Gender identity as a human right. Analysis of the transit of a concept in the speeches of the State of the City of Buenos Aires (period 2003-2010)

Abstract

This paper analyzes how the State regulates bodies that challenge binary gender rules. Since 2003, several regulations regarding the respect for trans gender identities emerged as part of a broader ‘Human Rights’ ideology in Argentina. The factors that made this possible, and the ways in which the concepts of transvestism, transsexualism, transgenderism and gender identity are defined in those regulations are at the core of this article. This study is guided by the hypothesis that new human frontiers are instituted under the notion of human rights related to gender identity. Thus, three official documents are analyzed to address the senses present therein. The epistemological approach is based on Michel Foucault’s archeology, particularly in regard to his understanding of the document’s value. The central methodological strategy is the analysis of secondary data sources: official documents addressed using the content analysis’s technique.