A protester at Saturday's march. Photo: Euge Murillo.
By Euge Murillo – February 2, 2025
“Thank you for so much beauty to fight cruelty”, was a phrase that slipped in, almost a whisper, very early on when the Plaza del Congreso began to fill up for an anti-fascist and anti-racist march in opposition to Milei, which was unexpected, spontaneous and multitudinous.
One million people mobilized in the City of Buenos Aires – according to the organizers – as a result of the fuse lit by the LGBT community. A multicolored ray of light illuminated a day that will not go unnoticed. Is it a turning point? Is it finally a standstill? It remains to be seen whether the summer heat, impregnated in thousands and thousands of bodies, will drop or continue to rise. What is certain is that the march on February 1st was a massive and distinct call that sprang from an anti-fascist and self-convened assembly, and that multiplied throughout the country and the world. February precipitated a weariness and a hunger for change.
My first march
At four in the afternoon, the march led by transvestites, trans people, gays, non-binary people, and lesbians left San José and Avenida de Mayo, a riot of color, the starting point for a political event: “I had never been on a march before, but after the president’s speech I said ‘Enough!’ and I came.” Says Flor—14 years old—looking at the 14-meter-wide head of the march. There are 50 of them holding the flag with their fingers tightly pressed together, wrinkled with red and black nails. The fingers of trans kids and lesbians. Anti-fascist and anti-racist pride, a beautiful flag, painted the day before on the sidewalk of Bonaparte Hospital. That detail, evidence of what this march was, a confluence of struggles, an intersectoral vibration, a profound encounter to, as Flor said in her first march: “Say Enough.”
“It is vital to instill anti-fascism,” says Violeta Alegre, trans activist and DJ. “Now we are certain that it has not been instilled before, regardless of the progress we have made in human and civil rights. It is important to understand that fascism is not like Mussolini’s, there are other tools that allow it to be reconfigured, through technology and social networks.” She says, just before getting on the truck located behind the head of the march. Music, a montage, and voguers—ballroom dancers—applauded: “Unity of all queers, and those who don’t like it, fascist, fascist. We can’t cope, we can’t make ends meet, we defend life against the fascist project, against the fascist project,” they chanted. Behind them, LGBT organizations, feminists and a square full of trade unions, Peronists, and leftists. The entire spectrum of the opposition was at the march.
The popular festival without police
The Archbishopric of the City of Buenos Aires asked that the cathedral not be fenced off for the march, and Judge Ramos Padilla issued a preventive habeas corpus without anyone asking him to, both with the aim of preventing the security forces from intercepting people or transport. The streets around Avenida de Mayo were closed from early on and the street was transformed into a popular celebration, with LGBTIQNB+ pride in the air. The march broke the repressive protocols that were applied by Minister Patricia Bullrich throughout 2024.
The call was overwhelming. During the week, there was a rumor that it was going to be a march that a large sector of society was going to join, but no one could predict it would be this large. And it became a reality, as happened with the “University March” in 2024 or with the “2×1” march during the government of Mauricio Macri. “There are things that this society does not negotiate,“ says a woman who is holding a camera in one hand and a walking stick in the other. She is sweating and suffering from the heat of the mid-afternoon: ”I am a pensioner, my grandson is gay and he is 13 years old, I am not going to allow this government to do whatever it wants.” ‘Where is your grandson?’ the reporter asks her. “Dancing over there,“ she says.
Argentina’s Milagro Sala: ‘There Are Many Leaders Who Are Not in the Streets’
Anti-fascism in the square
“I think the most interesting thing about this event is that it puts at the center of the debate a policy of profound humanization of the different ways of existing in the world,” says Lucia Portos, undersecretary of the Ministry of Gender and Diversity of the Province of Buenos Aires. For her, it is a “commitment to solidarity and to the creation of networks of relationships that challenge the institutional framework and propose the creation of community, unmasking the group of people who use cruelty as a tool,” she explains, adding: ”I believe that today’s march is a turning point that should also lead to a questioning of the logic of democratic representation that is subject to an urgent demand—that of assimilating the priorities set by popular organization and communicating them, in order to build a majority that can effectively put a stop to the violence. The governor, Axel Kicillof, also took part in the march with the column from the province of Buenos Aires.
“The joy of having organized a political event together full of tenderness and political determination,” said Marta Dillon, activist, lesbian and feminist. “These people say no to you, Milei, we are not willing to tolerate your policy of extermination. We are not going to let fascism in.”
An unforgettable march that marks a turning point
“Our anti-racist discussion in relation to today’s march, and to this government, seeks to denounce the cuts and the losses in public policies and reparation measures for our communities, historically marginalized and violated due to structural and institutional racism in Argentina,” says Alejandra Pretel, member of afroslgbtiq+ and co-founder of Afrocolectiva, who was part of the anti-fascist assembly:
“For the president’s message to be replicated in the country and in the world is very dangerous,” says Yokarta, a sex worker who marches with AMMAR (Sex Workers’ Union). “It enables them to rape us in the neighborhoods where we work, to bring back the police raids and to arrest me for whatever reason. With that discourse, it’s to see if the police like us or not and that can’t be,” she says. ‘If the president says we are dangerous, then the police are going to retaliate against us, every time they see me, because I am a sex worker, a migrant, or trans,’ she explains.
Transversality was colored, from the specific problems of the LGBT community to poverty pensions, all in the same march: “It is essential to fight against the hollowing out of health policies, especially those that provide or allow abortion, access to comprehensive health care for LGBT people, HIV medication, and hormone treatment,” says Cesar Bisutti, lawyer, anti-prison activist and worker in the gender equity department of the Ministry of Health of the province of Buenos Aires.
The day was a necessary day of beauty responding to cruelty, in the form of murmurs and celebration, with skin in the sun and make-up, far removed from the constant tear gassing that repeatedly challenges social protest. A stop, a hindrance, and a message, replicated in the world against the far right. The day after, there will be some relief, and now the fuse of fighting back will already have be lit.
