Summer Love. Urgent notes on the LGBTQ+ Anti-Racist Anti-Fascist Assembly

Abstract

Amidst the abrupt reconfigurations of the known world evident in the current historical cycle, marked by the electoral advances of the far right and the growing state of war and genocide on a global level, faced with a world in which the words and forms of political action we have historically used to imagine emancipatory possibilities appear snatched, appropriated, emptied, or denigrated, I do not expect (nor can I) undertake the pompous gesture of proposing a theoretical approach to nascent, fragile forms of resistance. But perhaps I would prefer to attempt a limited personal writing exercise that accounts for the facts and also the debates in which we are immersed, which hopefully will fuel a potential collective journal.

I propose to share here the dizzying journey of a political experience that erupted in Argentina in the early months of 2025 in an unexpected and challenging way, outside of known logic and organizations (unions, political parties, federations of the LGBTQ+ community). It was clearly expressed in the massive February 1st demonstration (1F) in Buenos Aires and in many towns and cities in Argentina and around the world, with an estimated total mobilization of two million people that day. I share a series of notes written in the first-person singular as a direct participant and witness of this process, in a polyphonic dialogue with testimonies and analyses written by other people involved. I aspire to capture the coordinates of its dizzying development, the character of a public event it achieved, and also the limits and conflicts that are soon taking their toll on this exceptional experience.

This personal chronicle feels written in the midst of urgency, without distance or calm. We are stunned and devastated by the magnitude and virulence of the attacks we are receiving. But at the same time, in the midst of this atrocious time, despite everything, we continue to collectively invent ways to confront such an escalation of hatred and sustain the possibility of dissident lives.