Original subtitles

History often gives us people

who, through their very existence,

change the course of society

and pave the way for future generations.

In Argentina in the 80s and 90s,

one of these people was Carlos Jáuregui,

the first president

of the Argentine Homosexual Community (CHA),

an organization that was created after the military dictatorship

to fight for the rights of homosexuals.

Carlos Jáuregui was the first person to appear in a magazine

to say that he was gay,

that he was proud of it

and that he was going to fight for his rights

and those of others.

The big issue is discrimination, discrimination against all.

The World Health Organization, at the end of 1991,

removed homosexuality from its list of illnesses.

These people are discriminated by the law.

Gays, lesbians, transvestites, transsexuals, all together,

today monitoring the police

and increasingly demanding our rights

until they become a reality.

THE UNFORGETTABLE QUEER

"I was born in the city of La Plata on September 23rd, 1957

into a middle-class family.

My mother was a schoolteacher

and my father was a lawyer, the perfect liberal,

even rocking me to sleep with 'La Marseillaise'

when I was a baby."

You are probably the only person to investigate

Carlos Jáuregui's former life in La Plata.

Why did you decide to do this investigation?

There was a great lack of knowledge

about what his life in La Plata was like.

So we got in touch with his university friends.

His father was called Carlos Jáuregui, Carlos José.

He was called Carlos Luis.

And his brother was called Roberto.

Carlos was the intellectual, then the academic.

Robbie, however, was the artist, the sensitive one,

their mother's favorite.

They are the sons of an old couple.

It is no surprise in that sense

that the parents died while they were young.

This is the house where they lived

until approximately 1981.

Carlos went to secondary school

at the Archbishop's School of José Manuel Estrada,

then known as the Archbishop's School.

He also began to have some kind of relationship

with Livio Panizza.

Livio Panizza was the priest

who introduced him into the parish activities

in the parish of San Pablo,

just 7 blocks from their house.

And from this relationship with the priest,

he obviously began to broaden the horizons

of his religious and social concerns.

It is undoubtedly during this period

that the seed of activism began to grow in Carlos.

He was a social activist before he was a LTGBI activist.

Carlos finished secondary school in 1976.

He went straight to university to study History

at the National University of La Plata.

Once he finished his degree, he applied for a scholarship

and went to France to study Medieval History.

France at the time of his arrival

was the France of François Mitterrand.

It began to witness a kind of spring

for gay people and the movement.

He makes contact through a boyfriend of his

with someone who was maybe a fleeting romance,

but more likely he fell in love, Carlos always fell in love.

Within five days, he'd fall in love.

So this person was an activist in France

and introduced him to activism.

There was big march in April

by the gay and lesbian community in Paris,

which urged people

in the middle of the elections...

not to vote for candidates that discriminate.

I don't know if it was the Gay Pride in June or this march,

where Carlos tells the story

that he stopped at a corner and saw the march coming

and his first reaction was to cry.

"It was incredible for me

to discover how it was possible to organize a community,

to see this march and see how behind a movement

there was an entire clear, concrete political movement

that fought for very precise demands.

It was truly an eye-opener."

After his journey to France,

Carlos makes another stop, this time in New York,

where we could say

that his desire for freedom begins to take shape

and something else takes shape, taking ownership of a desire

and understanding what is possible.

Something that he hadn't experienced in Argentina

and which he begins to feel is possible

during this journey to Paris.

New York brings him closer

to the gay life and sociability

in its highest expression at that time.

I think it transforms him into the Carlos Jáuregui

that returned to Argentina in 1982.

Carlos begins to absorb himself

in the first demands of the global movement.

When he returns to Argentina

he wants to put them into practice here.

One of the most important things for him

was achieving something that the Gay Liberation Front

was not able to achieve, as it was a very different era,

and that was to incorporate visibility.

He moved back to Buenos Aires

and moved into an apartment with his brother Roberto.

Soon after he discovers that Roberto is also homosexual.

Hello.

-How are you? -Fine, and you?

-It's been so long. -Ages.

Come in.

-This is Roberto. -Of course.

This is the Playback Plastic Show,

a party where they dressed as characters from the play

to promote the show.

That night, when we left the club

they wanted to arrest them all.

Look at Robert, how different they are.

Yes.

Robert was very tall.

He moved his arms and hands all the time,

he dressed so bizarrely

and was also a lot of fun like Carlos.

In a different way.

The things Carlos had with politics and more profound ideas,

Roberto had none of it.

He wanted fame, magazine covers and glory if he could.

In 1982, after the Falklands War,

the military dictatorship of the 1976 coup

was mortally wounded. The human rights organizations,

who led the resistance against the dictatorship,

together with the political parties

and the labor, student and social movements,

took to the streets and forced the military government

to call elections.

In this democratic environment,

Carlos placed his trust in the Radical Civic Union,

who presented Raúl Alfonsín as presidential candidate,

and who was elected in 1983

as the first president of Argentina

after the military dictatorship's evil rule.

For this democracy which responds to the citizens

in regards to their needs,

what it does to the army regarding civil rights,

and of course the democracy which allows us to vote,

the democracy with which we eat,

with which we heal and educate ourselves.

When democracy arrived, when Alfonsín arrived,

I thought, as did the majority of our community,

that democracy itself would guarantee our rights.

And so democracy has arrived,

we gays and homosexuals can go out onto the street,

the nightclubs are going to open,

we can do things.

It wasn't like that.

