Argentina’s president bans gender-affirming care for anyone under 18

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s president has signed a decree banning gender-affirming care for people under age 18, a presidential spokesperson said Wednesday.

The announcement comes days after a massive mobilization of the LGBTQ+ collective in repudiation of President Javier Milei’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, during which he slammed “wokeism,” feminism and referred to homosexuals as “pedophiles.”

Presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni in a statement to the press announced the repeal of a 2012 gender identity law provision allowing such practices with parental or guardian consent.

“Gender ideology taken to the extreme and applied to children by force or psychological coercion simply constitutes child abuse,” the government of the far-right president said in a subsequent statement. “Children do not have the cognitive maturity to make decisions about irreversible processes.”