[:it]
Lazio Pride returns to Rieti on September 13th
Over the past nine years, Lazio Pride has taken up the challenge of situations too often left silent, of voices with which we have built paths to fight against all forms of discrimination. We have met and traveled throughout the province of Lazio, giving voice to those who have been marginalized for too long, caught in a social and cultural isolation that still affects us today.
Living in an area far from the spotlight of large metropolitan cities often means being forced to forgo the opportunity to speak out, express yourself, and go public. We chose to return to Rieti and its entire province because we still have much to fight for and many battles to win if we want our region to truly welcome all those who live there, have chosen it, love it, and don't want to be forced to leave.
Our slogan is
Unabashedly Queer
For our struggle to be truly visible and overwhelming we must and want to be CHEEKY! Silence, moderation, and shame for our bodies and for what we are and what we claim are not ours! In the provinces, this still prevails. the rule of silence, of doing but not showing, of the invisibility that leads to immobility, to not solving the problems that afflict our territory, to always being left behind! Our battles must be brazen to create space, freedom, and advancement for all!
For many We are strange, bizarre creatures, off the rails with respect to a normality that doesn't exist but is imposed by those who talk of natural order, safety, cleanliness. So we demand it! We strongly claim our being QUEER, Our strange, bizarre, and queer nature! We're a safe home for all those people who feel they belong but also don't belong. And our home is Rieti and its territory and This is where we want to stay, live, love, work, and create our queer families!
Visibility is a daily struggle.
LGBTQAI+ people exist in Rieti, they resist, they live.
September 13th we will be in the streets with our experiences, our colors, our bodies.
We want a city and a region that care for all its inhabitants, without distinction.
That builds cultural and political pathstogether with all the organizations that are already fighting every day And which we thank to have actively participated to this political document also built thanks to their fundamental requests.
No Pride in Genocide!
We join the calls of the Palestinian queer movement; we support the Palestinian people's right to self-determination, we demand an immediate end to the Zionist occupation, to the military and colonial violence in Gaza aimed at total extermination, to the massacre of a people at the hands of Israel, amidst the total silence of our governments and the insufficient actions of Europe! Real and drastic measures are needed! An ecocide is underway through the destruction of resources, land, access to food, and water for the Palestinian population, with the collaboration of Italian and European multinationals and the support of the academic world. A genocide is being perpetrated on the ability of a social group to reproduce (through the killing of girls and boys as the elimination of a people at its roots), on ethnic rape, on experimentation on women's bodies, on the uprooting of bodies from the land, from culture, and from the air to breathe.
We demand, immediately, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the protection of civilians, access to humanitarian aid and essential services, which must be followed by the implementation of equal rights and the recognition of the state of Palestine. There can be no pride in the face of genocide!
Palestine must be recognized and free!
Today, more than ever, we need to reclaim an intersectional, political, and supportive Pride parade. We cannot accept our pride and our struggles being branded by corporations that finance wars or governments complicit in massacres. We cannot march alongside those who support genocide just because they display the rainbow logo once a year.
We stand with all oppressed peoples, against wars, and demand that our country say NO to rearmament and military spending.
–
What we want as a community
The LGBTQAI+ community in Lazio is one of the largest in this country. We are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, intersex, and gender diverse people, but we are also allies who support the movement. We are HIV-positive and HIV-involved, we are queer parents and the children of queer parents. We are people who have been fighting for years to have their relationships recognized, and who are resisting even in the provinces where there is still so much work and dedication to building a society free from oppression. We are sex workers.
We want:
- equal marriage;
- a law for self-determination of paths gender affirmation;
- immediate recognition at birth daughters and sons of same-sex families;
- adoption for all, even single people;
- the abolition of the Varchi law and a open path, concrete, scientific and free from prejudice on GPA;
- access to PMA for all;
- the extension and implementation of the career alias and alias identitys in every training and work space, particularly in light of the recent hearings for the Valditara, Sasso and Amorese bills; ;
- an effective law against homolesbobitransphobia;
- the introduction of sexual-emotional education, both secular and scientific, in the curricular programs of all schools of all levels, which also includes the orientations under the umbrella asexual and aromantic;
- maximum access to abortion and the guarantee of the presence of non-objecting medical personnel in all hospitals;
- a law against genital mutilation on intersex children;
- the banning of “conversion ”therapies”;
- a reception system for the LGBTQAI+ migrants that respects experiences without erasing them;
- free and open access to PreP for all;
- No more architectural barriers, social or cultural: every space, public and private, must be accessible, just as every activity and opportunity must be usable by all people, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.