The few clubs that dared to open their doors

didn't last very long

because they were obviously the permanent target of raids,

and sometimes the police took everyone.

They had trucks which took everyone in the club.

Other times they were more selective and took a few,

whatever the police captain decided.

Even so, clubs had to pay the local police

to be able to open.

In the summer of 1984,

arbitrary arrests of homosexuals on the street

and raids on the clubs grew stronger.

In February, a club in the area of Balvanera

was raided and the entire crowd was arrested,

about 200 people.

The owners were also arrested and had to flee the country.

This caused some independent people,

former activists from the Gay Liberation Front,

some members and organizers of gay groups

to begin to think that something had to be done.

José Luis Delfino, a businessman

who had opened the Contramano club a few days earlier,

offered use of his place to hold a meeting.

"Sergio, my ex-lover, gave me the information.

On Monday at 8 pm, there's a meeting at Contramano.

They want to start a gay movement.

I went to the meeting without knowing anyone

that participated."

I think he realized then

that the person he had become

plus his experience of Paris and what he saw in the US,

which was all about liberation

and the appropriation of his own desires...

-Exactly. -The assembly at CHA...

was the perfect moment and opportunity for him.

José Luis Delfino invited me and I went to the meeting.

That's where I met Carlos.

He participated greatly in the decisions,

he came up with ideas.

He was involved in many of the decisions at the meeting.

I think this made us all feel in some way

a kind of leadership.

At that moment, we all saw him

as the ideal candidate for president.

Obviously he was not the only one.

On April 19th, 1984

the Argentine Homosexual Community (CHA) was created.

The first assembly was held here.

This is where Carlos Jáuregui was elected president of CHA.

The aims were

specifically to defend human rights in general

and in particular homosexuals and lesbians

from any act of discrimination or repression.

And on the other hand, spread the topic of homosexuality

so that people could know...

It's the big achievement, right?

That in such a short space of time

the topic of homosexuality

is presented, it's being discussed...

Within CHA's main activities,

as well as speaking to the government

and trying to make our demands heard,

was trying to have a certain public visibility.

Letting people know what CHA was,

and one of the great achievements

was the publication of our first announcement.

Exactly 32 years ago,

as I was travelling on the 60 bus,

I began spying on this guy who was reading the newspaper.

Between looking at him and the newspaper,

I saw an announcement called

"With discrimination and repression

there is no democracy."

It was signed by the Argentine Homosexual Community.

On the 7th floor of this building,

the headquarters of this organization first operated.

One afternoon, I went upstairs and knocked on the door

and Carlos Jáuregui opened.

I could say that this first encounter with Carlos Jáuregui

would change my personal as well as my political life.

I was his friend and colleague

during the following 12 years.

We shared many sensations,

political activities, discussions, parties...

talks, journeys.

Many years later, I understood several things.

First, Carlos's power of seduction.

Second, the intelligence of knowing that everything counted,

even the differences.

Coming back to this building

is to remember a tiny office,

with the walls full of posters with slogans,

of human rights and liberation of political prisoners.

It reminds me of the importance of being able

to create emotional and political relationships

in which the differences don't divide.

At that moment, I knew that

the Argentine Homosexual Community had been formed.

I went with Alejandro Modarelli

and I was greeted by Carlos who interviewed me.

It was instantaneous,

there was an immediate connection.

We talked a lot.

We always had this kind of rapport.

My first impression of Carlos was a hyperactive guy

who was determined to initiate a project

that could be a metaphor for a steam train.

He was dealing with a thousand things at the same time.

I joined CHA after it had been created.

I didn't participate in the first meeting or in its creation.

The impression I have of Carlos Jáuregui

is that I got to know him slowly.

We were colleagues.

We weren't friends or buddies.

We were both lefties,

in some way we represented, if you like,

in a comical way,

the left wing of CHA.

The big achievement of CHA at that time

after the announcement in Clarín newspaper was this cover.

I think what the cover shows

is two guys that look fairly normal, who said they were gay

and talked about a homosexual organization.

It was a shock.

I think it demonstrated

that there was an issue that society wasn't discussing.

What Carlos Jáuregui did

is transform the old homosexuality,

a silent experience,

in which people suffered but without knowing why,

he transformed the suffering collective

into a discriminated one.

As a result of the article,

there were lots more stories, on the radio,

other media also published stories about CHA.

If we think about it from the LGTB movement

on a global, western scale,

it was the right moment

for this to begin to happen in Argentina.

But alongside this window of this globalized political opportunity,

the political intelligence of Carlos Jáuregui was in action.

He took it all on like a duck to water.

He always knew what to say or write,

where to aim, how to move.

And from there, it earned a reputation

which CHA didn't have until then.

During many years,

the nights out with Carlos ended up here at Contramano.

No matter which bar or club we went to before,

we always ended up at Contramano.

Having fun, dancing, discussing politics,

handing out flyers,

collecting money, hooking up as well.

In that sense, Carlos was a fun friend,

a lot of fun to go out with, to go to parties,

organizing get-togethers or whatever, he was a lot of fun.

Later he started going out with Pablo,

who I also had a good relationship with,

and our relationship became more intimate.

I would go to Pablo's house or they would come here.

And we were in close contact not just for political activities.

"I first saw Pablo

leaning against the bathroom wall in a nightclub.

Separated by just a few meters,

we exchanged looks and clinked glasses.

That toast was the kick start of a conversation

among the noise, voices and lights of the place.

In my mind, there is only the sweet memory

that at some point, I don't know why, we talked about Proust.

