An annual LGBTQ Pride march in Buenos Aires drew thousands of participants Saturday, with speeches and banners targeting austerity policies of far-right President Javier Milei that the group says are discriminatory.
Under the slogan “There is no freedom without rights,” marchers paraded down the boulevard from the Plaza de Mayo square.
In a festive mood despite their serious message, demonstrators decried budget cuts they said affected HIV treatment and reproductive rights, denounced what they said was a hostile attitude from the government, and demanded passage of a comprehensive anti-discrimination law.
Milei, a libertarian former economist sometimes compared to Donald Trump, had angered the community by dissolving the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity, as well as the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism in his first year in office.
Milei’s government “repeatedly insults people of diversity without any hesitation,” LGBTQ activist Lucas Gutierrez said shortly before the march began.
In August, Justice Minister Mariano Cuneo Libarona told lawmakers that his government rejected “the diversity of sexual identities that do not align with the biological” — a statement criticized by a wide range of politicians.
