PRIDE 2013

Pride Wave 2013

Seven days after the national Pride in Palermo, the demands of the LBGTQI movement will spread throughout the country through an unprecedented initiative that will connect five different territories: on Saturday 29 June Milan, Bologna, Naples, Catania and the whole of Italy. Sardinia They will in fact be crossed by the Pride Wave, five pride parades that from the five capitals – geographically distributed throughout the country – will raise a single voice and represent a country tuned to the wave of self-determination and rights.

 

ONDA PRIDE adheres to the 2013 Italian Pride Unified Document

The Italian LGBTQI movement, after more than thirty years of struggle, is ready to renew its mobilization to bring the demand for the rights of gay, lesbian, trans, queer, and intersex people back to the center of political debate. We are taking to the streets of a country that is stagnant, impoverished, precarious, and fragmented. We cannot helplessly and complicitly endure the consequences of a crisis depicted in financial and macroeconomic figures, but which daily reveals its symptoms in the barbarization of social relations, the advancement of new generations deprived of their future, the circumvention of institutional representatives, the standardization and impoverishment of identities and behaviors, the oppression and abuse chosen as their modus operandi by those in power, and the rights violated or even perpetually denied. Today we find ourselves sharing a present that reflects a country still stumbling over the lessons it should have learned, succumbing to the ignoble lure of a mindset tainted with totalitarianism, intolerance, sexism, and racism. An Italy, in short, that sometimes seems to have lost its pride. Therefore, restoring pride to the streets is now more urgent than ever, even more so than the renewal of an event dear to the LGBTQI community. Because it is in pride that we find the strength to be outraged and to keep our gaze fixed on the idea of a better country.

The Pride parade for lesbians, gays, trans, bisexuals, queer, and intersex people is an affirmation of our differences and all differences. And it is the project of a society that invests in those differences, in the firm belief that it is precisely in these differences that we find the key to overcoming any crisis, an essential step in projecting this country into a future worthy of its history. The many Pride parades that the LGBTQI movement has scheduled from North to South in this Pride season are part of a European context of ongoing legislative progress regarding LGBTQI rights and a pressing call to our country's parliamentary institutions for Italy to align itself with the standard of rights recognized throughout the European Union. Added to this is the unique character of Palermo, the chosen venue for this national Pride parade, a city that, by history, tradition, and geographical location, is par excellence the bridge between Europe and the Mediterranean. Not a periphery, then, but rather a nerve center that reminds Italy of its role as a catalyst between the two continents, and of its duty to intercept and support the demands for rights from the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The unjustifiable delay of this Italy, which still fails to honor its commitment to the culture of rights, carries the weight of a responsibility that goes beyond its borders and has the characteristics of a historic international game played with an absolutely immobile player. The LGBTQI movement, therefore, aims at the South, reversing the hateful stereotype of backwardness and valorizing the vocation for cross-fertilization and dialogue that has characterized Sicily's history since antiquity.

From Palermo, as from Rome, Bologna, Milan, Turin, Vicenza, Naples, Cagliari, Barletta, and Catania, we will send an unequivocal message: battles for rights are fought to win. When it comes to rights, it is not only insufficient, but serious, to tolerate arguments imbued with wait-and-see attitudes that delay, downplay, and approximate, ultimately betraying every promise. Pride—the mobilization of LGBTQI pride—alongside the movements of women, immigrants, workers, and prisoners in our prisons/concentration centers and detention centers, stands in continuity with the liberation struggle that, in the last century, succeeded in redeeming us from Nazi-Fascist occupation, offering an example of the great democratic energy that underpins our country's founding values. And today, a new, essential chapter in that struggle is being written, the outcome of a country that finally embodies that Liberation in its daily practices, discovering its full value.

Italian Pride 2013 Claims Platform

Political forces, parties, and institutions, too long distant and inattentive to the social and civil reality of the country, can no longer ignore our clear and forceful demands for equality, dignity, secularism, and freedom. The evident evolution of the social and civil fabric, the growing public awareness, the pressing demands of European institutions, and the recent rulings of Italy's supreme courts clearly indicate the path forward, in line with some of the historic agendas of the Italian and international LGBTQI movement.

