Entering the final year of his four-year term, Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri leaves behind him a legacy of austerity and repressive policies that have thrown the South American country into a social, economic, and political tailspin. Argentina is a country of considerable wealth, and yet an ever-greater numbers of its citizens — 33 percent by recent estimates — live below the poverty line. The attack on basic public services like health care and education, made worse by IMF-imposed adjustment plans, has directly impacted the quality of life for the country’s general population.

If the current pattern holds then Argentina will continue to backslide. Fortunately, Argentina’s feminists are leading the line in the resistance. Perhaps it’s not surprising that women and LGBTQ people — sometimes referred to in Argentina’s feminist movement as “sexual dissidents” — are also on the front lines against the ongoing socioeconomic decline.

As the face of an increasingly “feminized” poverty, they are the first to feel the effects of cuts to sexual and reproductive health, escalating violence, femicides, and the murder of transgender peoples — 2019 is already a record year for such crimes. Hence the slogan of today’s Argentinian feminists rings out: “We’re the ones with our bodies one the line.”