After dancing for a bit,

he said he wanted to sleep with me.

We left the nightclub. We went to his place.

On that first night we had sex until sunrise.

After breakfast, we started making love.

We never separated after that, until the day of his death."

Pablo was a very calm, laid-back guy.

He was very intelligent.

He really liked classical music, opera.

He read a lot.

They loved each other a lot.

I can't remember seeing them fight.

I think there was some tension between them,

it was a problem with fame.

Because Jáuregui appeared as the poor boy,

the unknown and so on.

And all of a sudden he had a prominent role

in society, in the gay community

and Pablo was relegated.

Although Pablo was someone

who wanted to be a film director,

and he also spent time with the stars.

They came from two different worlds.

What brought them together was their deep love

and a mutual admiration.

I think Carlos admired Pablo for his intelligence.

And Pablo perhaps lived inside a very rigid closet,

and Carlos was the complete opposite,

he was freedom itself.

So I think there was a beautiful encounter

which is the love that brought them together

and makes a kind of mixture

which is what couples are.

As well as CHA's external work

was the work it did internally,

which was getting people to participate,

that people knew what we were trying to do.

It was slow work, handing out lots of flyers,

holding meetings, exchanging telephone numbers.

After handing out flyers in another nightclub with Carlos,

we arrived at Contramano.

When I pulled over, I saw the police truck

at the door of Contramano.

Carlos says, "I'm going in.

If I don't come out, they've taken me. Call Rangoni."

Rangoni was our lawyer for the organization.

The police already knew who Carlos Jáuregui was.

So they didn't want to take him.

They chose people to take away

and he went by himself,

climbed onto the truck and said, "I'm going."

When we saw they had taken him, we called Rangoni.

The next day we managed for the first time

to appear in the newspapers

showing that the president of the Argentine Homosexual Community

had been arrested,

and show the public there were arrests for being in a club.

Carlos understood that visibility

was the first thing we had to achieve

in order to later achieve equal rights.

Unfortunately, this visibility cost him his job

as teacher in the university.

What we are outlining is this, discrimination is the big issue.

So just as we talk about sex,

the issue isn't homosexuals or homosexuality.

Discrimination is discrimination against all.

With Carlos Jáuregui, we have a new kind of gay on TV,

the queer that is queer.

He talks like a homosexual with great condescension

of all the stigma from the other side of the television.

We homosexuals have unfortunately had to hide ourselves

throughout history.

We're never discovered until we decide to be known,

come into the sun and live in the light.

Carlos Jáuregui began to educate people and introduce

in a totally original way for that time

what homophobia was.

It was a political moment for some.

There was the permissiveness.

There were the guarantees.

CHA could now operate in different areas.

For some, it became too bureaucratic

and for others it became more functional.

We were in the Argentine Homosexual Community

in a meeting, and somebody suggested:

"Let's have a female vice-president

because there has to be a lesbian participating."

I said, "Okay, but why vice-president?

She could be president."

That caused a lot of resentment in some people.

Carlos didn't want to stand for president again,

because what he wanted

was to deepen the internal democratic system

of the organization.

After leaving the presidency,

he took on roles like Secretary of Human Rights,

a role which fit Carlos like a glove

because he could begin to create policies

with human rights organizations and move more freely.

We went on the marches every Thursday.

And the first table we placed at a Resistance March

caused a huge stir,

because all the human rights organizations

of that time said:

"What do human rights have to do with gays?

What are the gays doing here?"

And it was difficult.

When you talk about discrimination,

and the strongest word a society has is "faggot".

To overcome that, you have to work hard,

work constantly, have many strategies.

It was all new,

because it was all emerging at that time.

In 1985,

people began to talk in Argentina

of gay cancer, pink cancer, the pink plague,

a disease associated exclusively with homosexuals.

CHA invited people to participate in the first test study

in Buenos Aires

on the homosexual population in relation to HIV.

The majority of us that were active in CHA

participated in this study,

we took the test, as well as Carlos Jáuregui.

"One ordinary day they gave me the results

of my blood test.

On the printer paper, I could read 'REACTIVE'.

I fell apart and cried.

I cried with fear, with anger, with violence,

with fury and impotence, but not with resignation.

For months, I told no one, for one reason only.

Pablo had been infected for a few years

and was beginning to show the first symptoms of the illness.

I decided not to tell anyone about my state of health

so he wouldn't find out.

I didn't want to add the concern about my infection to his worries

and the inevitable suspicion that he infected me.

At that time,

the Crónica newspaper talked about the pink plague,

homosexuality and disease.

On top of that, he was gay,

he was discriminated by his family and he was a carrier,

this was all that was lacking.

People would do the test,

go out and have no support if they were a carrier,

and within 15 days they'd die of depression.

So the idea was to change all that.

And in September, 1978

CHA did the first campaign for the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

"Stop Aids", which we did at Paladium,

was complete madness.

But it was very good.

The idea was to demystify

all this torture around HIV.

People prefer silence and silence is death.

The word is life. We have to talk about AIDS,

participate in the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

that CHA is doing here in Argentina...

The reality was so strong at that moment

that it seemed that CHA was AIDS,

and an accumulated disease

that was absorbing the organization.

Carlos said we were working too much on HIV/AIDS

instead of other issues.

The situation in the Argentine Homosexual Community

had become very tense.

There were fights and arguments every day.

Not just arguments about the internal democratic operations,

but arguments about the general political stance

that CHA should have.

