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“Leave it to me, I've always wanted to hit one of these guys,” said Juan Sabín's attacker, before throwing him to the ground and kicking him at the exit of a nightclub. 

“It happens to you for being a faggot,” they wrote to Lucas Nocito at his cabin in Tigre, after vandalizing it.

Two homophobic attacks came to light last week, in a year marked by a rise in hate crimes in Argentina: 70% more than in 2024.

Juan Sabín is 24 years old and lives in the Buenos Aires town of Malvinas Argentinas. His dream is to be a model. Two weeks ago, he created a photo book to start promoting himself. "I love the runway; I want to get involved in that whole world," he told Presentes .

Last Friday, August 15th, he went out dancing with a friend who lives in the United States and was visiting. They went to Rheo, a party allied with the LGBTIQ+ community, at the Crobar club, located in the Costanera Norte area of ​​the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires. During the early morning, his friend received some bad news: his grandmother had passed away. They decided to leave the club before the party ended to clear their heads, around 5:30 a.m. They walked along Paseo de la Infanta to Avenida del Libertador and hailed a car. His friend was crying. 

“Two boys walked by and started sobbing like him, mocking him. I told them I had no business doing what they were doing, and I didn't stand idly by. They turned around, ran, and jumped on me. The guy said to his friend, 'Leave it to me. I've always wanted to hit one of these guys,'” Juan told various media outlets about the attack. He then fell to the ground and the stranger kicked him in the face.

“I want justice to be done”

The car they had requested took them to the José Dueñas Dental Hospital, from where he was referred to Piñero Hospital. Juan suffered a fractured jaw from the attack. Last Monday, he underwent maxillofacial surgery and is currently recovering at home with his mother and grandparents. He will need orthodontics because the blows caused his teeth to move. He is worried about not being able to continue his modeling career during this time, but he assures us: "I'll be great, just in a few months."

On the Saturday following the attack, she filed a complaint with the Criminal, Contraventional and Misdemeanor Prosecutor's Office No. 13 , specializing in discrimination, headed by Andrea Verónica Scanga.

"I want justice for what they did to me, and I want them to say it was an attempted murder," Sabín told this agency. Over the past few days, various organizations, such as the Argentine LGBT Federation (FALGBT), have contacted him, and the municipality will provide him with psychological support. Many young people, including those from different countries, who had experienced similar situations, have also contacted him through social media.

“This speaks of hate”

Lucas Nocito is 43 years old, has one son, and was born in Tigre. He is a third-generation immigrant: his father and grandparents are also from this town, 18 kilometers north of Buenos Aires. Twenty-four years ago, he bought a house in the Delta, a place that historically served as a refuge for people of color , particularly during the period of state terrorism.

Last Wednesday, he had a feeling something was happening. The cameras that showed him what was happening in his house in the Delta weren't working. He asked a neighbor to come and see if everything was okay. "Hey Luqui, everything's bad, I don't know what they did to you... Look, they burned your door here, they burned the lock... they broke it. You were right... something about vandalism, look," his neighbor replied via a video showing him the damage. In addition to burning the lock, they cut the cables with machetes, broke the security cameras, and left spray-painted messages on the facade: "It happens to you for being a faggot."

“I'm shocked. This speaks of hatred. At another time, I would have let it go out of fear, but today I no longer do. Since time immemorial, the Delta has been a place of embrace. Many queers, gays, and lesbians lived and live in these places in search of love and peace. The fact that this happened makes you think we're going backwards. It could have ended in tragedy,” Lucas shared in a conversation with Presentes .

He filed the complaint at the police station in Paraná de las Palmas and Río Carapachay and is awaiting notification from the Prosecutor's Office. "I had to travel from my house to there by boat. Not everyone can do that," he said. 

Another homophobic attack.

Norberto Lorenzo, a psychologist and co-founder of the Gay Catholic Community of Buenos Aires in the 2000s, has just suffered a homophobic attack on his home and office in Ituzaingó, Buenos Aires province.

This has been the third such attack in the last 10 days. pic.twitter.com/ebQzcxvOCh

— Franco Torchia (@francotorchia_) August 26, 2025

“The government chose the LGBT community as its enemy.”

Through a neighbor's cameras, which recorded another attack on a home on the same day and in the same way, Lucas and other island residents concluded that the attackers were young people from the area. "When I found out they were minors and were acting with this hatred, I realized something had to be done. I can't blame them; many are 16 years old. But I needed this to be known because hatred is growing. Policies are completely lacking here. It would be good to have an investigation and try to fix this, to have an educational policy in schools," Nocito said. 

The attacks come amid a rise in violence and hate speech targeting sexual diversity. According to the National Observatory of LGBTIQ+ Hate Crimes, 102 violent attacks motivated by hatred toward sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression were recorded in the first six months of 2025. This represents 70% more than those recorded during all of 2024.

“Cases of verbal, physical, psychological, and all kinds of aggression have increased exponentially in recent months, and this is undoubtedly related to hate speech emanating from positions of power. Unfortunately, the national government has chosen the LGBT community as its enemy. This hatred toward our community is legitimized and translates into acts of violence and discrimination against LGBT people in our country,” FALGBT board of directors and head of the Anti-Discrimination Institute of the Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires Presentes .

During Javier Milei's administration, feminism, diversity, and women have suffered a systematic attack. The president himself delivered a speech to the international community at the Davos Economic Forum in which he misinformed the LGBTIQ community and associated homosexuals with pedophilia.