Naples, May 27, 2026
In a context marked by the spread of fake news and targeted attacks aimed at undermining the credibility of the few organizations that are committed to protecting rights and ensuring protection, The Naples Pride Committee firmly rejects the accusations and narratives spread in recent hours. The reconstruction offered on social media is once again full of false information, instrumental simplifications, and distorted narratives that are clearly at odds with the reality of our political and human journey.
We firmly reject any kind of delegitimizing action revolt against the Naples Pride Committee in its entirety, against the associations that comprise it and against the collective work they represent, as well as any attempt at delegitimization.
However, the Naples Pride Committee does not intend to fuel any controversy built through summary trials, especially those held in the public digital space. This is not the standard by which to measure the political credibility of a Pride event and the associations that organize it, nor is it the method through which a diverse community, encompassing diverse sensibilities, can build shared responsibilities.
Political dissent is not only legitimate but also integral to the history of LGBTQIA+ movements; however, the systematic delegitimization and mystification of the movement through serious and propagandistic claims, partial and biased reconstructions, and denigrating attributions that do not correspond to the Committee's composition, political platform, public practice, and collective responsibility is another matter entirely.
The Committee is composed of autonomous, recognizable and publicly responsible entities: Antinoo Arcigay Naples, ALFI Napoli Le Maree APS, Pride Vesuvius APS, ATN Transsexual Association Naples And Campania Rainbow Coordination.
Delegitimizing the work of an entire community of activists through the instrumental isolation of individual names, roles or affiliations, in an attempt to improperly make them the representative pivot of a plural path means obscuring and delegitimizing the daily and incessant work of the associations, of the volunteers who are an integral and essential part of it, of the territorial realities and of the trans*, lesbian, queer and transfeminist subjects who have contributed and contribute to the construction of the Naples Pride, from 1996 to today.
The Naples Pride Committee has already unequivocally expressed its political position through a platform which leaves no room for interpretative ambiguity, available on the web and accessible to anyone (https://napolipride.org/piattaforma-politica/ ).
The political platform denounces the repressive tendencies of the present; contests the discriminatory policies of the current government; opposes conversion therapies; recognizes trans* and non-binary people as subjects to be respected, recognized and protected, never tolerated; demands free, accessible and up-to-date public healthcare, shelters, regulatory tools against hate crimes, sexual-emotional and gender education, full recognition of LGBTQIA+ families and combating all forms of transphobia, transmisogyny, enbyphobia, lesbophobia, homophobia, biphobia, misogyny, racism, serophobia, and social stigma.
Napoli Pride has no need to claim its adherence to transfeminism through "consensus-grabbing" formulas and declarations.“. Napoli Pride's support for transfeminist rights is an integral part of the commitments of the individual associations that make up the Committee and of their daily commitment to the benefit of the community as a whole.
Transgender and queer people on the Committee are not complicit in the instrumental use of their struggles; suggestively interpreting the issue differently, it amounts to disrespecting the history of the “Femminielli” and of our City.
The political platform of Napoli Pride opens with the quote of Article 11 of the Constitution of the Italian Republic. This choice has no ornamental or rhetorical value. Rather, it is a precise assumption of political and ethical responsibility. For the Naples Pride Committee, the rejection of war, of all wars, is an organizing principle, just as reject violence as a semantics of relations between peoples as well as among all people.
Solidarity, as stated in the political platform, cannot be subjected to hierarchies of pain.
For this reason, the Naples Pride Committee firmly rejects any attempt to portray it as a "conservative" space, antithetical to transfeminist, anti-racist, pacifist, and anti-militarist concerns. Such a portrayal is not reflected in the texts and political positions expressed to date.
Napoli Pride remains an open political space for claims, memory, struggle, self-determination and democratic responsibility.. For this reason, it is unacceptable that confrontation be instrumentally replaced by invective, that criticism be confused with aggression, and that a collective and progressive journey be the target of damaging narratives that are as unfounded as they are unfounded.
Pride, by its nature, is a space crossed by claims and tensions but it can never give way to a denigrating and delegitimizing logic or one that could in some way even be excluding or repressive with respect to freedom of thought.
To institutions, associations, citizens, and all LGBTQIA+ people, we reiterate that Napoli Pride 2026 will continue to work with the same dedication and transparency as always. The thirtieth anniversary of the first Pride in Southern Italy, a transfeminist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, secular, peaceful, nonviolent, anti-militarist, intersectional and open Pride, deserves a debate worthy of its history.
Freedom is not corrected; it is practiced!
Naples Pride Committee
The Antinoo Arcigay Naples Board of Directors
The ALFI Le Maree Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of the Trans Naples Association
The Vesuvius Pride Board
Campania Rainbow Coordination
