THE LIMITS OF DEMOCRACY
2011; Routledge; Volume: 25; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09502386.2011.535988
ISSN1466-4348
Autores Tópico(s)LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
ResumoAbstract During 1998 Buenos Aires witnessed a singular event: in the context of a broad legal renewal, street sex work was decriminalized. This decision proved to be highly problematic though, and led to a series of juridical reformulations that culminated in the delimitation of an official red light district in 2004. Nonetheless, although it might be thought that the legalization of this area as a site for street sex work (de facto aimed at trans sex workers) would stabilize the conflict, the regulation of sex work continues to be the object of an intense political struggle and the current situation is still far from achieving a fair agreement for sex workers. Certainly, although these debates might seem focused on the legal status of sex work, they have been addressing much broader issues that appeal to profound moral beliefs that are in turn intersected by the social organization of gender and sexuality. Thus, departing from this broader scope, in this essay I will analyse the history of this legal norm for taking up the question of the performativity of sex work configured as a social practice. In this context, I will try to show the modes in which the regulation of sexual desire implied several consequences for the definition of the public space itself and, at the same time, it implied the stabilization of the parameters through which citizenry and its rights to use urban space could be determined. It is from this point of departure that I will point to the link between the definition of sex work and the configuration of a 'legitimate sexuality', and from here, I will show the role of sex work in the configuration of the imaginary of citizenship and the public space. Keywords: sex worktransgendersexualitycitizenshippublic spaceregulationpower Notes 1. The official title of this Code is 'Código Contravencional de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires', but due to its first lines where it sets its goals, it has been addressed as 'Código de Convivencia Urbana' – 'Code of Urban Coexistence'. 2. The National Criminal Code of Argentina does not catalogue sex work as a crime, but it does include as a crime 'the exploitation of prostitution' (Arts. 126 and 127, National Criminal Code). Independent street sex work as such is not directly criminalized, but it is sanctioned indirectly within the local codes, through figures such as 'Scandal in public venues', 'Disturbance of public tranquillity', 'Offence to public moral, decorum and decency', among others. 3. According to the 'National Report on the Situation of Transvestites, Transsexuals and Transgenderers' of 2007 – 'Informe nacional sobre la situación de travestis, transexuales y transgéneros' – published by ALLITT (Asociación de lucha por la identidad Travesti-Transexual) (Berkins 2008 Berkins, L. 2008. Cumbia, copeteo y lágrimas. Informe Nacional sobre la situación de las travestis, transexuales y transgéneros, Buenos Aires: ALITT. [Google Scholar], pp. 61–131), 54.5 percent reported suffering aggressions at the police station. Regarding police abuse, 85 percent were detained illegally, 61 percent were beaten, 55 percent had suffered sexual abuse, 28 percent were asked for bribes, 18 percent were tortured, 14 percent were cursed, and 19 percent had suffered other kinds of abuse. 4. In the Argentinean context of that time, 'transvestite' referred either to what according to the normalization of these terms within the international community is defined either as transsexual or transgender people (in this context from male to female). With regards to the signifier transvestite, it is important to note that although within popular culture and the media it works as a pejorative term, it is also used within trans communities to vindicate and reappropriate the name. According to the 'City Council Report on the Situation of Buenos Aires Transvestites' of 1999 – 'Informe sobre la situación de las travestis en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires' (Defensoría del Pueblo, 1999 Defensoría del Pueblo 1999 Informe preliminary sobre la situación de las travestis en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires , Buenos Aires : Defensoría del Pueblo & ALITT . [Google Scholar]) – 54 percent identified themselves as transvestites, 13 percent as transsexuals, 12 percent as women, 3 percent as men and 17 percent chose others categories. It is necessary to remark that the term 'transgender' was not massively and publicly incorporated in the local context until approximately 2000. 5. In all cases, I have translated the newspaper extracts and the legal texts. 6. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/Archivo/Nota.asp?nota_id=90136 (accessed 6 December 2007). 7. http://www.clarin.cohttp://www.clarin.com/diario/1998/03/05/e-04101d.htm (accessed 5 November 2008). 8. http://www.clarin.com/diario/1998/03/04/e-03901d.htm (accessed 5 November 2008). 9. These 'figures' function as a rhetorical turn in public discourse that seizes upon the referent to produce a field of signification that invest the referent with a whole set of meanings. 10. http://www.clarin.com/diario/1998/07/19/i-01801d.htm (accessed 8 December 2007). 11. http://www.clarin.com/diario/1998/06/13/e-05601d.htm (accessed 8 December 2007). 12. Let me underscore here that I do not dismiss the different situations in which the sex industry works and profits from this illegality, for example, by setting up extreme and, indeed, unacceptable conditions and means of exploitation. But I am not referring in the context of this article to the traffic in children and/or young women for instance, but only to independent street sex work. Sex work as well as the sex-industry are complex signifiers that gather together many different social constellations, and I do not think it is useful to make homologous these very diverse social phenomena for the best understanding of how they work. 13. Unfortunately, it is not possible to develop all these instances in the framework of this article. Here I will only refer to the configuration of a normative public space and its correlative 'suitable citizen', but let me note that this logic of spatialization of the hegemonic sexual-imaginary that I am describing is entangled with other social constructs where space and identity are articulated producing exclusionary ideal modes of subjectivation such as 'the nuclear family and the privatized household', 'the good neighbour and its neighbourhood', 'the anonymous street and the city' as a place of compelling diversity, 'the nation and its ideal nationals' together with its borders and its 'others'. This issue is developed in my previous work (Sabsay 2009 Sabsay, L. 2009. Las normas del deseo. Imaginario sexual y comunicación, Madrid: Cátedra. [Google Scholar]). 14. I cannot develop here the reasons why the police refused to impose this law. Suffice it to say that the explicit police intention was to boycott the law for spurious reasons; their rejection of the law was motivated by their desire to regain the position of power they enjoyed in the time of the Edicts to extort sex workers, something that became unfeasible in this newer framework since the power to determine whether there was a crime and proceed to arrest sex workers was taken out of the hands of the police and given over to the judges. I develop this further in my PhD thesis, El sujeto de la performatividad: narratives, bodies and politics within the limits of gender, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universitat de València, 2009. 15. http://www.clarin.com/diario/1998/06/13/e-05601d.htm (accessed 8 December 2007). 16. http://buscador.lanacion.com.ar/Nota.asp?nota_id=91410 (accessed 7 December 2007). 17. http://www.clarin.com/diario/1998/06/12/e-05101d.htm (accessed 8 December 2007). 18. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/1998/98-06/98-06-12/pag15.htm (accessed 8 December 2007). 19. http://www.pagina12.com.ar/1998/98-07/98-07-03/pag03.htm (accessed 8 December 2007). 20. During this period Buenos Aires Government has passed the following laws and regulations: Ley 1004 de Unión Civil para Parejas del Mismo Sexo (Civil Union for Same Sex Couples) 12/XII/2002; Resolución del Ministerio de Salud para respetar la Identidad de Género Adoptada o Autopercibida (Resolution of the Ministry of Health on the Respect of Adopted or Auto-percibed Gender Identity) Exp. 75935/2007; Decreto 836-D-2008 de Identidad de Género (Gender Identity Law), CABA, 14/V/2008; Ley 2957 Plan Marco de Políticas de Derechos y Diversidad Sexual (Integral Law for Implementing Rights and Sexual Diversity), CABA, 4/XII/2008, among others
Referência(s)