The situation became unbearable and Carlos left.

Several of us went with Carlos.

Everything was affected by Pablo's illness at that time.

"Pablo, with whom I shared several years of my life,

began to show severe symptoms of the illness related to HIV.

I dedicated my time to caring for him.

Pablo taught me to see the world

and contemplate it through the eyes of a filmmaker.

Despite all his efforts,

he died on June 1st, 1988."

Pablo's family demanded that Carlos leave the apartment

because there weren't any...

It wasn't a joint apartment, there were no shared deeds.

And they claimed it as part

of the property to be inherited.

The parents went to the burial,

and they took Carlos home in the car.

And that's where his brother-in-law told him,

he told him:

"Get your things because we're closing the apartment."

He was on the street, calling people

to see who could take him in.

This situation, this event

left a mark on Carlos, who always told this story.

Argentina has, through the Civil Code,

a law of legitimate heirs

through which you can't dispose of your possessions.

It's your family members in an ascending line,

your line of descent, your children or spouse,

who will be your heir.

A couple of 5, 10 or 15 years,

if one of them dies,

and everything they've built together,

if it's in only one of their names,

it goes to the legitimate heir of this person,

who, in the majority of cases,

I'm talking about one or two cases a month we deal with,

in the majority of cases,

it goes to the nephews who thought uncle was a faggot

and of no use.

It's horrendous. Why?

When you get married,

the most logical thing

is that your children inherit

or your wife if you don't have kids.

I think the most logical thing is that my partner inherits it.

I was in a relationship then

with Marcelo Ferreyra,

and Carlos came to live with us.

We had just bought this apartment,

and Carlos asked me if he could stay here for a week or two.

I asked him if he had talked to César and he said yes.

So I said yes, no problem.

He moved into the room upstairs

which was the laundry room.

That's when we started living together.

The home began to grow with Carlos's presence

and with the presence of all of us.

It was the political and emotional center

for lots of people.

The staff in the press office at CHA,

on Fridays after work,

we bid farewell to the week by going for dinner.

And when we were no longer a part of CHA,

we moved the tradition to that apartment.

Friends and colleagues would come.

The fantasy that Carlos and I had merged together,

this thing of the French salons from the Belle Époque.

-The tertulias. -We also discussed politics.

So our River Plate fantasy,

we also reconstructed it.

At the same time, it was also the first meeting

where we began to think about creating an organization.

Let's stop playing the role

of permanent critical diagnosis.

Let's think about what we can do

to a reality that we don't agree with and don't like.

Let's think about what we would do,

what initiatives we would take, how would we do it,

why don't we like what CHA are doing now,

and how would we do it better.

We began to develop a strategy

which later became the creation of Gays DC.

We in particular have been working for a year

to achieve in the legal and political aspects

that are of special interest to us

a significant change in society.

All this with the ultimate goal

of achieving our motto

which says, "In the origin of our fight,

lies the desire of all freedoms."

It was civil rights because we wanted to work on issues

specifically in the legal area,

with the issue of laws.

If we attack legislation, we need lawyers

to create an entire strategy from a legal point of view.

So we would sit down

and wait for people to call the open line.

People would call about different issues

related to discrimination for having HIV or sexual orientation.

I felt impotent because I didn't feel prepared

to answer their issues.

They came with issues of discrimination for HIV,

because they couldn't get any medication.

And there was no legislation or legal history.

I didn't think I could do it.

And Carlos said, "Okay, let's do it.

I'm going to find some legislation from the US,

we'll translate it and you can work with that."

But I didn't know if I was up to it.

And sometimes I did it well and others no.

But at that time, I had to be ready.

There wasn't just Carlos Jáuregui who was active,

it was all of us in Gays DC.

We weren't kids anymore, we all had our own voice

and our own opinions.

And we had discussions, I learned how to argue.

I learned to have my own opinion in some aspects.

The Gays for Civil Rights Foundation

created and strengthened a meeting place

in an emotional and political sense.

Of course it was with Carlos,

but also with other colleagues

who from that moment were like brothers.

Here I have two brothers, Roberto Jáuregui

and Carlos Jáuregui, not Roberto Carlos.

No, no.

Carlos Roberto because I'm older.

Roberto, you're affected by AIDS, correct?

Yes, I've been infected with the HIV virus

since November 1988.

Three years?

I went through a period of complications and infections

which could have been the result of the AIDS illness.

Then I began to treat myself with different drugs,

with the drugs at that time such as AZT...

When he starts to work for the Huésped Foundation

and the HIV issue becomes more visible,

and famous people begin to talk about the issue

and support the foundation,

he was in some way helping himself

because he was infected and needed the treatment,

but he also helped a lot of people in some way

by making the disease more visible.

You've been handing out ribbons all over the place.

Why, Roberto?

This ribbon is a piece of red tape

which is the international symbol of the fight against AIDS.

-I want one. -Please.

There is a poster that says,

created for the Expre-SIDA exhibition at OSPERYH,

which says, "Please hug me although I have AIDS."

Can you hug me?

The fact that Roberto Jáuregui came out of the closet

not only as someone gay but also with HIV,

with his brother and his own family history,

was a key factor for Carlos to be involved

with the issue of HIV-AIDS.

I think Carlos forms part of a generation of gay activists

who for many years denied their HIV-positive condition,

but who said they were prophets from another land.

My brother is an AIDS activist, I'm a gay activist.

And in some way

this has given us a different role in society.

This was taken...

-This is your wedding day. -Exactly.

