Argentina’s presidential office said on Wednesday that President Javier Milei had taken the decision to ban gender change treatments and surgeries for minors, as well as impose limits on trans women being housed inside women’s prisons. According to his office, Milei, a far-right libertarian, will decree that prisoners be housed according to their gender registered at the time of committing the crime.
Regardless of this, it said, no trans woman will be housed in a women’s prison if convicted for sexual crimes, human trafficking or violent crimes against women.
The office did not give details on how many trans women were in women’s prisons or convicted of such crimes, nor did it say how the change would affect intersex people, who are born with non-binary biological characteristics.
The announcement came shortly after a US judge blocked an executive order that President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office that would move the 16 trans women housed in women’s prisons to men’s institutions, and end their gender-affirming care. Most trans women in the US are in men’s prisons.
Milei’s office added that the government would modify a 2012 law allowing people to change their gender identity, including banning hormone treatment and surgery for children.
“Gender ideology taken to extremes and applied to children by force or psychological coercion clearly constitutes child abuse,” the office said in a statement.
Gender surgeries are very rarely performed on children in Argentina, and trans minors must generally be medically evaluated and diagnosed before starting puberty blockers or hormonal therapies.
The announcement comes days after thousands of Argentines protested in favor of LGBT+ rights after Milei made a speech in Davos, Switzerland, in which he questioned “feminism, diversity, inclusion, abortion, environmentalism and gender ideology”, calling progressive policies a “cancer that must be extirpated.”
“The president cannot modify a law by decree. And if he tries we will go to the judiciary and the Inter-American Court if necessary,” the Argentina LGBT+ Federation said on X, noting that the existing law does not allow gender surgery for minors.
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