Left-wing LGBT organization in Argentina (1971–1976)
The Frente de Liberación Homosexual (Homosexual Liberation Front, sometimes abbreviated FLH) was a gay rights organization in Argentina. Formed at a meeting of Nuestro Mundo in August 1971, the FLH eventually dissolved in 1976 as a result of severe repression after the 1976 Argentine coup d'état.
The FLH was made up of a variety of semi-autonomous groups that operated individually but maintained contact with one another through a non-hierarchical organizational structure, enabling coordination and collaboration on actions and documents. Many of these groups were on the far left, and expressed anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism along with their advocacy for LGBT rights, women's rights, and labor rights; a view of all forms of oppression as interconnected was a key aspect of the FLH overall.
In 1973 and 1974, a large section of the FLH led by Néstor Perlongher became involved in Peronism, over the objections of other FLH members who noted Juan Perón's past involvement in repression of homosexuals. Members of the group were present at the inauguration of Héctor José Cámpora in May 1973, and at the Ezeiza massacre in June of the same year. By the end of 1974, the FLH had entirely separated itself from Peronism after Perón once again became president and reinstated the "Morality Brigade" tasked with state repression of sexuality.
In September 1973, the FLH published 5,000 copies of a one-off newspaper titled "Homosexuales". They subsequently published six issues of an underground magazine called "Somos" from December 1973 through January 1976. "Somos" included criticism of capitalism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity as well as utopian messaging about sexual freedom; as time passed it became less journalistic and more cultural, and began to include art and poetry.
After the death of Juan Perón in 1974, attacks on gay people by right-wing paramilitary groups became more frequent, causing FLH membership to drop from about a hundred to roughly a dozen people. José López Rega called for homosexuals to be exterminated, and police officers were ordered to "scare [them] off the streets". The FLH eventually dissolved in June 1976 as a result of severe political repression. Some members fled to Europe and to other countries in Latin America, and many others were tortured, disappeared, or murdered during the Dirty War.
Formation.
According to Héctor Anabitarte, the FLH began during an afternoon meeting in August 1971 at the home of Pepe Bianco, an intellectual who disagreed with the idea of a movement for homosexual rights but nevertheless allowed his home to be used for meetings of Nuestro Mundo and translated their articles to English so they could be read by groups in North America. In the book "Historia de la homosexualidad en Argentina", Osvaldo Bazán wrote that Bianco lived with his mother and that the meeting actually took place in the apartment of Blas Matamoro in Once. In the meeting, the group of Nuestro Mundo members was joined by a group of others, many of them university students who were studying the social sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. People who were present and would go on to be members of the FLH when it was created include Héctor Anabitarte, Blas Matamoro, Juan José Sebreli, Manuel Puig, and Juan José Hernández. Néstor Perlongher, another member who joined the FLH by way of the student organization Eros, would quickly become a core figure in the FLH.
Structure and ideology.
Soon after the formation of the Frente de Liberación Homosexual, the members removed their initial leadership, deciding instead on a non-hierarchical organization to avoid authoritarianism and have a structure that was not reminiscent of a patriarchical family. Different groups within the FLH were semi-autonomous from each other, operating individually but remaining in contact to facilitate the organization of joint actions and agree on the content of documents. Large informational meetings were held in private residences to provide information about the FLH; after a general explanation of the organization's political platform, people who became interested could join an "awareness group" called Alborada from which they could transfer to one of the other factions that made up the FLH.
All groups in the FLH agreed to the ("Basic Points of Agreement of the Frente de Liberación Homosexual), an agreement created in May 1972 which had an advanced view of homosexuality for its time. The stipulations of the agreement included that "homosexuals are socially, culturally, morally and legally oppressed. They are ridiculed and marginalized, severely suffering the brutally imposed absurdity of the monogamous heterosexual society" and that "this oppression comes from a social system that considers reproduction as the sole objective of sex". Many FLH factions were on the far left, holding radical positions and espousing anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism along with their advocacy for LGBT rights, women's rights, and labor rights; this view of all forms of oppression as interconnected was a key aspect of the FLH. Marxism and feminism were core aspects of the political analysis of the FLH, and homosexuality was therefore understood as subversive because it challenged patriarchy. The Black Panther Party was among the inspirations of the FLH; member Juan José Hernández provided the group with a publication by the Black Panthers which he had been sent by a friend in the United States, and the text was translated to Spanish by Pepe Bianco.
The Frente de Liberación Homosexual was clandestine throughout its existence. When the magazine "Panorama" interviewed two of its members in 1972, the two men wore ski masks that covered their faces and explained that this and other secretive practices were due to the persecution they faced.
Member groups.
The Frente de Liberación Homosexual would come to include more than ten groups. Nuestro Mundo, Eros, and Alborada were involved early, as were the Profesionales, a group of well-known writers. Safo, which was made up of lesbians, joined after the FLH was created, as did Emmanuel, a group of Christians. Two other religious groups joined, for a total of three: one Catholic, one Protestant, and one centered around Third-Worldism. Bandera Negra ("Black Flag") separated from Eros due to disagreement about anarchism and became an anarchist group within the FLH.
