Play, Politics, and Protest in Argentina's Tabletop Industry

The early February sun is scorching on Buenos Aires’ Avenida 9 de Julio. It’s hot, and the crowd of protestors is heated too. Weeks before, Argentina’s President Javier Milei and his allies labeled those who “defend gender ideology” as pedophiles, threatening to shut down Hospital Bonaparte, a mental health facility that provides hormone replacement treatment for many trans people in Buenos Aires. In response, an emergency assembly of LGBTQ+ groups held in one of Buenos Aires’ biggest parks called for a protest. The call for help spread like wildfire. The call spread quickly: political parties, labor unions, artists, and retirees joined what soon came to be known as the “Antifascist Pride March”. 

I received this from a local activist ahead of the march: “If we want to get through this, there’s no room for silence of half-measures – from men or from allies. We need everyone with trans, LGBTQ, or women, family and friends to stand up and actively defend us. We’re under attack from every front.” That message was sent by Valentina Such, an actual play performer and organizer of Juegos de Trolos, an all-queer roleplay and improv group based in Buenos Aires’ Palermo neighborhood.

Walking through the streets of Palermo, you might think that you are in a safe, progressive city. Vegan restaurants, fancy cafes with pride flags, pet-friendly shops, well-kept parks, lots of tourists, surveillance cameras, patrol cars, and a youthful population enjoying life at all hours. Buenos Aires has always prided itself as one of the most “gay-friendly” cities in Latin America. Yet almost 66% of the neighborhood’s residents voted for Milei in the run-off against the peronist candidate Sergio Massa. 

For many queer Argentines this election was not only disappointing, it was dangerous. Those votes came from neighbours, family members, and friends. Does that mean they share those views? Does the old man walking his golden retriever care that a photographer lies injured, struck in the head by a tear gas canister? Is the young man playing the guitar concerned when he hears the loudspeakers at train stations warning protesters that they risk arrest? Does he feel that’s a scene right out of Orwell’s 1984 just as I do? Each time I turn on the news, I’m hit with a new defeat: violence, loss of rights, or economic subjugation. 

But Argentina’s queer TTRPG community is fighting fascism with art and solidarity. Tucked in a side street of Palermo, a cast iron door leads into a big two-story house built by well-off immigrants almost a hundred years ago. The tourists eating in the trendy restaurant next door don’t know that every weekend tens of LGBTQ+ folks roleplay, practice their skills as narrators, and do improv exercises. What does a queer tabletop group have to do with Milei and his politics? Everything.