He has a beautiful expression.

And the Books of Lesbian Existence?

This section is all to do with lesbianism.

And the first books

-...were edited here by Carola. -By the women's library.

Carlos Jáuregui was part of the gay group

who were the first ones to buy

the Books of Lesbian Existence.

A few weeks passed,

and it was announced that Carlos Jáuregui would come here.

How would you describe Carlos?

A person that was very open to others.

And who, furthermore,

had an incredible energy

for activism.

Such that Claudina and I felt

that he had put his life into this.

He convinced us

that we had to go every week

to the meetings on Paraná Street.

That was it.

We met each other

and we forged an immediate friendship with him.

On the verge of the 21st century,

the Church does not accept the consummation of the sexual act

between people of the same sex.

Our church receives gay people,

lesbians, bisexuals, transvestites and transsexuals.

We began our task in 1987...

At that time, the religious issue was a difficult one

because our constant enemy was the Roman Catholic Church.

And at that time it had

a ferocious representative, Monsignor Quarracino.

At that time, I portrayed myself as Christian

and above all as very proudly gay.

We homosexuals exist, we are here, we are people

with all the duties and responsibilities

of any human being...

I met Carlos in March 1990.

Just as I had faith in God and in what I was doing,

he had faith in what he did,

in his liberal convictions for our people,

in facing the public and taking to the streets.

We were very sensitive to the religious issue.

Then there was a precedent

of what was later the pride march,

which was an event at the Methodist Church

because of some declarations made by Quarracino at the time.

So we made this protest,

the first activity in conjunction with various organizations,

especially the Metropolitan Community Church,

the Lesbian Convocation,

TRANSDEVI and Gays DC.

The success of this first joint initiative

invited us to keep working together,

and secondly to organize the pride march.

One day we were with Carlos,

and I don't know if it was him or me,

we said it's time to do the gay pride march.

Carlos participated very little in the discussions, but listened.

He never imposed his ideas

and each issue or discussion caused a fuss.

On the issue of the gay dignity march and gay pride,

we began arguing over what word to use,

either "Dignity" or "Pride."

And I said, "Let's use Pride."

Carlos didn't like it at first.

He said, "I don't like Pride, I prefer Dignity."

Because "Pride" was a very strong word.

It sounded very strong because nobody used it.

With how difficult it was to be gay or lesbian,

how can we not feel proud

facing the embarrassment that they wanted us to feel

for being gays, trannies, poofs?

It all clicked and we chose "Pride."

I don't know who

said that the march had to go down Santa Fe Avenue.

Santa Fe Avenue was where gays hooked up.

Our march was a political march.

It went from the Cathedral to Congress,

it has symbolic significance.

To say to the executive power, "Here we are".

And tell the lawmakers, "We want these and these laws."

For all the dancing, the foam and confetti,

the purpose of the march was a political one.

That's what I learned from Carlos.

I remember Carlos in one meeting was angry

because Santa Fe Avenue was a pick-up place

at that time.

It was the WhatsApp of today.

On July 3rd at 7 pm,

we're going to do the first Gay and Lesbian Pride March

in Buenos Aires from the Plaza de Mayo to Congress.

We left Paraná Street, there were very few of us.

We arrived at May Avenue and it was empty.

We started walking, there were no cars or anything.

We arrived at the Cathedral.

Then we saw it was full of TV cameras,

and we said they are...

We thought we'd achieved transcendence

with this first march.

When we got there, there was another march,

a teachers' march with lots of people,

which was on the other side of the square

next to the Pink House.

When they saw a group of gays in masks on the other side,

they all abandoned the teachers

and all the cameras came over to where we were.

I was scared stiff

by all the cameras and the lights surrounding us.

It was one of the most emotional days of my life.

I was so scared.

Panic, panic, I was shaking all over.

There wasn't a part of my body that wasn't shaking.

I took a mask and put it on.

The masks were because of labor discrimination.

People lost their jobs for being in these marches.

After two blocks, the mask began to feel heavy,

like a block of cement on my face.

And although I was scared and shaking,

I said I can't do this, I took the mask off

and did the rest with mask in hand.

It was like breaking out of jail,

we had to motivate ourselves

because we didn't know what could happen with the police.

At the front was Carlos, I don't know who else,

I was there with the flag.

Carlos surprised me with the megaphone and the slogans.

That's what gave it the political force.

It was difficult to believe it was a march with so few people.

Carlos's voice made it.

It was winter, an unbelievable cold.

We didn't feel the cold.

Because we went along singing.

"Respect, respect,

respect for the lesbians and gays that march

along the streets of Argentina."

The force of the chant:

"Watch out, watch out, we're marching...."

It was true, we were marching and we had never marched like that.

We marched all that time

with cars blowing their horn because we wouldn't let them pass

so that about 100 people could march,

until we arrived at the Congress monument

which was like a natural platform where we could read the speeches.

I remember Carlos had this kind of shine.

He said something beautiful

that this is the first march but there will be many more,

and for 30 years we'll continue to march.

I remember that emotion,

and that "Yes, we'll continue and we won't be moved."

It was very beautiful.

That first march was never repeated.

What we felt

was something extraordinary, extraordinary.

I was skeptical.

But I think that

the person that knew the value of the political event

of the first march,

the first taking of the streets, was Carlos.

And seeing that political value

infected us and provoked us,

and it empowered us so that after the first march

we thought about how to make the second march

much bigger

and to make sure it happened.

In the years that followed we harvested the benefits,

the political accumulation.

