These LGBTQ+ Archives Defy Erasure, One Memory at a Time
Trans memory The Argentina archives began as a closed Facebook group where friends from the 80s and 1990s could reconnect. He succeeded and the digital space was quickly filled with anecdotes, letters and chronicles. Then, the photographer This Estalles proposed to “extend it beyond the anecdotes”, explains Nastri.
The big leap forward was the exhibition He left, he was killed, he died (Esta fueled, at the Mataron, Esta Murió), with intimate portraits of friends in prison, exile or otherwise absent. Shortly after, the archive team began to dream of strengthening a greater presence.
Today, Nastri is working with archive managers, who are generally witnesses to older adults in the history of the community, because they archive, retain and digitize documents. For them, going to work is an act of resistance. In Argentina, 9,000 people (in 2021) changed their national identity documents to reflect their gender identity. People aged 40 to 79 represented only 17% of this figure, those over 60 representing only 4%.
The Argentine Trans memory archives hold more than 100 documentary collections with 25,000 articles from 1930 in the early 2000s: photos, film, audio recordings, letters, brochures, posters, press releases, police files, magazine articles, identity documents and personal newspapers. Their work is self -funded by projects, sales of books and monthly contributions.
On the website, there are images of childhood, exile, activism, letters and postcards, carnival celebrations, private parties, birthdays, sex, daily life, shows, portraits, as well as those of the professional life of people. The documentary archives created by PIA now live alongside 40 other similar archives in Latin America.
At the end of June, during the winter of Argentina, Hernández told me in a video call that future generations must know the repression they have known. His generation survived the persecution and harassment of the police during the dictatorship. Without these archives, Nastri believes that not only would a crucial part of history be lost, but that many moments of joy would also be forgotten. “Something that this community has are solid family ties,” she explains. “They have a tragic story but it is shared in a very joyful way.”
