Facundo R. Soto’s 2011 novel, _Juego de chicos_, continues the author’s exploration of the interpersonal relationships and socially constructed identities that he began in his first work of fiction, Olor a pasto recién cortado (2011). The newer novel focuses on the members of a gay soccer team in Buenos Aires and the phenomenon of the “boys’ game” which serves as a metaphor for the intricate play of gender and sexual identities which blend and commingle in contemporary Argentine society. Employing a critical apparatus based on queer theory, this presentation will examine the two main focal points of the novel’s title: the implications of a new kind of “game” being played in Argentina in the 21st century as it is connected to the transformation of what it means to be a “boy” in a city that has made significant progress in sexual citizenship and acceptance of diversity in the past few years.
Unlike the traditional game of soccer in Argentina, which focuses more on the outcome –victory or defeat–, in Soto’s novel the playing of the game itself becomes the goal. That is, the quality of play, teamwork, and the bond of solidarity between the members of the team acquire greater value than winning. Pride, for this gay soccer team, comes not through defeating an opponent (the traditional masculinist standard) but rather through the creation of a community which prizes diversity, tolerance, and coexistence (the new, “queerer” Argentine virtue). Intimately connected to this change in what it means to play the game of soccer is the new definition of “boy.” The “boys” on the team form a variegated collection of gender and sexual variations which defy easy labeling. The team members, within themselves and in their relationships with others, reject categories, dichotomies, and binary oppositions, and work to combine together what society and culture have defined as absolutely distinct and insoluble. As a result, the team is a dizzying mixture of feminine/masculine, boys/men, women/men, friends/lovers, and brothers/sons/fathers which defies traditional laws, rules, and limits on gender and sexual identities, and which rejects the imposition of a hierarchy to maintain the privilege of one category over another. People who identify as queer and as trans form a cohesive unit that illustrates how solidarity and inclusiveness can be a source of strength and power