–
It's time for a cultural revolution against homolesbobitransphobia
Cases of homophobic, lesbian, and transphobic physical and verbal violence are on the rise. The latest report published by ILGA Europe once again ranks Italy among the last countries that have adopted measures to combat hate crimes against LGBTQIA+ people. This is an alarming and disheartening statistic for a democratic country, one we can no longer afford to underestimate. Educating people to fully embrace differences means fighting prejudices and stereotypes, especially towards younger generations, and also ensuring the possibility of freely and unhindered coming out. Often, the price of being oneself is still too high.
Our training work is becoming increasingly difficult, Even at the local level. The lack of solid curricular choices by successive governments over the years now leaves us at the mercy of repressive and conservative policies that, thanks also to recent bills, aim to silence consciences, block all projects and interventions in schools of all levels on education in affectivity and consent and, in fact, they leave fundamental educational choices to families alone, which schools and a secular state should instead guarantee.
We cannot remain silent!
We demand the passage of a law that says no to hatred against LGBTQIA+ people, a hatred that is not an opinion but rather an integral part of a system. We need a law that doesn't become hostage to political compromises or lowball calculations. The times we live in no longer allow for any delay, because hatred spreads rapidly not only in society but also online. No compromise is acceptable anymore.
LGBTQAI+ people still suffer institutional violence today: from the judiciary, law enforcement, expert witnesses, social services, and anywhere else where prejudice and gender stereotypes persist. Among the critical issues is inadequate training, which prevents them from recognizing violence and distinguishing it from conflict.
We demand safe spaces and call for the strengthening and protection of anti-discrimination centers and shelters throughout the country, so that LGBTQIA+ people have access to protection, spaces to prevent and combat homolesbobitransbiphobia, and essential services.
We fight for public, secular, universal, free healthcare without discrimination based on gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
Trans* people, health and sport
Access to sexual and reproductive health and health rights for LGBTQIA+ people is still a largely ignored issue. Trans* and gender diverse people are victims of systemic discrimination by healthcare providers. Health disparities, which vary greatly from region to region and often from province to province, and the lack of safe access to hormone therapy and gender-affirming treatments, are serious and must be addressed.
Once the legal process of gender affirmation is completed, trans people are not bureaucratically recognized within gynecological and urological prevention programs and are completely absent from assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and reproductive health programs in general. The following is required:
- an overhaul of bureaucratic and IT-based healthcare systems that does not divide people based on an unrealistic biological binary and that allows trans* people to access prevention programs without obstacles;
- Continuous training for healthcare professionals who work with the sexual and reproductive health of trans, non-binary, and gender diverse people, before, during, and after any gender affirmation process. This training should also take into account welcoming aspects and language, not just medical and scientific aspects.
Let's break down the prejudices that deny transgender, gender diverse, and non-binary people the right to an existence free from discrimination, stigma, and prejudice. Being trans* is not a pathological condition, it is not a mental illness, it never has been and never will be. We are for full self-determination without ifs or buts.
- We call for special attention to the real rights of young trans* people and their families. Behind the recent proposals from the Ministry of Health lies a denial of the very existence of transgender childhood and adolescence. In practice, it is becoming impossible to obtain medications essential to the well-being (and life itself!) of young trans* people and adolescents, abandoning their families and dramatically halting processes already underway. Instead of moving toward a path of total self-determination, we are returning to the idea that being trans* is a psychiatric illness requiring a specialist diagnosis, trapping young trans* people and their families in an ordeal that often has tragic outcomes. Once again, a supposedly secular state is failing to rely on the opinions of those who genuinely care for young trans* people and on scientific studies, but is instead listening to prejudice and oppression aimed at controlling bodies.
- We ask that the registry paths become exclusively administrative and completely free from the obligation of a legal process and the decision of a judge. We demand the full depathologization of the trans* experience as internationally established. We say NO to forced medicalization and demand the guarantee and protection of access to employment, the fight against negative stereotypes and distorted information proposed by the media; we demand that guaranteed, within schools of all levels and at universities, the “Alias career” for trans* people in students and in all public and private companies “the Alias identity” for dependent trans* people.
- We ask the local, national and international sports associations, Full acceptance of trans* people, who still face discrimination and violence in an often closed and patriarchal environment. Sport should unite and embrace! No discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity should have any place in any sport. In every sporting environment, whether scholastic, public, or private, transgender people must be guaranteed full access and safe use of spaces.