We'd done a lot and thought a lot.

Now we began to see the fruits of our labor.

The 90s were productive for activism

and for the organizations that participated in the march.

There were two resulting chain of events.

One towards the Nunciature.

Yes, because of all the barbarities that Quarracino said.

And the Catholic Church that supported him.

A big zone where all the gays and lesbians can live.

They can have their own laws, their own journalism,

their own television.

Even their own constitution.

They can live in their own kind of country

with lots of freedom.

When Monsignor Quarracino, the Primate Cardinal of Argentina,

made that statement,

it caused a huge scandal.

There was Ilse, Claudina, Carlos,

and the media, obviously.

As we were news back then.

They always followed us.

All of the gay and lesbian organizations of Buenos Aires

reject the statements of Monsignor Quarracino

condemning homosexuality, and which are not alone,

they are accompanied by the words of many members of the Church...

One of the journalists called,

I don't know if Magdalena answered.

Carlos took the telephone and said, "Yes, I already know."

We were talking here in the organization,

we're going to file a lawsuit against Cardinal Quarracino.

At Gays for Civil Rights,

the sensation was not one of surprise,

but one which we've felt on many occasions,

a little pain and above all indignation.

I ask for forgiveness if I offended anyone,

or if I hurt anyone's sensibility.

Carlos started a whole social and political movement

against these words,

but all this social outrage had to be channeled legally.

What he did was force

the legal interpretation of the anti-discrimination law

that didn't include sexual orientation

as a cause of discrimination.

It included sex as a cause of discrimination.

It was rejected.

We have the daily experience of people that call

and are Catholics or even catechists

or even priests

who are totally supportive of our fight.

They are completely supportive of gays and lesbians.

Not including, of course, the supreme authorities.

It was so fast. It ended up becoming

a transcendent political event.

Paraná Street became a kind of parliament,

a congress for gays,

the generator of the boldest ideas of the time,

constant ideas and constant debates.

There were meetings on Fridays where all the friends would meet,

there was always someone new.

Carlos proposed that the movement had four legs,

gays, lesbians, transvestites and transsexuals.

If one of the legs was missing, the table would fall down.

So he brought everyone together in Paraná Street,

because he desperately wanted to fill those spaces.

He began to bring all kinds of people,

and I remember the first transvestites

and transsexuals that came were

Kenny Demichelis, Sandy González and Patricia Gauna.

There was Karina Urvina as well.

When he brought people together

that came with a mountain of prejudices,

there was a lot of conflict.

That's where the idea to hold the talks at Tasmania came about

so we could get to know each other and clear our minds.

Carlos participated in the meetings.

It was the first time that someone from outside transvestism

asked them what they needed.

They held very interesting debates,

prostitution on the one hand

and, on the other, the terrible persecution

of state violence.

Let me go! Look at what they're doing!

Do you think we have no freedom?

It's been 20 years since I had surgery and I'm a woman.

For the police I'm something, for the law something else.

For the effects of society, I'm someone else.

I'm the well-known Patricia Gauna,

because I've fought for my documents.

Carlos didn't say, "Come to Gays for Civil Rights."

No, he said, "Start your own organizations.

Have your own discussions.

You have to install this reality

that is present in your bodies.

Start to make yourselves visible.

Stop being marginalized."

The police in Argentina arrest us.

There is a division of morality

on the 2nd floor of the Central Department.

We are arrested

and we have to pay fines for being different...

I heard her and said

from now on my activism is with them

or there isn't any.

when we started with this we automatically came together,

in the sense of the community of gays, lesbians and transvestites.

Then there was the first meeting in Rosario.

It was all sealed there.

At the Rosario meeting, we really saw the results

because there were so many people.

And the diversity, because there were all sorts.

It was so alive with old, young, from different provinces.

It also broke this taboo or this myth

that there was a question of victimization in the provinces.

That everything happened in Buenos Aires

and in the provinces nothing happened.

He talked about education, about activism.

For the first time in the history of our country,

organizations that unite people of different sexualities

are meeting to discuss their problems, concerns and projects.

He said that sometimes you have to say things

before they happen so that they happen.

So he talked about the gay-lesbian movement

when there were four of us.

It was okay because then the movement started.

But it was okay to talk about the gay-lesbian movement,

nobody has to know there's only four of us.

And in Rosario, the movement was happening.

We weren't four, it was real.

We, as ATTA, as transvestites,

are participating for the first time in a meeting.

Thank you to everyone

for starting to be our family, thank you.

I've been crying since the national anthem

and I'll continue crying. We've already won.

With this, we've already won.

In June, 1994,

some news hit Carlos personally.

Roberto Jáuregui, who was 34 years old,

has died as a victim of AIDS.

There was a kind of brotherly pact

in which Carlos had the political discourse,

that of civil rights,

and Robbie had the discourse on HIV.

But once Robbie died,

Carlos didn't take this discourse on board.

A death like Roberto's after five years

with the fight that he fought and moved forward,

having been so ill at times.

After the treatment he started with Dr. Khan,

a week later he sat up in bed and said,

"No, I'm not dying like this, I want to do something."

The media asked him about HIV.

We both did interviews during marches

and he grabbed me by the hand to talk about HIV

when they asked these kind of questions.

Do you think that people today care about HIV/AIDS?

I think we all care because we're very supportive,

but we normally care more when it's a family member,

or when it has a direct connection to us.

This is where Carlos did something important,

which was to spread out his generosity.

