What does La Libertad Avanza think about sexual diversity: 10 quotes
Members of La Libertad Avanza (LLA) have repeatedly taken a stand against sexual diversity. We have compiled ten quotes about LGBT+ groups from Milei, Villarruel, Marra, and other LLA members that summarize their position.
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Members of La Libertad Avanza (LLA), the political coalition in Argentina led by presidential candidate Javier Milei and vice-presidential candidate Victoria Villarruel, have repeatedly positioned themselves against sexual diversity. Their stances have ranged from considering it a pathology and comparing it to lice to recommending pornography over Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) , based on distorted or completely false information.
From Presentes we have compiled ten statements from LLA on LGBTIQ+ groups and/or sexual diversity rights that summarize their position on the matter.
1- “If you want to be with an elephant…”
Presidential candidate Javier Milei, who will face Sergio Massa (Union for the Fatherland) November 19 runoff election used an analogy between homosexuals and elephants in a recent interview with Peruvian journalist Jaime Bayly “If you want to be with an elephant… If you have the elephant’s consent, it’s your problem and the elephant’s,” he said.
The analogy isn't new. Flora Alkorta, screenwriter and comedian, commenting on Milei's statement, shared on her Instagram account Ellen DeGeneres's brilliant response to this type of comment: “ These people scare me: they think we're weird. I don't want to marry a goat. I can't imagine marrying a goat. You're weird! That divides people; they treat us like we're crazy when we talk about sexuality ,” the American comedian says in one of her shows.
2- “Don’t complain if someone doesn’t like that you have lice”
When asked if she supported same-sex marriage, economist and LLA-elect Diana Mondino , in an interview with the news site LN+ , responded with another allusion to the animal kingdom. "As a liberal, I agree with everyone's life project. It's much broader than same-sex marriage. Let me exaggerate: if you prefer not to bathe and be covered in lice, and that's your choice, fine, then don't complain later if someone doesn't like that you have lice ." The metaphor was unclear and confusing. But, among the many things that could be said about this, it falls within the view of sexual diversity as something dirty and capable of alienating us from others.
3- “I promote pornography”
Ramiro Marra, former candidate for mayor of Buenos Aires for the LLA party, recommended consuming pornography instead of receiving comprehensive sex education. "I'm not against sex education. I promote pornography. I tell kids to watch it. If a kid has a computer or a phone, they can find out about it. That's how I learned about sex education," Marra suggested in an interview with Radio con Vos in June.
4- “Fewer LGBT events in cultural spaces”
In a tweet , Marra also listed a series of proposals, including reducing LGBT events at cultural centers. “Fewer LGBT events at cultural centers, more police on the streets. Fewer street closures due to pickets, more children in schools. Fewer pointless subsidies, more incentives for development. We are going to completely change the government; we can live in a better and safer city,” reads the tweet she wrote in September.
5- “Like the lame, like the blind, like the deaf”
Ricardo Bussi, elected national deputy for the LLA party representing the province of Tucumán and son of a repressor from the dictatorship (Antonio Bussi, former governor of Tucumán), compared homosexuality to disabilities . "They are human beings who deserve all our respect. Like the lame, like the blind, like the deaf," he said in October of this year at a meeting organized by the Tucumán Research Center (CIT).
6- “Whoever decides to be a transvestite should deal with it on their own.”
Bussi then spoke out against the Transgender Employment Quota : “Now I don’t know why they should be given a public position just for being transgender. Those who choose to be transgender should have to deal with it on their own,” she said.
7- “For me, it was guaranteed with the civil union”
LLA vice-presidential candidate Victoria Villarruel expressed her opposition to same-sex marriage in an interview with Luis Novaresio. She stated that unions between people of the same sex were already "guaranteed through civil unions."
8- ESI: “biological content” and “anal sex”
In 2018, Villarruel compared knowledge of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) to anal sex . "Poor people, half-illiterate but knowing how to have anal sex since childhood," Villarruel said on her Twitter account. She was responding to a tweet from someone else reporting that the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank) had given the then-government of Mauricio Macri US$200 million in financing for the "Support Program for Gender Equality Policies."
Poor, semi-illiterate but knowing how to do anal sex since childhood…
— Victoria Villarruel (@VickyVillarruel) October 31, 2018
Furthermore, during the vice-presidential candidates' debate prior to this year's general elections, the candidate said that comprehensive sexuality education "has to be based on biological content."
9- “That person will automatically not be able to vote”
During a training session for poll watchers from the La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party in La Rioja province, Martín Menem, the former gubernatorial candidate for La Rioja from the party, stated that people who go to vote with a gender expression different from that on their national identity document (DNI) will not be allowed to vote . According to Menem, they should "change their clothes and vote again." He emphasized, "If a person whose DNI lists a male name appears dressed as a woman, that person will automatically be unable to vote."
Argentina has a pioneering gender identity law, passed in 2012, which states the opposite: “Every person has the right to: recognition of their gender identity and to the free development of their person in accordance with their gender identity.
10- “The pathology or problem that he/she has…”
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1990, Jorge Scala, former mayoral candidate for the Democratic Party of Córdoba, which is part of LLA, considered it a pathology.
During conferences , Scala stated that "the pathology or problem of homosexuality depends on its cause." He then recommended "possible treatment" for "its cure."
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