Intersex people and health
Freedom is respect for bodies. Let us assume End violence against intersex people, forced to undergo invasive interventions from an early age; every person must be free to self-determine so that its nature is not limited by the imposition of a repressive concept such as gender binarism. We want widespread education regarding intersex identities, one that is capable of going beyond the purely medical approach, often still tied to 19th-century concepts, that still governs them. It is necessary to understand how social expectations and superstructures that decide what is “normal” and what not yet oppress intersex identities in all those fields that go beyond mere biology.
HIV and STI prevention
We want the activation of information campaigns regarding sexually transmitted infections even in schools, Through socio-sexual-emotional education aimed at overcoming the social stigma that affects people with HIV or AIDS. Adolescents today are at the mercy of a lack of education on issues related to Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), the result of a subculture promoted by an inefficient welfare state and increasingly aligned with reactionary ideologies. We need training courses and awareness that fully embrace a anti-stigma approach, in which respect for privacy must be a priority, aimed at healthcare workers on the doctor-patient relationship when their work involves LGBTQIA+ people. We call for greater availability of HIV and STI testing facilities, including in rural and remote areas.
PrEP
Access to PrEP (HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis), even in provincial hospitals, must become a guaranteed right to all people at risk, without distinction. Discrimination in the distribution of treatment, particularly for women and trans* people, must end. Healthcare is either a right for all or it is not a right.
Fight against patriarchy, transfeminism, secularism
The fight or is intersectional or it's not a fight.
We fight against fascism and every totalitarian regime. We are anti-racist, we are secular, we are Intersectional, decolonial, rebellious, conflicted, rooted yet free trans-ecofeminists in the world.
Increasingly identitarian forms of heterosexism are linked to a culture that relegates women to the ancestral role of care. Against the culture of patriarchy and a vision of the female universe as a handmaiden of male capital, we must defend the conscious choice that women bring with them when they decide to seek abortion and when they make decisions that self-determine their own paths. We want ourselves alive! We need to invest. in prevention and education on consent and not resort to legislative instruments that always arrive later, when we are no longer there!
A state that professes to be secular is a state that leaves no one behind.3.
The use of abortion in this country is increasingly held hostage by repressive policies. The right waves alleged bastions of defense of life and, in concert with anti-choice movements, recites its sermon of violence against the freedom of women, all women. Conscientious objection is still too widespread: for this reason, we call for constant monitoring and specific guidelines to be established so that access to abortion remains free and open And not held hostage by ill-advised legislative decisions. We will continue to demand that no public funding be allocated to anti-choice groups, movements, and associations that, in effect, prevent the full implementation of abortion in public facilities.
We are transfeminists3
Let's take up the fight against violence against women, always including trans women*, as if we were one body. Never alone. We will always stand alongside anti-violence centers in tirelessly demanding the implementation of adequate policies to combat gender-based violence. We ask continuing education of the staff of all the structures that work in close contact with the territory, so that they are prepared to recognize and manage, without prejudice, Violence against women in the LGBTQIA+ community is also a concern. Training is needed at all levels, including on what sexual consent really is and how to recognize it.
Sexuality is free
Sex Worker
We ask that people sex workers are free to decide for themselves; without in any way questioning the clear contrast to all forms of trafficking, Exploitation and slavery. We reject the paternalistic attitude that necessarily equates trafficking victims with self-determined sex workers. We demand the fight against all forms of illegality, but equally, we demand rights, protections, and full self-determination for those who choose sex work.
Kinky Identity and Orientation
The LGBTQAI+ Movement It arises from the awareness, consciousness, visibility, and political nature of the experience of desire, of bodies, and of non-heteronormative sexualities!
Kinky identity and orientation suffer daily stigma from a heteronormative society where the principle of "it's done, but not said" prevails. Especially in the world of work and parenthood, there are countless examples of problematic events connected to the visibility of people who live their Kinky orientation in the light of day. Our community is home to those who fight against heteronormativity with their own lives, bodies, choices, and desires, and to those who experience stigma because they are considered perverse and pathological.
Disabilities
We are queer people with disabilities! We people with disabilities are an expression of rights, capable of making decisions about our lives based on free and informed consent and of being an active part of society; We have the right to live our emotions and sexuality without prejudice. The sexuality of people with disabilities is not taboo. We demand that our right to a full and discrimination-free emotional life be recognized.