When Carlos went to a meeting,

he would always ask everyone before the meeting,

"What do you want to say?"

With Carlos, everyone spoke

and you had to learn to speak.

Of course he would give advice, before and after.

He'd look at what you did and tell you,

always lovingly,

"I think that next time... What about this...?"

It was a live school of activism.

I met Carlos Jáuregui at a meeting.

I was one of the founders of AMAR,

and he invited us to the pride march.

When we went on the pride march,

the majority of women, I was the only transvestite,

they couldn't show their face and wore masks.

When I saw the march, I said AMAR isn't for me.

This is as far as we come, there are other spaces.

And there was also ATA at that time,

as a strong organization with lots of members,

and I knew my fight was here.

This march in commemoration

of the International Day of Gay and Lesbian Pride

has been celebrated around the world for 26 years

and four years in Argentina.

Today under the slogan "Let's monitor the police",

because in this year

the increase in repression against the gay lesbian community

and against transvestites in particular

has seen an increase of at least 200%.

Carlos understood the overwhelming force

that transvestites had

and that they still have,

which presented a completely new aspect.

We demand that there is a new law,

an anti-discrimination law,

and the legalization of documents for people like me,

who suffer because of transsexuality.

I think that, without doubt,

the increase is constant and proportional.

300 people in 1992,

550 in 1993,

800 according to the police last year,

and today we have easily 2,000 people.

Participation is increasing.

There is conscience, pride and dignity.

Personally, I am thrilled. That's all I have to say.

We'll be waiting for you all

on June 28th, 1996

for the 5th Lesbian and Gay Pride March

in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Gays, lesbians, transvestites, transsexuals,

all together, today monitoring the police,

and increasingly demanding our rights

until they become a reality.

One characteristic of Carlos as an activist

was that he kept in mind the opportunities

and he included our issues and expressed them.

From 1994, when the National Constitution changed,

it gave autonomy to the city of Buenos Aires

to create its own constitution and laws.

Given that the constituent national convention has gathered,

we make a demand to the national constituent representatives

that they give constitutional rank

to the non-discrimination of people.

The full applicability of human rights

of all society has to be guaranteed

in the constitution.

The opportunity was, on some date in 1996,

to present a project

so that it could be discussed in the government.

Carlos began to write it,

it had to have a legal structure.

It is the current Article 11

of the Statute of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.

It has a law that prohibits discrimination

and gives a list of causes of discrimination.

Among those reasons,

we wanted to include sexual orientation and sexual identity.

That was it, to include those words,

and that was really difficult.

Some were in favor or against

the clause on non-discrimination.

We began to follow politicians, even to the bathroom.

They went to the bathroom and there waiting

were 10 transvestites, 6 lesbians and 5 gays,

waiting to ask them, "How are you going to vote?"

They didn't have a minute's rest.

Carlos began to be unwell,

so the clock was ticking

with the delivery date of the project

and with Carlos's life.

Carlos organized the first Pride March in 1992,

Carlos was one of the signatories of the lawsuit

against Cardinal Quarracino,

Carlos fought

for the LGBT agenda.

His last public appearance was at the 5th Pride March in 1996.

I think Carlos saw the last march as a farewell

in some way, I think,

because among that generosity of creating activism and movements,

he was no longer the only voice at the marches,

not the only voice but the singing voice.

The megaphone was no longer just his, there were other voices.

So I think he saw it

as something that he had seen grow.

I saw Carlos with his banners

trying to raise his voice and sing loudly,

but he had deteriorated greatly.

We greatly denied his physical deterioration,

we even denied Carlos's illness,

because I don't think we could handle it.

Because he was the driving force

of everything we had achieved and because we loved him.

His final decline began after this march.

I remember going to see him with Marcelo Feldman,

he was in bed, very pale and tired.

And we were like...

He left the room and we opened some drawers.

-What's the medicine called? -AZT.

There was a lot of AZT there.

I didn't know what it meant but I saw Feldman's face,

and Feldman said, "I don't think he's taking it."

He began to deteriorate more,

and more and more.

And...

there came a moment

in which he could no longer carry on.

"I don't think that death is the end of life.

The aim of life is always more life.

I don't believe in any kind of destiny,

but no one dies before or after their time is due.

I will die when I have no more projects.

I'll die when I've done all I have to do."

He left his bedroom and moved onto the couch

to sleep and with the decision to die there.

Carlos appropriated his own death.

He decided where he wanted to die and who with,

in what situation.

Carlos wanted to die in the place he had been an activist.

He wanted to die where he had done his project,

not his life but social project,

his social legacy.

The place where he had ruled,

where he made the most of his potential.

Surrounded by those who accompanied him in that process.

We all got together, we held hands.

He was there on the couch, we were all here.

The window looking onto Paraná Street.

We went around, everyone said something.

Like saying goodbye.

I remember he was already half-conscious.

There was a bench next to him.

I sat down.

And I cried, and I'm not one to cry.

I cried so much, I couldn't believe it.

Nothing, I held his hand. Alejandro held his other hand.

And...

Nothing, he stopped breathing.

He was gone.

It was like the disappearance...

of all those years that I was...

that we were so united

with so much intensity.

Someone, I don't remember who, said, "He's gone."

He'd just left us and...

it was a very...

special thing, you don't realize at the time,

but it was...

You can't believe it,

because you'd denied it from the start.

He was gone but he wasn't gone.

It was a beautiful moment

because there was silence.

We were all so tired, a silence like that...

which was very special.

