At the Thresholds: Labor Organizing as Travesti-Trans Formal Workers in Argentina

Abstract

In 2021, after years of transgender activism, Argentina passed a law supporting transgender access to formalised employment, including a quota of 1% of positions in the national public sector. Although hundreds of people have been able to get a job, the quota is not always met numerically and does not always include the most marginalised people; moreover, paradoxically, many transgender employees find themselves in working conditions that reproduce the same precariousness and cissexism that the quota seeks to combat.It is in this context that Zaguán Transindical, an organisation of travesti-trans state workers, emerged, which seeks to enforce the quota and generate better working conditions in the state. At the same time, it seeks to be a link with the trade unions, to open their doors to our existence, to know our realities and thus develop union strategies that take them into account. The mass dismissals of state employees began - as part of the austerity project and the dismantling of the state - making Zaguán join the task of preventing and combating dismissals.This article aims to show the contributions of travesti trans activism. On the one hand, it roots its demands firmly around the material conditions of life, continuing and contributing to a long tradition of redistributive agendas in Argentinean travesti-trans movements. On the other hand, by inserting ourselves as subjects into the world of formal work, we open up new imaginaries about ways of working and organising as workers.