat this violence. "And also," she adds, "to gather some kind of statistics that reflect how often or how frequently this violence occurs, some clear number, so that it isn't minimized in relation to the violence suffered by other LGBT identities."

“I’m talking about violence against lesbians, but also against bisexuals and other gender identities for being perceived as lesbians, because I understand that they can also experience violence motivated by lesbophobia or lesbophobia . This type of violence can also be experienced by bisexual or trans people who are perceived as lesbians,” Paula clarifies. “The important thing is to start thinking about this as a social problem. For that to happen, the problem has to exist and it has to be made visible.”

When we talk about violence against lesbians

The mapping of violence against lesbians and other individuals perceived as lesbians complements the work that the Presentes agency has been doing to document hate crimes against LGBTIQ+ people throughout Latin America. What this map contributes is that, in addition to hate crimes, it documents all types of violence against lesbians and other individuals specifically perceived as lesbians within Argentina.

“I want to make all types of discrimination visible. Symbolic violence, workplace discrimination, institutional violence, and I would like to be able to count cases of gynecological violence. We know there are a lot of them, but I haven't received any in the mapping process yet,” Paula says.

This year, a report from the National Observatory of LGBT Hate Crimes of the Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires, in conjunction with the Argentine LGBT Federation, revealed that in 2018, 67 people died in Argentina as a result of hate crimes based on sexual orientation and lack of access to basic rights. “The problem with these reports is that they are done for statistical purposes, and there is no way to access each case individually. If I wanted to review them to add a relevant case to the mapping, I couldn't.”

Regarding violence against lesbians, Paula acknowledges that most of the reports occurred in the City of Buenos Aires and Greater Buenos Aires. “But I think that’s because information travels faster here and because the map is more visible in this area, not because this violence doesn’t exist in other provinces. I also received reports from Córdoba, Santa Fe, and only one case in the south, and often it involves young people from Buenos Aires who went on vacation somewhere else and experienced some kind of discrimination in other provinces.”

To add a report to the map of violence against lesbians, bisexuals, or any other identities perceived as lesbian, please contact us through the following links:

Official website

Instagram: @violenciahacialesbianas

Twitter: @TortaRepostera

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