And it felt like he was still there.

César called me to say that Carlos had died.

I was at home in Rosario.

I remember I instantly went away to cry

and...

I'd never cried in public.

Not even in my house.

I remember my mother looked at me like, "What happened?"

I remember I took the first bus

that left for Buenos Aires.

We said we have to do something to make the death public,

because Carlos was a public person.

And we decided that Carlos should have his last march.

We went and did the march

with the pride flag and the Gays DC flag.

The flag that Carlos helped to paint

and had been in all the pride marches.

As we didn't want it to get damaged,

we wrapped the flag around the coffin,

and we held a vigil all night.

And the flag went with him.

Thanks to Carlos Jáuregui

I can say what I'm saying now,

I'll love him forever.

Thanks to him, I am Patricia Gauna.

He taught me how to fight,

to never give up.

And for Carlos Jáuregui

and other friends, I'll never give up the fight.

Never.

The most difficult thing I remember was the whole...

the march we did

and the homage to him in the square.

And our pain was so great,

but it was also something beautiful

because we were saying goodbye in public,

visible, with that dignity

that he had taught us.

Everyone said something, someone told me,

"Ilse, say something."

And I was with...

so much pain...

I think I said...

"The energy you gave us was so great, Carlos.

It was so great." Something like that.

Not much more.

I'm not saying goodbye to Carlos,

I'm crying for his physical death.

I'm crying because he won't greet me again,

I can't talk to him again.

He won't be with us physically in all the marches

and all the fights that we fought with him.

I was in so much pain,

that I said, "Carlos hasn't died."

It was the only way I could handle it,

by rejecting it.

And some people criticized me for it.

It was my way of protecting myself from so much pain.

What I also wanted to say

was that...

his fight and his work would continue.

They'd carry on.

If I take myself back to that day,

what I feel now

is I wasn't conscious of what was happening.

I think it took me many years

to understand what Carlos's death meant

and I think that even though

there is an affective dimension and emotional pain,

there is a political dimension that I built for many years.

And almost immediately we had to go to the courts.

Someone, I think Lohana said, "Let's dry our tears."

"Let's dry our tears and go to the courts,"

because they were discussing the law.

Finally, they voted unanimously

for the inclusion of the anti-discrimination law.

During the ceremony

of the adoption of the constitution,

everyone that participated went

with a photocopy of Carlos's face

on our chests

to show that this was Carlos's initiative

and it was the first legal achievement

of this movement.

For us, it was very important.

We took the photos to put pressure on them

but also to have him there with us.

And this constitutional law was the foundation

for other important laws and advances,

because if those words weren't there, "sexual orientation",

we wouldn't have been able to abolish the decrees,

there'd be no civil union or equal marriage.

And the happiness when the constitution came out,

because we knew that this was,

that is what he most wanted at that time.

All the events around Carlos's death,

the march afterwards

and the constitution,

we said we can do this without Carlos,

we can still be a movement without Carlos.

Let's continue the movement, we can do it.

That thing of not accepting his absence,

not accepting the pain,

we said we're not invalid because Carlos died.

It was a beautiful thing

to have been so close to Carlos.

And I remember him...

as a great love.

With all the rights denied to us by this society,

we take to the streets,

we become activists,

partake in politics and all the activities the organizations do,

we're here present.

Now people don't realize what it meant

to have his face on a magazine cover in 1985.

I don't think people are aware.

It's so ordinary now

for actors to talk about their partner or spouse,

or actresses...

It's something so ordinary

I think we don't realize

the shock to society

to see a magazine cover

with a gay couple.

The most important thing is the legacy of visibility,

of putting your face and body on show

with how difficult it was at the time.

These people are discriminated by law,

they have been victims of aggression like is happening

right now, I hope it's not serious.

The discrimination is given by the law.

This is what I learned from Carlos,

to always be where an answer is needed

and have a combative attitude

against something so serious as homophobia.

I think Carlos became a myth.

Each person adds their own vision

and their own experience.

I think that it is very important at these times

that the community knows

where we have come from.

Because if we don't, it seems that...

We look at the last photo of a civil union or equal marriage,

gender identity, you understand?

But we have a history

that is more than 50 years' old.

I thank life for putting me close to him,

and for the luck in being able

to leave my prejudices aside

and be able to learn from him.

Carlos was my role model as an activist

and he still is.

On September 20th, 2010,

a project led by ex-legislator Diana Maffía

baptized this square with Carlos Jáuregui's name.

Among Carlos's closest friends,

we thought that Carlos would laugh at this homage.

I think it is a gesture that dignifies his activism

and dignifies his existence.

We are once again

occupying the square with different activities.

There is a book fair.

Our male and female colleagues are playing football.

We're here to pay homage, something we have to do always,

every day and all the time,

to show what Carlos Jáuregui means to us

and to the community.

This plaque was inaugurated by Diana Maffía

together with César Cigliutti,

the president of the Argentine Homosexual Community.

It has a quote.

"In the origin of our fight

lies the desire of all freedoms."

It's the founding motto of Gays for Civil Rights

and I could say for the region and the whole world.

Who isn't in favor of the desire for all liberties?

We'll be waiting for you all

at the Gay and Lesbian Pride March

in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Gays, lesbians, transvestites, transsexuals,

all together, increasingly demanding our rights

until they become reality.

THE UNFORGETTABLE QUEER THE LIFE OF CARLOS JÁUREGUI

Subtitles: Jonathan Hemming jonathan@translationengland.com