In the 2010s, Argentina surprisingly became a world leader in trans rights. But now all the gains can be lost.
Among the run-down turn-of-the-century buildings of Villa Crespo, a middle-class neighborhood west of downtown Buenos Aires, there is a gateway, with winding stairs up to some 30 rooms, otherwise marked only by a small plaque with its name and history.
This is the Hotel Gondolin, a place perhaps unique in the world.
– I come from a small town in northern Argentina. When I came to Buenos Aires to study, I met people who were different, open, that’s when I realized I was trans. From there, the next step seemed like a given – I started selling sex, and others I met told me about Hotel Gondolin, says Ana.
She is in her 30s, dressed in light summer clothes and meticulously made up, a little nervous about the attention but eager to tell her story.
In the late 1980s, and to some extent still today, transgender people from the poor provinces of the north – and sometimes from as far away as Peru – flocked to Buenos Aires. Here they found community with others in the same situation, and a more accepting environment, but were still almost always left with no other option than selling their bodies on the street to survive.
The hotel’s owner at the time realized that if he evicted former residents and invited transgender people instead, he could overcharge for the rooms while neglecting maintenance without anyone daring to complain.
Around the turn of the millennium, security inspectors finally closed the run-down hotel. This happened during one of the stormiest periods in Argentina’s history, the economic crisis that led to the mass demonstrations at the end of 2001. The residents did what so many others did in that era – they occupied the place.
On February 2, 2025, tens of thousands of people – some estimates say up to 200,000 – walked out in protest against Argentina’s President Javier Milei, after he attacked “gender ideology” as “pedophilia” at the Davos summit.
While the anarcho-capitalist president has long made it clear that he is conservative on most moral issues, his election campaign focused mostly on the economy. But as president, he has increasingly positioned himself in the global ‘culture war’ over the past month.
After taking mostly symbolic steps, such as banning the use of gender-neutral new words in official documents, the government came out after the Davos speech with proposals to abolish both the legal gender reassignment law and the job quota previously in place for transgender people – along with a number of other laws on discrimination and violence against women.
This contrasts sharply with Argentina’s history as one of Latin America’s most progressive countries on gender identity issues.
The occupation of the Gondolin played an important role. When the owner came back to try to reclaim the hotel, the occupiers barricaded themselves in, and the neighbors joined in. Probably because the normal thing to do at the time was to sympathize with rebellion and disobedience.
But there was no revolution, and a couple of years into the new millennium, the country had moved from chaos to a new normal. Worker-occupied factories became cooperatives, often successful, while many other phenomena born out of rebellion disappeared. The transsexuals at Gondolin formed an official organisation.
At the time, to the general public, transsexuals in Argentina were synonymous either with prostitutes in motels along the highway, or with Florencia de la V, an extravagant diva who used to frequent the television sofas. It came as a surprise to most that a decade later, as part of a progressive wave, Argentina pioneered transgender rights.
In 2012, the country became the first in the world to allow people to legally change their gender, without medical procedures, psychological assessment or any other qualifications other than the individual’s expressed desire. In 2012, a law was passed requiring that one percent of all jobs in government agencies and institutions be reserved for transgender people. By then, the trans community at Gondolin had become the legal owners of the building and had begun working with government agencies and non-profit organizations. In a way, it is a reflection of 20 years of social evolution: from radical revolt to at least partial acceptance by new, more progressive institutions.
– Today, I work at the cash desk of Banco Nacion. It was unusual at first to adapt to regular hours, but people have been positive. I had already registered as a sex worker and paid taxes, so I was used to it. Some people choose that route, it’s fast money, many men have that fantasy. But most do it out of necessity. That’s not how I want to live my life until I get old, says Ana.
The ‘quota’ was controversial from the start. But proponents stuck to their argument: formal equal treatment is not enough when the starting points and living situations of groups differ so much.
Probably the largest study to date, from 2017 by three non-profit organizations, “The human rights situation of transsexuals and transvestites in Argentina”, points out that transgender people are not only rejected when they apply for jobs, but are ostracized from society even before that. They note that within the group that came out as adults, 74% have a full secondary education or more – but among those who started presenting as trans earlier, it is only 30%.
Behind the numbers, young people are forced out of school because of bullying, threats and harassment. 75% report harassment from schoolmates, 40% from teachers, and 25% from those whose direct job it is supposed to be to support them, such as psychologists and social workers. But they are also forced to abandon their studies once they leave home.
A short bus ride away, next to a park where families seek refuge from the summer heat in the shade of the trees, is another unique place – Mocha Celis, a transgender-only high school with 300 students. About the same number have already graduated.
– This is not how it was when we started the association. We were just 15 people and we had to borrow a small room in a backyard. We collected funds from the neighbors to be able to serve food, says Francisco Quiñones, one of the founders.
Maryanne, one of the students, says she has felt since middle school that she didn’t fit in her body and “wanted to be a girl”. But in her Catholic, conservative family, coming out was difficult.
– When I finally spoke to my parents, they completely rejected it. They were going to “beat it out of me”. In the end they kicked me out, I didn’t run away. It was a shock to come from a solid background and suddenly be without income and housing, she says.
– I had to stay with acquaintances and they prostituted themselves, so that’s what I did too. Now my life has changed again, I have a part-time job as a telephone operator and I come here in the evenings.
Now Mocha Celis is housed in a modern, air-conditioned building, with computers and a tidy library, with a clear emphasis among the titles on the history and theory of the LGBTQ movement.
– It’s a chance to come back for many who were thrown out of the mainstream system. But it’s meant to be more than that, this school teaches about medical issues specific to the group, about asserting their rights, and so on.
Quiñones, with a full beard and pearl necklace, identifies as a “faggot” (marica), he says, and uses both male and female pronouns. He admits that, in practical terms, he has found it easier to blend into mainstream society than, for example, male-to-female transsexuals, but says that what drives him is reflecting on what his life might have been like if he had grown up in a less tolerant environment.
Nowadays, the school has internship agreements with companies such as Carrefour and Electrolux, and collaborates with two worker cooperative tailors in the city’s southern suburbs, another project of transgender associations that has received official support and recognition.
Just a few days later, Francisco is about to share the Argentine experience internationally – in Älmhult, where he has been invited by Ikea.
Why do you think transgender people in Argentina have come so far?
– We have had an organized movement that made determined demands and a government that was prepared to listen, he says after some thought.
Perhaps there is a deeper explanation for why Argentina became a world leader in trans rights in just over a decade. The reforms came at a time of optimism, whatever you may think of the left-wing governments of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner. A mix of general and more or less targeted measures helped improve the lives of the vast majority. In that spirit, many were at least open to seeing that transgender people had a difficult situation.
Today, the climate is different. Once again, the mood is one of crisis: “There is no money” was one of Javier Milei’s election slogans. Groups are more likely to regard each other with suspicion, and more people are asking whether transgender people, for example, have received unfair benefits.
But for those who have visited Gondolin and know its history, one thing is clear: the gains of recent decades will not be rolled back without a fight. And yet the demonstrations seem to have sparked hope among Argentines.
Marisa, one of the residents of the house, was interviewed afterwards by the media channel El Destape. For her, the historical parallel is clear:
– It reminded me of when we regained democracy.
Jon Weman is a Swedish journalist based i Argentina.
The original Swedish version of this article was first published in the Swedish left weekly Flamman. This translation for the Left Renewal Blog by NH.