8M in Buenos Aires puts a limit on Milei’s fascist agenda
A woman looks towards the square with her face covered by green and violet handkerchiefs on March 8, 2025 in Buenos Aires. Photo © Susi Maresca.
Reportage • Susi Maresca and Ceci García • March 13, 2025 • Leer en castellano
The streets surrounding Argentina’s National Congress took on tones of purple and green as people dressed in the colors of of the struggle for abortion rights and against gender violence began to gather.
It was around four in the afternoon, a light drizzle began to dissipate the sun slowly peeked through the clouds. The temperature had just dropped sharply following a heatwave that pushed temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius and caused power outages throughout Buenos Aires.
Taking the streets on March 8 felt different this year, for a number of reasons. Among them was that no one could predict how much repression there would be, or whether it would rule the day. The previous Wednesday, a brutal crackdown on retirees in the very same place made international news headlines.
An artivist group began to paste up stickers on Rivadavia Avenue. A group called Acción Sudakal painted a mural that read “All fire is political” with a silhouette of Latin America and the word “antifascist.” Affinity groups from various organizations began to gather on Avenida de Mayo. The mobilization for International Women’s Day left no doubt that the anti-racist and anti-fascist groups that led the massive mobilizations on February 1 are holding their ground.
“This 8M is a continuation of 1F, it was organized by the same assemblies. It is an opposition march, one that challenges us to think about the conditions of work and unpaid work, and is less focussed on gender-based violence,” said Marta Dillon, a journalist, writer, and lesbian transfeminist activist who is a member of the Mostri column, in an interview with Ojalá. ”What we’re doing is setting a concrete limit to Javier Milei's neo-fascist project.”
A different kind of march
The march advanced behind a large banner bearing the slogan of this year’s 8M: International transfeminist antifascist, antiracist, anticapitalist and antipatriarchal strike.
Key figures of the feminist movement followed, including Nina Brugo of the Campaign for Legal Abortion, Georgina Orellano of the Ammar Union of Sex Workers, Sandra Chagas from the Afro-descendant community of Argentina, representatives from the Mapuche community, and Históricas, which represents transvestite and trans people. Organized retirees, a collective of migrants, social and political organizations, human rights groups, trade unions, student organizations and public health workers were also present.
Since Javier Milei took office 15 months ago, there has been a rapid repeal of and attack against rights won by women and queer folks. These have taken place not only in political discourse but also with regard to concrete actions that affect the ability of women and LGBTIQNB+ people to live with dignity.
The banner that led the 8M march in Buenos Aires. Photo © Susi Maresca.
But it is not only the political context that has changed. Something is also changing within the transfeminist movement in Argentina, a feeling that change was needed in order to continue embodying resistance. The movement is extremely diverse, and we are now witnessing how it is finding a new way of resisting within the current context.
As on February 1, there was no stage or speakers set up at the Plaza de Mayo, where the march ended. Nor was there a single pronouncement that was read, as there always used to be. Instead, many things were happening at the same time: people pasted all kinds of stickers on the walls calling for respect for the rights of queer folks. Sikuris (wind instruments) and drums resonated from the groups led by Indigenous peoples. Songs and dances broke out everywhere.
The change in format has to do with a strong critique and questioning of the politics of representation, according to Alejandra Rodríguez, a transfeminist and prison abolitionist who is part of the YoNoFui collective, the Mostri contingent (one of the most established autonomous LGBTIQ+ organizations in Argentina) and the LGBTIQNB+ Antifascist and Antiracist Assembly. “It’s not just about being fed up with partisan political structures and their format, it’s also about the forms of representation that have emerged from within feminisms in recent years,” she said.
Intersectional feminism against plunder and cruelty
“We are striking against plunder, against cruelty, and against the politics of hunger of this government. We’re showing that feminisms, transfeminisms and the LGBTIQ+ community are fundamental pillars of resistance, as well as in the construction of an alternative to this far-right government,” said Luci Cavallero of the Ni Una Menos collective.
The change that’s taking place is also related to the emergence of social actors that are today leading the movement.
Racialized people, retirees, migrants, transvestites and transsexuals are taking the reins, managing not only to organize themselves but also to collectivize anti-fascist rage. People living in precarity, those who are out of work or who work triple shifts (paid work, domestic work and community organizing), as well as those who care for and sustain life without reward are the ones carrying the banners of working women.
Delia Colque is a Bolivian migrant and seamstress in Argentina, she’s also a member of the Ni Una Migrante Menos (Not One Less Migrant) collective. She and her colleagues told us about the importance of putting our bodies on the line to stand up for the rights of migrants.
“Today is super important for us because we remember the historical struggles of working women centuries ago, many of them migrants who were exploited, who worked 14 or 16 hour days in textile factories,” said Colque as she marched with her comrades, who handed out green handkerchiefs they made themselves.
Colque said the migrant community is once again coming together because the precedent-setting Migration Law Number 25.87—which recognizes migrants as Argentine citizens—is in danger. “That's why it's important to be here today and to make sure the government doesn't take away what we've worked so hard to attain.”
Marchan mujeres jubiladas organizadas sobre Av de Mayo el 8 de marzo de 2025 en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos. Foto © Susi Maresca
Politicizing what's broken
This 8M was also different from previous iterations because of a shared sense that something in the social fabric has been broken, or shattered, by the neoliberal and neo-fascist policies implemented by Milei.
“I think that politicizing that idea of that which is broken was super present in this march,” said Rodríguez in an interview with Ojalá. “The damage caused by these economic policies, the policies of extermination this government is implementing; that’s what we’re marching against, we’re showing there is collective resistance that unites many different struggles.”
Recognizing oneself as being damaged can be a means of unleashing a new power and vitality which can be recognized in order for new life to unfold.
As the day came to an end and the sun began to set, a group of retired women and a group of younger women approached the fence that divided the square in two and prevented demonstrators from approaching the Casa Rosada (the seat of government). Together, they chanted “Milei basura, vos sos la dictadura” (Milei is trash, he’s a dictator).
On the other side of the fence, a line of police guarded the building, flashing their weapons. A young woman with dark hair told a lady who could have been her grandmother: “This is my first march and I came with my friends.”
They smiled and chanted together once again. Because that, too, is what March 8 is about: intergenerational action.
