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The white, pink, and blue colors of a massive trans flag soar above a sea of workers and banners from state employee unions protesting sweeping government layoffs. It is April 10, 2024, in the center of the City of Buenos Aires, and only four months have passed since the ascension to power of rat-right President Javier Milei, who treats state workers as his enemies in order to justify the destruction of the state. As trans, travesti, and non-binary people, we have always worked to sustain our existence, but no one expected us to be formal sector workers; yet here we are.
Due to historical exclusions in family, educational, and labor environments in Argentina, it has been difficult for trans, travesti and non-binary (TTNB) people to participate, organize, or even be imagined—by others or by ourselves—as part of the formal workforce and its social protections. In 2012, the country passed a Gender Identity Law, heralded around the world as pioneering, that formalized the legal recognition of self-identified gender and access to transitional health services. But exclusion in formal employment has only just begun to be repaired and reversed through labor quotas that reserve 1 percent of jobs in the public sector for travesti-trans people. Thanks to continuous struggles, these quotas have existed in different provinces and municipalities since 2015, and on a national level since 2020.
Our research on the quota in the national public sector shows that TTNB people have only reached a maximum representation of 0.17 percent of staff and that they often face adverse working conditions like temporary hirings, low wages, or transphobic treatment. At the same time, the quota has also enabled the hiring of more than 955 TTNB workers at the national level, radically improving their material living conditions.
With the arrival of an extremist right-wing government at the end of 2023, the status of this policy has become even more complicated. Its control mechanisms have been dismantled by the new administration and there is no official record of its implementation. Likewise, 150 TTNB people have been dismissed in the national public sector since February 2024, which constitutes 1.3 percent of the 11,840 dismissals registered in this area. In other words, this group has been disproportionately affected by layoffs. The figure of TTNB layoffs was compiled thanks to a survey carried out by Zaguán TranSindical, a union of travesti, trans, and non-binary workers of the Argentine state, which two of the co-authors of this article (Sánchez and Laterra) are part of. In that survey and in the research carried out by Laterra and Fernández Romero, many TTNB people also reported that they quit their jobs due to the increase in violence in the workplace stemming from hate speech and the negligent management of work environments.
A zaguán is an entryway corridor, a threshold that is not quite inside or outside, but where many things can happen. Zaguán TranSindical was founded in 2023 based on the idea that in order to guarantee the labor rights of trans workers, joint action was necessary. These rights also open doors for others, enabling us to have lives that are more livable, stable, and protected. Beyond the positive individual benefits for those who obtain a formal job, Zaguán’s actions have allowed us to reflect on what it means to be workers in the public sphere, specifically, drawing upon travesti and trans views in order to improve public policies for the wider collective as well as for unions. With the arrival of Milei’s government, Zaguán began to carry out collective and transversal actions with different state workers unions in order to resist layoffs and accompany travesti and trans workers. Zaguán came to play a role in rethinking and acting on existing union structures and giving voice to travesti and trans laborers.
Centering Zaguán’s experience we consider the following questions: what are the political implications of acting at the intersection of TTNB people and formal work? How has it been possible to enact the defense of the TTNB community as part of union agendas, bringing together universes that seemed incompatible? In what way does the organizing of formal TTNB workers expand public imaginaries about the relationship between TTNB people and labor? And what are the collective challenges of organizing above and beyond individualism and identity politics?
The Challenges and Struggles of Becoming Trans Workers
Just as we were not expected to be formal workers, our realities are also not usually visible in statistics. The most recent population census in 2022 allowed us to identify, to a certain extent, the TTNB population and gave us a snapshot of inequalities in labor. Our own analysis of census data shows that the unemployment rate for trans women in that year was 13.28 percent, 15.75 percent for trans men, and 16.95 percent for non-binary people, compared to 8.49 percent for the total population. Among those who had a job, the rates of informal employment reached 50.15 percent, 46.43 percent, and 44.75 percent respectively, while that of the cis population was 42.61 percent. What this data shows is that beyond unemployment rates and in contrast to conventional narratives, trans people work but are thrown into different forms of precariousness, instability, and vulnerability in relation to their work.
Persistence in the fight against these inequities led to the creation of quota laws that were unprecedented at the time, opening pathways to formal employment. The 1 percent quota for travestis, transsexuals, and transgender people was established in 2015 in the public sector of the Province of Buenos Aires. This milestone was the result of efforts by the Antidiscrimination Liberation Movement, founded by travesti activist Diana Sacayán.
