According to provisional results of Argentina’s census, 8,293 people in the country are non-binary, accounting for 0.018 percent of the total population.
There are 46,044,703 million people in Argentina, according to provisional data from the 2022 census shared by the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INDEC) on January 31.
And for the first time in Argentina, authorities officially recorded people who define themselves as non-binary. There are 8,293 non-binary people or who consider themselves neither women nor men in Argentina, accounting for 0.018 percent of the total population.
Argentina is also made up of 23.7 million women (51.8 percent of the total) and 22.1 million men (48.2 percent).
Non-binary people mostly live in the province of Buenos Aires (32 percent of the non-binary people) and in the autonomous city of Buenos Aires (another 10 percent of the total of non-binary people). But it is also where most of the population is in Argentina since 20.5 million people, 45 percent of the total population, live in the city or in the province of Buenos Aires. According to the population size, non-binary people account for 0.028 and 0.015 percent of the population in the city and in the province of Buenos Aires.
People define themselves as non-binary in all provinces of Argentina, even in La Pampa, the third least populous province of the country (365,000 people) where 6 people are non-binary, which accounts for the smallest proportion of non-binary in the country.
On the other hand, the Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands, the southernmost, smallest, and least populous province with 190,000 people have the highest proportion of non-binary. It is nonetheless only 0,094 percent of the population in the province.
The census for 2022 took place eight months ago and had been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The census questionnaire was to be filled out online and face-to-face meetings were organized for those who couldn’t. Scheduled every ten years, the previous census took place in 2010.
The population in Argentina amounted to 40.1 million people in 2010, 10.6 percent more than in 2001. The population has now grown 13 percent since 2010 according to provisional data.
It has been the first census since the Gender Identity Law was enacted in Argentina in 2012. The law recognizes the right for people to register or change their gender identity on identity cards and passports with a simple administration procedure. It doesn’t require medical authorization, surgery or hormonal therapy. Children and underage Argentines can also request changing gender on their documents through a legal representative.
As of 2021, the nomenclature for documents accepts an “X” to indicate that one is non-binary.
The law also guarantees access to health treatment for people who need to change their body to match their self-perceived gender without the need to receive judicial or administrative authorization.
Argentina has been the first country in the world that didn’t require medical or psychiatric diagnosis, or sex change operations to prove a gender identity.
Since this law took effect in the country, 12,655 people modified their gender on identity documents, according to a government note in May 2022 celebrating the ten years of the law. In 2021, 515 people requested a new document to better match their gender: 109 were non-binary, 151 were transgender women, and 255 were transgender men.
