Argentina: Cristina hands out the first ID cards under the Gender Identity Law

Buenos Aires- Posted by: María Eugenia Vidal Posted date: 03 July 2012 In: Human Rights, South America

During the handover of the first identity cards under the provisions of the new Gender Identity Law, President Cristina Kirchner said that, “although we still lack a lot of social equality, today is a day of immense reparation for those who, like some of you here today, have waited for your rights to feel like free men or women to be recognised for 42 years.”

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner handed out the first ID cards as a result of the recently approved Gender Identity Law in an event in which members of the LGBTI community participated.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” she said. “Reality is what it is with everything that’s part of that reality, and the truth is that in the same way in which, on the day that we approved the derogation of the Law of Due Obedience [which protected military personnel from prosecution], I thanked the Mothers and Grandmothers [of those disappeared in the times of the military dictatorship] who always demanded justice without violence or aggression, I thanked them for such patience, today I’d like to thank all the organisations that continue fighting for broader rights,” she finished.

“I’m sorry you had to wait so long,” pleaded Cristina while expressing that her Government advocates for a “society of reparation for everything that people had to go through to reach this point in time… There is still a lot to do for other equalities,” she recognised.