Long before these laws were passed, there were trans people organizing around labor, in many cases in relation to sex work, or, in the 21st century, around other types of work such as textile cooperatives and health worker collectives. Eventually, the accumulation of these struggles led to the introduction of the quotas. Likewise, some travestis and trans people who, at the beginning of the century, managed to obtain state jobs, have been active participants within their unions, although they have had to minimize the demands of the travesti-trans community in relation to their work to avoid friction with union cissexism.
With the existence of the quotas, it was possible to reach a critical mass of state workers that in 2023 gave rise to the concerns and imaginaries that enabled the formation of Zaguán TranSindical.
Bridging the Gap Between the TTNB World and Trade Unionism
It is difficult to talk about workers’ activism or trade unionism at a time marked by both a deep crisis in formal labor and ongoing debates about the relevance of workers as a class. Similarly, Argentine trade unionism and its labor actions are facing a serious crisis of credibility. Zaguán emerged in the post-pandemic landscape at the dawn of a new era shaped by right-wing governments as an organization that combines the intersections of travesti, trans, and non-binary workers with the desire to carry out union actions that safeguard our working conditions.
We always knew that the existence of Zaguán would cause discomfort in many directions since it challenges not only the internal logics of the unions, but also those that prevail within TTNB communities. Those of us who propelled Zaguán decided to inhabit that discomfort and ambiguity, already known to many trans people.
Indeed, in 2024, when TTNB layoffs in the national public sector began, some of the community’s first strategies were to give community support, organize fundraisers, or help find other sources of income—all without protesting against the layoffs. One of Zaguán’s crucial roles was to engage with the dismissed workers to ensure they were made aware of their labor rights and maintained links with unions that accompanied legal strategies in the face of dismissals and other irregularities in the workplace. Currently, there are more than 50 lawsuits in progress, led by different unions, that are providing the legal foundation for the defense of our right to work and to a dignified life. Zaguán also produces knowledge, recording dismissals to document the (un)implementation of the quota law and providing empirical evidence to defend jobs.
Initially, it was not obvious that Zaguán would gain support from the TTNB movements as there was resistance to union politics within the community. Many quota workers had not received answers from their unions when they approached them to raise issues in their workplaces. Others were simply not used to having formal jobs where there was such a thing as union action, or to organizing on the basis of an identity, such as worker identity, that was not explicitly linked to gender or sexual diversity. But Zaguán received the support of key figures such as the historic travesti leader Marlene Wayar, and as it succeeded in getting fired workers reinstated, the collective union strategy gained trust within our communities.
Conversely, the presence of TTNB people in spaces of formal work like the public sector, and Zaguán’s proposals in particular, unsettled a trade unionism accustomed to the imaginary of a cis-worker body and to more vertical and rigid forms of organization. In fact, the organization emerged before Milei took office when it was observed that the unions did not usually address the labor violations presented to them by TTNB workers. Nor do unions contemplate TTNB lifestyles in their welfare policies, which are oriented more towards serving cis-heterosexual nuclear families. For example, they offer baskets of products for babies or school-age children, or spaces for members to vacation with their partners and children. One achievement in this regard had been for a union to start offering discounts on chest binders. But, could a “travesti family” fit in in the union vacation hotels on the Atlantic coast?
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Translated from Spanish by NACLA.
Francisco Fernández Romero holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) in Argentina. As a postdoctoral fellow at CONICET, he researches at the intersection of geography and trans, queer, and disability studies. He teaches at the UBA and at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero.
Pato Laterra is a transmasculine, working-class, first-generation graduate student specializing in trans and care studies. He holds an undergraduate degree in Economics (FCE-UBA) and a certificate in care studies (CLACSO). Currently, he is a PhD candidate in Social Science at the University of Buenos Aires and a lecturer in Feminist Economics. His research focuses on trans care and social public policies.
Víctor Sánchez is a social activist and a law student at the Universidad Nacional de las Madres de Plaza de Mayo. He was a worker at the National Ministry of Health and was part of the Union of Workers of the Popular Economy. Currently, he is a member of Zaguán Transindical, promoting labor rights and union organization for trans and travesti workers.