The Travesti Critique of the Gender Identity Law in Argentina

Abstract

This article reviews the immediate travesti critique of the Argentine Gender Identity Law (law 26,743) in May 2012. Based on what was developed by Marlene Wayar, as an example of sudaca criticism and internal blasphemy, the travesti critique points out that the law does not recognize the specificity of the transvestite identity or its patent inequality, and it reintroduces the binary man/woman categories because it is capable of sanctioning only on the basis of a general population and within a liberal framework of state recognition. In this article the travesti critique of the Gender Identity Law is taken up to indicate a terrain of interrogations and challenges where the law becomes an instance of politicization, that is, where it becomes a field of strategic action and agency, but also a social tool and an instance of resistance, rejoinder, and reply.