There was tension between intellectualism and militantism within the FLH, particularly between the Profesionales and Eros. The Profesionales were older and more moderate, and members of that faction were publicly known due to their writing; member Juan José Sebreli argued that Eros' desire to take action was a disruption from the discussion of theory and ideas.
Relationship with Peronism.
Despite the anti-authoritarianism of the Frente de Liberación Homosexual, many members of the group became interested in the left wing of Peronism during its rise in 1973. A large group of the younger FLH members, including Eros and led by Nestor Perlongher, believed that a connection between Peronism and the FLH was a desirable possibility. Another large faction within the FLH was distrustful of Peronism, in part because the first and second governments under Juan Perón had repressed homosexuals with more arrests and police raids than any other government in Argentine history. Juan José Sebreli, a member of an FLH group called Triángulo Rosa ("pink triangle"), left the FLH because he did not agree that the FLH should form a connection with Peronism.
There was an FLH presence at the inauguration of Héctor José Cámpora in May 1973, where the group held a large banner with a slogan based on a lyric from the Peronist March: ("So that love and equality may reign among the people – freedom to the political prisoners"). After Cámpora became president, police repression of homosexuals essentially ceased for a two-month period, during which Peronism became more popular within the FLH and the pro-Peronist faction of the group gained more power. As a result, the FLH began dialogues with Peronist leaders and the government; the main focus of the FLH during this period was lobbying in an attempt to influence public policy.
A group of FLH members was also present when Perón returned to Argentina on June 20, 1973, an event that would come to be known as the Ezeiza massacre; they handed out pamphlets signed by the FLH and Eros, and carried a banner that proclaimed FLH support for both Peronism and Perón himself. However, there was not a full consensus within the FLH in favor of Peronism, nor was there one that members should be present in Ezeiza for the event.
Left-wing Peronism and the revolutionary left as a whole were somewhat inaccessible to the FLH due to homophobia; the left-wing consensus was that homosexuality was a counterrevolutionary product of moral degeneration under capitalism, and would fade away after the revolution along with issues like illiteracy and unemployment. Marginalization by other left-wing organizations was a common complaint within the group, and at both the Cámpora inauguration and the return of Perón, other groups that attended remained a few meters away from the FLH demonstrators on all sides. Antonio Cafiero acknowledged in 2009 that gay people had not been wanted as part of the Justicialist Party during the time of the FLH, and FLH activists reported having met with advisers of Héctor José Cámpora who told them that homosexuals could be cured in rehabilitation camps when Cámpora took power.
Members of the FLH expressed affinity with left-wing Peronism in an interview with the magazine "Así", which was published in the July 1973 issue. Colonel Jorge Osinde used this association to discredit the left-wing Peronist organizations Peronist Youth and Montoneros, putting up posters that accused both groups of being drug addicts and homosexuals. The response from both the Montoneros and the Youth was homophobic; they began using a chant at marches in which they denied being (literally "man-whores", used as a pejorative term for gay men) and (a pejorative slang term for people addicted to drugs).
In 1974, four months after reentering office, Perón reinstated the "Morality Brigade" tasked with state repression of sexuality. Repression of homosexuals exceeded historical levels, and the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance became active. By the end of 1974, the FLH had entirely separated itself from Peronism.
In the media.
In August 1972, the first interview with the Frente de Liberación Homosexual was published by the magazine "Panorama" in an article titled ("Homosexuality, clandestine voices"). The interview was with two FLH members who wore ski masks that covered their faces. In the interview, the two denounced the political repression that was ongoing at the time, debunked multiple pseudoscientific beliefs about homosexuality, and expressed that the FLH was interested in working with other left-wing groups. They additionally compared machismo to fascism, describing it as "the fascism of the home". The "Panorama" article sensationalized the FLH and emphasized the similarities between it and the guerrilla groups in Argentina at the time.
In September 1972, the FLH issued a press release after members were attacked by police officers while graffitiing the phrase ("Lesbian you are not alone"). The statement denounced the aggression of the police, and was republished by many news outlets including "Crónica" and "La Opinión".
Members of the FLH were interviewed for the July 1973 issue of the magazine "Así", which was titled ("Fears and desires of the Argentine homosexual"). In the interview, they identified the FLH as connected to the Peronist left. On the front page of the September 1973 issue, the FLH endorsed the Justicialist Party.
The final public appearance of the FLH was in an article published in "Crónica" on February 11, 1976, and titled ("Strange protest: Homosexuals complain of persecution"). The group effectively disbanded shortly afterward due to political repression.
Publications.
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"The same system that oppresses and exploits you is the one that discriminates against us"
– Slogan used on FLH flyers from 1972
In 1972, in an effort to take advantage of public dissatisfaction with the government, the Frente de Liberación Homosexual began a propaganda campaign in which flyers on colored paper were thrown into public spaces. Each flyer was cut into an eye-catching shape and bore the image of a raised fist along with a slogan. The goal of the campaign was to foster empathy for gay people by equating the repression of homosexuals with political repression as a whole.
Banners, flyers, and other communications by the group characteristically used non-uniform capitalization styles, as seen on the banner carried by FLH members at the inauguration of Héctor José Cámpora in May 1973.
"Homosexuales".
In September 1973, the Frente de Liberación Homosexual published 5,000 copies of a one-off newspaper titled "Homosexuales". Intended for public consumption, the newspaper was circulated among government officials