Identity and pride

The promotion of processes aimed at defining the Identity values of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex community is one of the main cultural and political activities in which Arcigay is engaged. The process of constructing personal identity merges and harmonizes with the historical and social context in which an individual is born and develops. Over the last thirty years, although much remains to be done to achieve effective equality for all, our country has slowly but progressively included the LGBTI community in the system of rights and protections. For this reason, we can say that the historical path of the LGBTI liberation movement in Italy coincides with the history of Arcigay and with the values of fighting all forms of discrimination, including that based on sexual orientation and gender identity, social inclusion, the dissemination of a culture of valorizing differences, anti-fascism, secularism, and the promotion of a policy of protecting the health and well-being of the community.

The double track of the’ personal and social identity It is expressed in the freedom of each person to self-determine their own behavior and emotional and sexual choices, consistent with their values and personal pursuit of happiness, within the context of a constitutional state that recognizes all citizens not only the freedom to be themselves but also the prerequisites for equal opportunities to access fundamental human rights.  

In this sense, Arcigay's activities are aimed on the one hand to intervention within the community A reference point to support all those who, as they navigate their own process of self-definition and free expression of their identity, may require community support. This support is especially necessary in discriminatory, if not openly homophobic, social and family contexts, where girls and boys, men and women, still too frequently suffer violence and marginalization.

On the other hand, the activities of Arcigay, through the activities of its clubs and its activists throughout the national territory, have the aim of providing the society The minimum level of knowledge and information needed to promote a culture of inclusion beyond tolerance, of equity beyond equality, eliminating stereotypes and prejudices. This process is implemented through voluntary work in information, testimony, training, and collaboration with leading local training and educational agencies, through specific cultural promotion initiatives, political action, social awareness, and monitoring of community well-being and protection in each city.

FROM COMING OUT TO PRIDE

The pride of being yourself

The value of visibility This is one of the thematic and political focuses of Arcigay's historical identity, a guiding principle that the movement for freedom and self-determination has always considered fundamental to the process of personal and political emancipation. This visibility constitutes a progressive journey that begins with "coming out," an Anglo-Saxon expression that alludes to the possibility of "coming out," "coming out into the open," with which the first activists in the late 1960s made their sexual and emotional choices visible to the entire world, consistent with their nature and gender identity. With this impetuous gesture, they broke the "darkness" and "obscurantism" to which the LGBTI community had been relegated in previous centuries.

Arcigay promotes the coming out As a tool for emancipation and self-affirmation, both personally and privately, as well as civilly and politically. In the belief that every physical dimension of a person inevitably carries political relevance, coming out becomes a fundamental prerequisite in the process of liberation and an expression of one's individual and relational nature. The date of October 11th (Coming Out Day) is dedicated to coming out, with which the LGBTI community has celebrated the importance of this moment of free expression since 1988. This includes activists and their voluntary and unpaid work in the local communities. With the support of their reception and counseling centers, and the professionalism of their socio-psychological and educational staff, which are part of numerous local committees, the associations are close to all those who are coming out and their families. Their advocacy work for and in support of the community is also complemented by the legal support that the associations offer to their members.

The political value of coming out It also constitutes one of the fundamental prerequisites for girls and boys, men and women, to achieve a state of psychological, physical, and social well-being, as well as to ensure their protection. Indeed, violence, discrimination, marginalization, and forms of homophobic, lesbian, transgender, and biphobic bullying, whether at school, in society, or at work, are more frequent and more hidden among individuals who, having not completed the process of coming out to their families or social groups, tend not to report the violence, which often becomes chronic, with very dangerous outcomes for the individual's safety. In such violent contexts, even when the individual's integrity and physical safety are not directly threatened, their psychological and personal balance are inevitably and dramatically altered. This microcosm of suffering is called Minority stress or minority stress and can be countered with socio-cultural policies and activities that support coming out, as well as specific interventions in particularly critical family environments and at high risk of domestic and personal violence where the support and involvement of civil society is not sufficient..

If darkness and silence had been the historical condemnation of the LGBTI universe, destined to be erased and unmentionable, since what cannot be named does not exist, until the birth of a political and cultural movement between the 1960s and 1970s in North America and the late 1970s in Europe and Italy, lights, colors, sounds, and music became the primary and defining characteristics of its identity after the "historic coming out" of the gay, lesbian, and transgender pride movements. These values underpin the pride in the social visibility of the LGBTI community, which celebrates, through its activities and its identifying symbols, such as the rainbow flag, its entry into history, into civil history, with the claim of rights and the removal of discrimination, as well as the end of the darkness of repression. The metaphor of light, color, and festive joy are values of historic significance for the community, as they constantly remind and testify that the era of living in hiding, condemned to silence, pain, and social invisibility, is over forever. Through the light of presence, occupying a physical space, with the noises and sounds of celebration and "parade," the community asserts its existence and right to it, its pursuit of happiness according to the values, nature, and inclinations that each person will recognize as their own, in a fluid and dynamic relationship with their own identity. Colors have definitively defeated the darkness, and sounds have broken through the silence. Voices, often shouts, even angry ones in this historical moment, represent continuity with the need to be heard by civil society and institutions in their legitimate aspiration for equality and the protection of all.