To build a fully constitutional state, every person must be free to have their status and self-determination recognized as an individual and in their relationships. Therefore, we demand:

  • the recognition of civil marriage for same-sex couples as requested by rulings 138/200 of the Constitutional Court and 4184/2012 of the Court of Cassation;
  • the recognition of civil unions for same-sex or different-sex couples through legislation different from that of marriage;
  • A new system of individual rights, with a view to individual welfare, allows us to continue to invent different forms of relationships, complex and multifaceted emotional networks, and multifaceted loves that leave room for free choice and the unexpected.

For our families and our children we want:

  • the extension of co-responsibility for the minor to the partner or non-biological parent;
  • the extension of the possibility of adoption to same-sex couples or to single people;
  • the abolition of Law 40, defining a new law that allows access to assisted procreation for individuals and couples, including same-sex couples.

We want discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to be fought:

  • with the extension of the Mancino Law (n. 205/93);
  • with a system of media interventions;
  • with training interventions for employees of all public administrations and offices, for teachers and school workers and for the public security forces;
  • with secular educational models inspired by the culture of differences and with ad hoc thematic interventions in schools of all levels.

We want Law 211/2000 establishing Holocaust Remembrance Day to include the remembrance of the systematic extermination of gays, lesbians, and transgender people in Nazi concentration camps, along with all the other forgotten exterminations: Roma, the mentally ill, the disabled, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

We want transgender and intersex people to find the moral and material support they need in institutions and society to live their gender identity fully and peacefully. Specifically, we want:

  • the care, assistance and therapies necessary for gender transition are provided by the national health system;
  • the change of first name and gender identification does not require surgical intervention for people in sexual transition and intersex;
  • the possibility of choosing specific gender identifiers for intersex and transgender people be introduced in all possible fields of application, whether public or private;
  • that the application of European Directive 207/76 and the ruling of the European Supreme Court of 30/04/96 on equal treatment in access, training, professional promotion and working conditions also be envisaged for people who undertake gender transition;
  • transsexuality be removed from the DSM V and from the’ICD-10, by adhering to the Stop 2012 campaign for the depathologization of transsexualism and that the treatment guidelines proposed for the well-being of the individual are followed;
  • Article 85 of Decree 773 of 1931 on camouflage and masking in public is repealed;
  • protocols should be defined and implemented to ascertain the conditions of respect for gender identity for people subjected to restrictive measures;
  • Awareness and information campaigns on transsexuality and intersexuality should be launched, and in particular, the Ethical Guidelines for the clinical management of intersexual cases should be respected, safeguarding the individual's right to self-determination.

We want information professionals to define and adopt a self-regulation code for LGBTQI matters, as has already been done for minors and ethnic minorities in the Treviso and Rome Charters.

We want Italy to become a protagonist in the field of human rights defense in the world, giving maximum support to the work of the UN for the decriminalization of homosexuality and for the universal abolition of the death penalty, remembering that in some countries it is also foreseen for the crimes of homosexuality and transsexuality.

We want Italy to fully implement European Directive 85 of 2005 and international standards regarding refugee status for people persecuted in their home countries because of their sexual orientation and gender identity.

We want Italian Regions and Municipalities to guarantee equal conditions regarding the interventions and services implemented, within their sphere of competence, removing any discrimination deriving from sexual orientation and gender identity which, therefore, leads to the impossibility of accessing full citizenship for LGBTQI people (with particular reference to healthcare, economic assistance, and housing assistance).

We also want local authorities to promote proper information and awareness about sexually transmitted diseases and to increase funding for organizations that provide care and assistance to people living with HIV and AIDS.

We want local authorities to provide spaces and opportunities for gathering, information, and awareness of LGBTQI culture, encouraging diverse cultural expressions, including through financial support.