After 14 hours of debate, Argentina became the first country in Latin America to legalize gender neutral marriage.

Argentina's Senate passed a gay marriage law early on Thursday following more than 14 hours of charged debate, as hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside the Congress in near-freezing temperatures. Senators voted 33-27 for the proposal, with three abstentions.

"We're now a fairer, more democratic society. This is something we should all celebrate," Maria Rachid, a leading gay rights activist, said as supporters of the law hugged each other and jumped up and down after the vote.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez supports gay marriage on human rights grounds and is expected to sign the law after her return from a state visit to China. The proposal cleared Argentina's lower house in May.

The LGBTIQ rights movement is spreading like wildfire in Latin America. First, Mexico City legalizes gender neutral marriage, then a judge in Buenos Aires rules the inequality unconstitutional, one thing leads to another, and now, we have marriage equality in a predominantly Roman Catholic country in Latin America.

However, as we celebrate this day, LGBTIQ rights (and especially T and I) still have a long way to go in Argentina.

Consider that Buenos Aires and Rosario are the only two jurisdictions in Argentina that have any form of queer anti-discrimination, and even then, it only includes sexual orientation (ie: the T and I are thrown under the bus). And the link to Rosario includes this

Travestis are detained for 20 days solely for cross-dressing, 30 days for charges of prostitution, and are forced to undergo HIV testing under threat of charges of attempted homicide. Approximately 150 travestis are arrested every month and are detained in harsh prison conditions that endanger their health and safety.

Police continue their violent and arbitrary detentions with total impunity, while members of Colectivo Arco Iris try repeatedly to meet with both city and county governors to no avail. The Rosario's police chief has publicly recognized the gravity of the situation against sexual minorities.

The violence has escalated to the point where there have been four murders of travestis in the last ten months. Particularly egregious was the July 29th knifing of Marcela (Sergio Alberto Arias). Both the police and the ambulance that arrived at the scene of her attack refused to attend her and left her to die. The Minister of Government for the Province Dr. Rosua has to this day refused every request to meet with Colectivo Arco Iris or to accept their denouncements.

Although this happens in many places, it still needs to be called out.

Getting tested for HIV is good, but what the Argentinian police are doing goes way too far. Nobody should be forced to go for testing on threats of a trumped up charge.

Furthermore, according to a study...

79 percent of the transvestites interviewed for the study make a living as prostitutes. "This is one of the few alternatives which allows them to exercise their transgender identity and earn a livelihood at the same time," states the report.

"The research clearly demonstrates the exclusion that affects our community, the difficulty in achieving the condition of full citizens, the problems with access to health care and education, police brutality, and sexual and domestic violence," stresses Berkins.

Out of every 100 transvestites interviewed for the study, 86 have been the victims of some form of police violence. In most cases, the abuse occurs while they are working as prostitutes on the streets: sometimes they are beaten for refusing to pay bribes to the police, sometimes because they resist arrest for arbitrary causes, and sometimes for no apparent reason.

In the city of Buenos Aires, laws that criminalised the exercise of prostitution and cross-dressing in public were repealed in the late 1990s. But prostitution is regulated in such a way as to make the police a permanent threat.

One of the things that puts Argentina ahead of the USA is the fact that like many developed nations in the world, it has universal healthcare and recognizes healthcare as a right, however....

there are no programmes that recognise the particular characteristics of these sexual minorities, and they are often lumped under the health service category of "men who have sex with men."

Resistance to being treated under this label, combined with the discriminatory treatment they report receiving in hospitals from doctors, nurses and administrative staff, lead many transgenders to stay away from HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programmes. As a result, medical care is almost always sought only when the situation has reached a critical phase, the study notes.

The report includes countless testimonials of systematic mistreatment in hospitals. Taunts, insults, the refusal to attend or refer to these individuals in accordance with their chosen gender identity, and the downplaying of the symptoms they present are just a few of the problems that transgenders face when seeking medical care.

Not only do they receive substandard care for something that it has been determined all have a right to in Argentina, its safe to say that transition related services are not covered:

The report also delves into the subject of surgical procedures and other treatments used to alter physical aspects related to gender identity. It was found that 88 percent of those interviewed had undergone some form of procedure for this purpose, and in almost all cases, the reason given for doing so was to appeal to potential sex trade clients.

The most common procedure was silicone injection, which can be lethal when the proper sterile conditions are not in place. Almost 100 percent of the interviewees said they hade received these injections in private homes, as opposed to clinics or doctor's offices.

Some of the subjects had also received hormone treatments or undergone breast implants.

Transition related services are like sexual education, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS related services; inaccessiblity and financial and other barriers inevitably leads to dangerous back alley procedures which puts people's lives at risk.

However, not all hope is lost, as transwoman Tania Luna found out when a judge allowed her to change her documents to reflect her true gender identity, even without sexual reassignment surgery:

In the ruling, Judge Pedro Hooft specifically stated that gender-reassignment should not be a requirement for transgender individuals seeking to legally change their name and called it a "serious incongruence."

"It would be to once again remain in a reductionist vision which equalizes sex as gender with only one of its external characteristics, in this case the presence of male genital organs, giving less value to personal identity," said the judge.

This means that she will no longer be harrassed by police when she presents identification at an airport, will not be turned away from employment, and she will not be discriminated in hospitals. Furthermore, it means she will not be discriminated against at sex-segregated voting tables, of course, even better would be non-segregated voting tables.

In conclusion, while we should be celebrating this milestone, we should call upon the Argentinian government to take a holistic path towards LGBTIQ rights. This includes.

-Trans-sensitive HIV/AIDS services as well as transition related services (SRS, hormones, counseling, permanent hair removal, FFS, voice-box tweaking, breast implants) covered under their national healthcare system.
-Non-discrimination laws, not just for employment, but for housing, public accomodations, education, and social services, and not just for sexual orientation but for gender identity as well, and not just lip service to gender identity, but specifically allowing for people to dress consistent with their gender identity and gender-neutral restrooms.
-A statute encoding the allowance of name changes and genetic market changes for those who identify as transgender regardless of pre-op, post-op, or non-op, and a ban on ordinances criminalizing crossdressing
-Legalize and regulate sex work
-Removal of gender segregating voting tables

There are many others which I cannot think of right now, but I believe there is still a lot more work to be done.