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Far right puts brakes on a new law that aims to stamp out homophobia in Italy
Source: The Observer
Far right puts brakes on a new law that aims to stamp out homophobia in Italy
Attacks on gay people continue unchecked as activists step up their 25-year battle to win LGBT rights
Angela Giuffrida
Sun 4 Apr 2021 10.00 BST
Daniela Lourdes Falanga has had her fair share of battles. The first was to survive a brutal upbringing as the firstborn son of a mafia boss in Naples. Falanga, 43, had been expected to follow in the footsteps of her father, currently serving a life sentence, into the powerful Camorra organised crime syndicate. Instead, she found the courage to break ranks, and in 2019 was elected the first trans woman president of a branch of Arcigay, Italy’s largest LGBT activist group.
“I was not the boy who could adapt to that family, and it brought me so much suffering,” Falanga, who leads Arcigay in Naples, told the Observer. “And so, aged 17, I rebelled. When I transitioned, I did so for freedom and happiness. This is where my activism for trans people was born – I wanted people to understand that we are the same as everyone else and not monsters.”
Falanga is now among the prominent activists campaigning for Italy to adopt a long-awaited law that would criminalise violence and hate speech against LGBT people.
“This law is fundamental,” she said. “We’re not inventing things – if the hate doesn’t happen at home, then it happens in the street.”
An attack a fortnight ago on a gay couple who kissed at a metro station in Rome prompted renewed calls for the urgent approval of the law. The law was passed by the lower house of parliament in November, but its passage through the upper house, or Senate, has been delayed by a change of government and fierce resistance from politicians in Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party.
-snip-
Attacks on gay people continue unchecked as activists step up their 25-year battle to win LGBT rights
Angela Giuffrida
Sun 4 Apr 2021 10.00 BST
Daniela Lourdes Falanga has had her fair share of battles. The first was to survive a brutal upbringing as the firstborn son of a mafia boss in Naples. Falanga, 43, had been expected to follow in the footsteps of her father, currently serving a life sentence, into the powerful Camorra organised crime syndicate. Instead, she found the courage to break ranks, and in 2019 was elected the first trans woman president of a branch of Arcigay, Italy’s largest LGBT activist group.
“I was not the boy who could adapt to that family, and it brought me so much suffering,” Falanga, who leads Arcigay in Naples, told the Observer. “And so, aged 17, I rebelled. When I transitioned, I did so for freedom and happiness. This is where my activism for trans people was born – I wanted people to understand that we are the same as everyone else and not monsters.”
Falanga is now among the prominent activists campaigning for Italy to adopt a long-awaited law that would criminalise violence and hate speech against LGBT people.
“This law is fundamental,” she said. “We’re not inventing things – if the hate doesn’t happen at home, then it happens in the street.”
An attack a fortnight ago on a gay couple who kissed at a metro station in Rome prompted renewed calls for the urgent approval of the law. The law was passed by the lower house of parliament in November, but its passage through the upper house, or Senate, has been delayed by a change of government and fierce resistance from politicians in Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/04/far-right-puts-brakes-on-a-new-law-that-aims-to-stamp-out-homophobia-in-italy