ARGENTINA: Homosexuals Winning Battles, but not Yet the War

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 29 1997 (IPS) - Gay men and lesbians in Argentina now have the legal right to extend their medical coverage to their partners, who are also eligible for widow or widowers pensions.

They are also tackling the inheritance issue, and consideration of adoption possibilities is on the way.

In an interview with IPS, Oscar Reinoso, of the Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights group, said their ultimate aim was to gain the right of civil union, to cover situations of cohabitation in order to legally regulate inheritance or the division of goods in a separation.

“We have a homosexual couple who lived together for 21 years, built a house together, and when one of them died, the family collected the inheritance and left the partner out in the street because there was no written will,” said Reinoso.

The group is therefore calling for the same rights of inheritance for homosexual partners as in heterosexual marriage.

As for the issue of adoption – proposed as a right which should be recognised by the European Parliament – the Argentine homosexuals have decided to defer treatment of the issue for now.

Argentine law to date can grant the adoption of children to either partners or people alone, depending on the judge’s decision.

The Argentine Social Security Secretary, Carlos Torres, said there was no actual legal impediment to a partner proving five years of cohabitation from claiming a widow-ers pension, independently of their sexual orientation.

Torres made this comment in relation to the case of a homosexual man widowed by his partner, who claimed the right to receive the pension before an Administrator of Pension Funds.

Until recently, the Argentine pensions and allowances law only considered registered marriages valid grounds for claiming pension rights for partners, but recent changes included those cohabiting for more than five years.

As they are not explicitly excluded, homosexuals and lesbians now have access the benefit. A test case is currently working through the courts, and the Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights association has asked the State for an official declaration on the issue.

The case will no doubt mean a wave of pension claims from widows and widowers, and would be yet another feather in the hat of homosexual groups who only days ago saw a healthcare group extend benefits for heterosexual partners to a gay couple.

One of these was Rafael Freda, Professor of literature and director of the Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights group, who asked for coverage for his partner from the teachers medical union.

The healthcare group accepted the application, creating a precedent for other cases.

Meanwhile, the Pilot’s Syndicate, which said it had a large homosexual membership, took this ruling on board saying many suspended applications from their members could now be processed.

Affiliates of the health systems created by the unions pay a monthly contribution which is discounted from the pay packets to fund medical coverage. Dependent family members could always be included, but the right had never before been extended to a homosexual couple.

The recognition of these civil rights for minorities come close on the heels of Mariela Munoz’s victory against the red-tape of Argentina.

Munoz, a surgically operated transsexual, was last week given the right to carry documentation identifying her as a woman, despite having been born male.

For years she had been bound to maintain the name ‘Hector’ on her official identity documents.

According to the psychoanalyst Eva Giberti, the case had been successful because Munoz did not just appeal for a change of sex on her documents, but presented herself as a woman who wanted to become a mother.

Munoz had already brought up several children who had been given into her care by single mothers, but the legal system denied her the right to legally adopt them, instead processing her on abduction charges.

Now her sexual identity has been legally recognised, she will start the fight for the right to adopt the children she already raised.