We demand that our cities, our territories, our schools, and our institutions leave no one behind! Teaching Italian Sign Language from the earliest years of school and the institutional removal of all architectural barriers are just the beginning of a journey where all citizens can experience their territories with equal rights!
Migrations and racialized people
We work every day to promote widespread acceptance, which translates into mutualism, and we will always be on the side of those fleeing war and poverty. We are migrants LGBTQAI+ who risk their lives every day because of an absent welfare state; we are racialized people, non-white Italian citizens, who have a history. Let's subvert the plans of those who still consider us second-class citizens, those who believe that normality lies in a culture of oppression and hatred.
We call for a commitment to protect LGBTQIA+ migrants fleeing countries where they risk their lives because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Migration is not a crime; it is a social and human phenomenon, and must be recognized as such. This is why we must dismantle the migration management system based on the criminalization of racialized bodies. We need a new citizenship law, because anyone born in Italy must be a citizen3 with full recognition and full rights.
We support queer people who find their family culture and their country of origin an obstacle to their full self-realization, including freedom in their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. For them, associations and schools are often a safe haven, and these organizations must ensure their full acceptance!
Queer Families
We ask that our children, daughters and sons, present and future, be protected by a State that recognizes them immediately, without having to spend your life in court, without forcing our families into expenses we can't afford, without citizens having to foot the bill for the legal machinery that forces us to demand rights we're entitled to from the very beginning. A state that claims to care about children actually leaves a portion of them unprotected!
We want the parental role of trans* people to be transcribed on their children's birth certificates based on the parent's identity choice and not on the role based on their so-called biological sex.
We ask that the formula "Parent" should be reinstated on all official documents of minors”" and not "Mother and Father" which often does not represent the real conformation of the family not only homoparental or queer, but also of single parents, minors in the care of other family members, etc.
We cannot accept that government policies, such as the Varchi law, continue to discriminate and penalize the rights of our families. We reject any attempt to delegitimize our parenting.
Surrogacy requires reflection, free from prejudices that hold it hostage to ideologies. It is a conscious and complex choice that questions consciences, respecting women's bodies and opposing all forms of exploitation.
We demand that the Varchi law be repealed.
Law 40 needs to be reformed; access to assisted reproduction techniques must be made available to all women, including single women and same-sex couples.
We are loudly calling for full adoption for everyone. Even single people.
Prison
We denounce prison as a whole, as an institution that systematically violates the dimension of dignity in human beings. We ask for its abolition as a device that mortifies sexual identity, through the sterilization of affectivity and Segregation based on determinism and the gender binary. We demand its abolition as a male, vertical, and patriarchal institution that exposes trans* women to gender-based violence in enclosed spaces and invisibilizes women and queer subjects, forced into a forced exercise of gender roles.
We therefore call for greater protection for LGBTQIA+ people deprived of their personal freedom. This is particularly true for trans, non-binary, and gender diverse people, who experience the additional discrimination of not being recognized.3 thus being constantly placed in dangerous situations.
Adequate spaces and places are needed in every detention facility that ensure full respect for the body, identity, and sexual orientation.
–
Let's launch Lazio Pride 2025 in Rieti!
In the province of Rieti, ravaged by earthquakes for years and systematically ignored by national and regional political agendas, young people live in a state of permanent emergency that affects not only what has collapsed, but everything that continues to be lacking: services, spaces, opportunities. School, in particular, has become for many a place where the right to education clashes daily with economic, structural, and cultural barriers. In an area where students still study in prefabricated buildings and temporary structures that have never been replaced, the problem is not just where lessons take place, but who can afford them.
We want culture to invade spaces and for sociality to design a new model of urban livability. We need to feel part of a social, civic project, far from the aseptic mechanisms of gentrification, in which capital invests to make profits for those who hold economic power. Our lives are fraught with difficulties in integrating into residential and social contexts. finding a place to live becomes difficult, Because the city creates profound inequalities and shatters dreams. Especially in a context like ours, where the real chances of staying and not being forced to emigrate are extremely slim!
Pride in Rieti is a great moment of collective visibility For the struggle of all towards achieving equal rights, freedoms, and opportunities. Through the visibility and resistance of our bodies, our identities, our stories, and the dignity of each individual.3 We want to build a province for LGBTQIA+ people and open a path for discussion and encounter among all the subjects present in the area. We therefore ask all the organizations that have not yet done so to join the Rieti Lazio Pride and relaunch their commitment to a more just and equitable society, where no one feels excluded.3!
The body is political, presence is revolution!
[:]
