At an emotional ceremony presided over by President Alberto Fernández, Argentina on Thursday handed over the 9,000th national identity document (DNI) issued with rectified data due to a change in gender, a right established by Law since 2012.
During a ceremony in the Casa Rosada, 51-year-old doctor, teacher and composer Isha Escribano was ceremoniously handed her new document.
According to legislation passed in 2012, every adult person in Argentina can demand that their documents reflects the gender they identify by declaring their intetions before the National Registry of Persons.
“I have a document now that represents my identity and that allows me to put a smile on my face. I spent my life in fear,” said Escribano upon receiving his new DNI.
Fernández celebrated the event and considered it "stupid to make people suffer for not respecting what each one is, and forcing them to be what others want them to be."
"We have restored the lives of more than a thousand people a year since the law came into force," the Peronist leader added.
The president acknowledged that he had been "critical" of aspects of the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administration, but clarified that "always" stressed that it was a government that was "progressive" in extending rights.
At the turn of the minister of Women, Gender and Diversity, Elizabeth Gómez Alcorta, interpreted this is “an act of reparation.”
Before a packed audience composed by representatives of organisations that fight for the rights of Trans people, Fernández hailed the achievement.
"Today we are being a better society, let's celebrate today we are a little more equal," he proclaimed .
Argentina has been a pioneer in Latin America with laws on gender identity and on gay marriage, which was approved in 2010.
- TIMES/AFP/NA
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