(Buenos Aires) Argentina’s Justice Minister has sparked a wave of protests after remarks in Parliament against “subjective inventions” such as “diversity of sexual identities,” defending the Milei government’s hostility to gender policies.
“We reject the diversity of sexual identities that do not correspond to biology, they are subjective inventions,” Minister Mariano Cuneo Libarona said on Tuesday in the parliamentary committee on Women and Diversity, which was hearing him on government policy in this area.
“Gender alone is over. For us, values are the family, which is the center of society and education,” he added, claiming as a liberal credo “equal treatment” of men and women before the law. And castigating in passing the “hypocrisy”, the “useless waste”, the “scam” of organizations dedicated to the defense of women, of diversity, ineffective according to him.
The government of the ultraliberal Javier Milei, in power since December, has never made a secret of its hostility to feminism and gender issues, according to it, a “political business”. Among other things, it has eliminated the Ministry of Women, the Institute against Discrimination created in 1995, and banned inclusive language in the army and the national administration.
In committees, the minister was vehemently challenged. “Whatever you think, you are the Minister of Justice and are required to apply the law,” said Carla Carizzo, UCR MP (opposition, centre-right). “All you need now is to say that we are sick!” said homosexual MP Maximiliano Ferraro, from the Civic Coalition (centre).
Among other protests from rights organizations, Amnesty International Argentina condemned a speech “that promotes violence and hatred against diversity,” and the Argentine LGBT+ Federation condemned “unacceptable statements coming from someone who should protect our rights, not undermine them.”
The country’s main university, Buenos Aires, on Thursday denounced a speech that “ignores the constitutional and legal bases of the nation, and the rights of all people, without distinction of gender or sexual orientation.”
Socialist MP and LGBT activist Esteban Paulon called for the minister’s resignation, to which presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni reaffirmed his support. “We do not want any discrimination, but we want anyone who perceives themselves as they perceive themselves not to demand that others recognize this self-perception,” he commented.