Paper short abstract:

This paper presents an ethnographic research on labour inclusion initiatives for trans people in Argentina. We argue that the current effervescence of the issue should be contextualized, in order to illuminate the processes of struggle, and to trace the course of these demands.

Paper long abstract:

Although there are no official statistics about trans people in Argentina, studies carried out by local organizations have shown that almost 88% of them have never had a registered job. This is a result of their expulsion from home and school at an early age, and the lack opportunities apart from street-based prostitution. Since 1990, several organizations have emerged in the country as a response to this situation, focusing their efforts on the public denunciation of the violence exerted by security forces and on the organization of HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns.

Currently, their purposes have diversified and they have broadened their demands to encompass access to education, housing, healthcare and work. Regarding the latter, since 2008 the Argentinian state has supported the creation of protected cooperative ventures in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, aimed at self-management of employment as a labour alternative. Recently, a new law passed in the National Congress, providing quotas for public positions and tax exemptions for private companies hiring trans people.

This paper presents the main questions and emerging issues of an ethnographic research on labour inclusion initiatives for trans people in Buenos Aires. It outlines three different case studies: the establishment of quotas in a state agency, the formation cooperatives, and the inclusion and management of "diversity" in the private sphere. We argue that the idea of novelty and the current effervescence of the issue should be contextualized, in order to illuminate the processes of struggle, and to trace the course of these demands in Argentina.