The voice of: Rosario Coco

The response to our open letter regarding the March 29th assembly at the Mario Mieli Hospital in Rome.

Char3 all3,

Your open letter following the March 29th meeting brought to mind some insights I'd like to share with you, on a personal level. I'll start from my experience as president of Gaynet, which is just one of the organizations on the Strada Dei Diritti, and from my recent experience on the board of ILGA Europe, thus offering a partial and non-exhaustive perspective.

The Strada dei Diritti, born from an initial nucleus of organizations in the summer of 2021, is for me a space for discussion, not a blockade designed to bring movements and associations together in the same positions, practices, and practices. Within the Strada dei Diritti, both joint initiatives and initiatives promoted by individual organizations have emerged in recent years. In recent months, I have had the opportunity to explore how similar spaces exist in other countries as well—spaces that, given the dramatic situation of resource constraints and operational capacity of the international movement, are becoming increasingly valuable.

The point of reference within Strada dei Diritti remains the political manifesto published in 2022, aimed at offering a clear overview of our legislative objectives.

The LGBTQIA+ movement, as I see it, is not just about demanding rights, that's for sure. It's a presence in different spaces, different battles, different institutions. It's a presence among marginalized groups. It's a driver of social change at all levels. Unlike other movements, we are an archipelago of very distant cultures and political practices. Because we are everywhere.

Within what I've called "movement" in a broad sense, many people then identify "movements" and "associations," a dichotomy that often presents overlapping subjectivities, especially when looking at small towns. This dialectic is often linked to different functions, rather than different subjects. The attack on this movement today is before our eyes. Your association is a clear example of those places in our community that are targeted today more than ever. It shares, with many other organizations, the responsibility of managing services, healthcare facilities, meeting places, and recreational spaces crucial for LGBTQIA+ people. The call for March 29th, with a view to May 17th, began here: to change pace, to respond together to the restriction of our living spaces. To respond to the risk that Italy will slowly and inexorably follow the global black drift.

Rather than saying that "the movements didn't respond to that call," I believe the movements were listening. To date, just a few days before May 17th, an important dialogue has been built with the movement for the Citizenship Referendum and with the network against the Security Bill. Student groups are also mobilizing. I agree that more could have been done. Whatever happens in the streets, I think that in this first part of 2025 we have managed to give new impetus to the movement.

I don't believe, however, that a space can exist where everyone agrees on everything. I've only briefly explored the previous paths, and my understanding is that the main issues were long-term sustainability and the choice of objectives. Clearly, these are considerations based on the benefit of hindsight, which in no way detract from the importance of those initiatives in terms of political workshops and the growth of the people involved as activists.

I believe that today people have fewer and fewer opportunities to engage in activism, because our daily lives are increasingly complex and challenging. On the other hand, our adversaries are highly organized and professionalized. Therefore, I believe we need a space to define common denominators, precise objectives, and strategies around key events, such as May 17th, when the media and politicians talk about us with the usual superficial statements. It's up to us to reverse the narrative by taking a stance in the public debate.

Our adversaries have been doing this around the world for decades and have gotten to where they are. Some of Trump's decrees sound like Militia Christi flyers from 20 years ago.

Essentially, it's about recognizing different subjectivities, optimizing efforts, and building clear processes that will lead to a tangible outcome that impacts public opinion and political reactions.

We need to speak to many, to the majority of the country, as emerged at various assembly meetings. Moments like the May 17th demonstration, the first initiative with a national perspective in years, I believe must be as radical in their proposals as they are accessible in their language and specific in their political demands.

The May 17th platform is clear from this point of view: let's all go and shout together, on the day the news and media are talking about us, that we must immediately dissolve the "gender dysphoria" negotiation, that the persecution of rainbow families in the courts must be stopped, that pro-lifers must be thrown out of family planning clinics, that we are facing a neo-fascist government that is imposing an authoritarian model in the streets and in the schools.

Let's involve in the streets progressive organizations, unions, and movements that support us but haven't yet focused on our issues as fully as we do, or who sometimes don't understand us. Let's try for a moment to imagine ourselves in the square on May 1st. Many people, on paper, would declare themselves in favor of the LGBTQIA+ community (and we'd already hear some distinctions), but how many could explain why "gender" is a hoax or what gender identity is?

I'm convinced we all need to commit to a new era of educating civil society and politics on these issues, otherwise we won't be able to achieve any legislative progress, even after a hypothetical change of government. Some might say it's too early to think about that. Perhaps. But our adversaries have achieved what they've achieved by working with a long-term perspective for decades.

After the Pride season, which we hope will be among the most intense in recent years, I believe there is certainly a need to continue the work of the roundtables, provided, however, that we have a clear objective. At this stage, the roundtables were intended as a tool geared towards the 17th. They carried out the task identified by the promoters of March 29th, developing five in-depth reports that formed the basis of the press release issued to launch the square.

I believe that we need to imagine a path of functional comparison between the various subjectivities of the movement, a path that I imagine is oriented towards coordinating ourselves strategically for the mobilizations and intervening in the crucial moments of the public debate on LGBTQIA+ issues, placing the issue of sustainability and objectives first and foremost.

I believe the real challenge today is to ensure that the discussion is not driven by others, but rather by the movement itself, promoting initiatives aimed at civil society and politics.

See you on May 17th and on subsequent occasions!

Rosario Coco

The article The voice of: Rosario Coco comes from Keep.

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