Three Argentinian Lesbians, Including a Couple, Are Dead After Buenos Aires Arson Attack

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A lesbian couple and a third lesbian roommate are dead after a person allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail into their room in a Buenos Aires boarding home, according to a report in the Washington Blade.

Police say that 68-year-old Justo Fernando Barrientos set fire last Monday to a room where Mercedes Figueroa and Pamela Fabiana Cobas lived together with two other women, Sofía Castro Riglos and Andrea Amarante. Figueroa and Cobas both died, while Amarante died in a hospital on Sunday from injuries sustained in the fire.

Witnesses said Barrientos threw a Molotov cocktail inside the women’s room and that the ensuing blaze soon spread throughout the building. Local LGBTQ+ organizations have pointed out that Barrientos knew the victims, and had allegedly threatened them with violence in the past because they were queer. LGBTQ+ leaders also pointed to the political context in the South American nation as a factor in the crime.

“We are in a rather complex context, where from the apex of power, the president himself and his advisors and downwards permanently instill a hate speech, instilling it when they close the (National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism or INADI), stigmatizing the population that is there and the vulnerable groups,” Congressman Esteban Paulón, told the Blade, adding, “All this is generating a climate of violence.”

Right-wing president Javier Milei has upped anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric since his election in 2023, as the Associated Press reported in May. Described as an “anarcho-capitalist,” Milei has attacked social justice movements and has undone much of the work of previous administrations in terms of diversity and equity, making a “global far-right icon,” according to the AP.

“The only thing this radical feminist agenda has achieved is greater state intervention to hinder economic process,” Milei said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year, according to the AP. He has also called feminist and human rights movements a “cult of gender ideology.”

Brown’s co-worker has been charged with second-degree murder.

Since taking office in December, Milei shut down the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity and banned the use of gender-inclusive language in government. He also closed the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism, according to the AP.

“Unfortunately, we are going backward,” Alba Rueda, a trans woman, activist and diversity adviser who worked for former president Alberto Fernánded, told the AP. “What we have achieved is being discredited.”

Several LGBTQ+ organizations in Argentina have offered support to the families of the women who were killed in the attack.

“We are going to stand by them, making ourselves available for whatever they and their families need, and we will closely follow the court case so that there is justice,” the Argentine LGBT+ Federation said on social media, according to the Blade. “But we cannot fail to point out that hate crimes are the result of a culture of violence and discrimination that is sustained on hate speeches that today are endorsed by several officials and referents of the national government.”

Activists have requested that hate crime provisions be added to the charges for Barrientos, who has been arrested and charged with murder, according to the Blade.

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