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SAN MIGUEL DE TUCUMÁN, Argentina. Education and training in rights are fundamental in these times. For this reason, the Law program at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Tucumán (UNT) has launched a new elective course: Legal Protection of LGBTQ+ People . A course in a department of a degree program in a small northern province might seem like a small step. However, it is the first in Argentina dedicated entirely to the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.

“ Nineteen years ago, when I entered the Faculty of Law as a student, I was active in university politics and frequented the classrooms, and LGBT-phobic prejudices were rampant. It was very difficult for professors to come out of the closet. When I ran for a position in the student center or the Council, the objections were related to my sexual orientation,” says Germán Arce, a lawyer and researcher who heads the teaching staff in charge of the course.

The course Germán teaches aims to highlight androcentric, patriarchal, and heteronormative biases within the legal field. “It’s a pioneering initiative. It’s the first course in the law program at a public university in Argentina to focus entirely and exclusively on this topic ,” the professor emphasizes. He is surprised and grateful for the turnout at the course’s official launch. “ Almost two-thirds of the students eligible for elective courses chose this one. That shows that these young people are interested, eager, and keen to pursue this type of training,” Arce points out.

The first meeting

With an amphitheater packed with LGBTQ+ students and activists, and a panel of professors and gender diversity leaders, the presentation of the elective course became a true event. It's worth noting that this is a pioneering experience because, while some units of the academic curriculum at other universities in the country address this topic, it's the first course at an Argentine public university to focus entirely on it.

“It is important to note that only a minority of universities are incorporating these perspectives. For now, this is the first time a course has focused directly and exclusively on this ,” the professor points out.

Among the examples of practices that need to be transformed in the legal world, Arce tells Agencia Presentes, are the procedural approaches that continue to be revictimizing. This deficiency, she explains, is generally due to a lack of training. But it is also due to the lack of access for trans people to higher legal education and judicial positions . “The lack of parliamentary representation for the community is also a determining factor ,” she emphasizes.

A possible response to the rise of hate speech 

Open, Simultaneous, and Mandatory Primary elections and the rise of anti-rights rhetoric. The joy of having gained a space with institutional backing at the university now hangs by a thread, to say the least.

Some students expressed the need for and importance of this perspective in their professional training. “It’s important to have this subject in our degree program. It prepares us as future professionals to defend the rights of the LGBTQI+ community and to be able to promote all the rights that have been won ,” said one of them.

These hard-won rights must not only be defended, but also guaranteed. Arce emphasized that “we have had a gender identity law for ten years. However, the average life expectancy for trans women remains between 35 and 40 years. The causes of death remain the same .” This underscores the need for legal professionals to act with a gender and human rights perspective.

“It’s a great omen to find myself at the university in this position, occupying classroom spaces, holding high academic ranks, and speaking about rights and debating our political knowledge from our perspective as LGBTI educators . Many years ago, we didn’t have these rights, nor the legitimacy to occupy these spaces of knowledge and power that we do today. Our country has changed, and so has our university,” she says, while urging everyone to defend what has been achieved.

The first activity, an open talk framed within the launch of the subject, was attended by, in addition to students and the public, Claudina Rukone -actress, communicator and trans activist from Tucumán-, Adrián Pipo Albano -delegate of INADI Tucumán-, Lara Bertolini -trans activist who directs the LGBTI+ Research Center of the Faculty of Law of the National University of Avellaneda- , Emiliano Litardo -co-drafter of the Gender Identity Law- and teachers from different universities in Spain, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Brazil.