Such is the historical and political significance of “Pride”" as pride and as a visible and tangible manifestation of the presence of lesbian, gay, transsexual, transgender, bisexual, and intersex people. This concept also represents the anniversary with which the community annually celebrates its liberation day, commemorating the "Stonewall Riots" of June 28, 1969 in New York, which for the first time saw the LGBTI community rebel against the continuous and unprovoked violent police charges at the Stonewall Inn bar on Christopher Street. Over the course of Arcigay's 30-year history, this anniversary has also evolved consistently with the political landscape. Even the concept of "Gay Pride," that is, Pride celebration of lesbian, gay, and trans visibility, In recent years, inspired by the movement's internal political and cultural debate, the term has evolved into "human pride" or "everybody pride," underscoring the universality with which the entire national community can feel a sense of belonging to the movement for the liberation of identities and affective and sexual behaviors. It is, in fact, our profound belief that The movement for the liberation, protection, and rights of a segment of society, made up of people subjected to discrimination and marginalization, not only produces an improvement in their living conditions, but is also the basis for progress in terms of humanity and civilization for society as a whole. This is the reason why, in conjunction with the fight against specific forms of violence or discrimination, such as homophobic bullying or political and institutional homophobia, on which Arcigay intervenes with its conceptual and operational know-how, Our association is active in the development of knowledge and practices that produce an effective socio-cultural change aimed at the creation of a society and a new political action in which all forms of discrimination are definitively overcome, and effective monitoring and intervention policies are activated so that no one is ever persecuted again for their nature..

The first Gay Pride was held in Italy on June 28, 1981 in Palermo, in 1994 the first National Gay Pride was celebrated in Rome and in 2013 the demonstration moved on to the’Pride Wave, a series of regional or territorial LGBTI pride and visibility events and parades that have brought the Movement and its political demands to those parts of the peninsula that, being outside of the country's major urban centers, had previously been excluded. Since 2013, 56 Pride events have been held. Millions of people across our country have marched, proudly displaying the colors of liberation and pride in their identity, demonstrating how urgent and imperative Italy now needs to make political decisions to protect communities exposed to discrimination, guaranteeing all their rights, and promoting a socio-cultural system of equal opportunities for those who begin with a condition of "minority" that is not personal or biological but cultural, political, and institutional.

The Italian LGBTI movement, 40 years of history

The recovery of the history of the Italian LGBTI movement This is one of Arcigay's contributions to the narrative and preservation of our country's civil and political history. The historical journey, both diachronic and synchronic, that gay, lesbian, and transgender organizations have undertaken from the 1970s to the emergence of the major national movements of the 1980s becomes paradigmatic of a society that, emerging from post-war reconstruction, has embarked on its own path of secularism, of the liberation of bodies, of the liberation and emancipation of women, and of self-determination of behavior. The conceptual and ideological relationships between feminist, student, workers, and homosexual and transsexual liberation movements between the 1970s and 1980s in Europe and Italy have still been insufficiently explored by historical critics. While the former are still studied in a fragmented manner and not yet framed within a systemic perspective, for the LGBTI movement we still lack adequate documentary sources for the detailed reconstruction of a process that has been crucial to the history of our country. Arcigay's offices are authentic historical archives that preserve evidence of the Movement's political, cultural, and editorial activities spanning over 30 years. At the same time, the Association collects and preserves, through its documentation and cultural dissemination efforts, the historical memory of those who founded the Movement and who experienced the historical transformation of our nation from within. This is from the perspective of those who, living as a marginalized minority within a system dominated by the culture and politics of the majority, grasp its aberrations but also its intrinsic potential for civilization, democracy, and progress. The history of Arcigay and the LGBTI movements is a crucial part of our country's history, and as such, Arcigay treasures and capitalizes on it as a wealth of knowledge and skills, but also as a "vision" within which to frame political struggle and cultural action. This vision best addresses the generational challenge of "changing" this society and this country by directing its intelligence, sensibility, practices, and values toward a world where violence and discrimination are the distant memory of a bygone prehistory of civilization.   

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