Argentina's Ministry of Labor has enabled identification without binary gender distinction

From now on, people's Unique Labor Identification Code (CUIL) numbers will no longer be governed by a binary gender distinction.

June 1, 2021

Agustina Ramos

The Ministry of Labor has decreed that individuals' Unique Labor Identification Code (CUIL) numbers will no longer be based on a binary gender distinction. This was done through Resolution 286/2021 , signed by the Minister of Labor, Employment, and Social Security, Claudio Moroni. "It's a paradigm shift," say trans and travesti activists.

The new rule establishes that the prefix used in the formation of the new CUIL numbers of people (20, 23, 24 or 27 or those that arise in the future) will be assigned randomly, "being of a generic and non-binary nature in terms of sex/gender."

“The change to the CUIL (Unique Tax Identification Code) numbers is among the first actions of the national government’s National Plan for Equality in Diversity, presented weeks ago by the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity,” Alba Rueda, Undersecretary of Diversity Policies at that Ministry, told Presentes. She added: “This regulation has two objectives. On the one hand, to guarantee the Gender Identity Law and the State’s compliance with the law, and on the other, to guarantee employment quotas for trans and gender-diverse people, given that entering the workforce requires updating the CUIL and CUIT (Tax Identification Codes) and moving beyond the gender binary.”

"I observe it and follow it, but I don't celebrate it, because it is a step in what must happen at the end of this path of struggle, which is the recognition of identity multiplicity," the transvestite theorist and activist Lara María Bertolini told Presentes, after learning of the resolution.

However, he also stated that "this step brings this problem to light and positions diverse identities on a shared path." "It's extremely important because it breaks with the binary system," he added.

Under the new regulations, people who are protected by the Gender Identity Law (No. 26,743), who already have a CUIL number, will be able to request a new number only once.

The National Social Security Administration (ANSES) will be in charge of adapting the system, in coordination with the Federal Administration of Public Revenue (AFIP).

“I believe the change at the AFIP (Argentine Federal Public Revenue Administration) is paradigmatic. It only remains for Alberto Fernández and his ministers to implement a paradigmatic Latin American political change: recognizing the identities of social groups. Here we are fighting for nothing less than to rebuild capitalist democracies into democracies that include social and universal rights,” the activist stated.

Bertolini, a law student and employee of the Public Prosecutor's Office, is fighting for the National Registry of Persons (RENAPER) to recognize her self-perceived transvestite femininity because she does not identify with the binary gender category of "female." In May 2019, a landmark ruling by the 7th Civil Court of the City of Buenos Aires granted her request, but the agency subsequently appealed the decision and refuses to create a special gender field because "there are only two sexes."

In December 2019, the Civil Chamber denied the resolution that would have allowed him to change his birth certificate and ID card, which was appealed to the Court of Justice, where he currently resides.

"The big problem is that my life expectancy is 15 years higher than the average life expectancy for trans people, meaning they don't consider that this lucky time I have might run out at any moment," Lara Bertolini said about the Court's performance.

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