Turin, November 19, 2016 – Gabriele Piazzoni, national secretary of Arcigay, and Ottavia Voza, head of trans policies for Arcigay, will also participate in the Trans Freedom March today in Turin, the demonstration convened by the Turin Pride Coordination Committee on the occasion of TDoR, the international day dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of transphobia, which is celebrated tomorrow, November 20. “Why a day to remember violated and murdered transgender people? – says Ottavia Voza – Because until 1999, the year TDoR was established, these were victims without dignity, memory, or identity. No relationship could understand those broken lives. Today we will be neither at the head nor at the end, but in the living body of the Turin march, just as we will also be on November 26 in Rome, for the demonstration on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In Turin and Rome with the same spirit: “Not one less”, which is also the spirit with which TDoR is being celebrated in many Italian cities these days”. "It is urgent to focus on the alarm that this day brings to light," continues Gabriele Piazzoni, "and which reaches a peak of severity, on the European map, precisely in Italy. The TGEU Trans Murder Monitoring Observatory reports five trans people killed in the last year in Italy, a figure that confirms and reiterates an unfortunate record that unfortunately lacks credible and effective countermeasures. Italy wears the black jersey of transphobia: our country is a difficult, if not downright dangerous, place for a trans person to live. These data are also delivered to us with a margin of uncertainty, as they are drawn from the media and not from an institutional observatory responsible for carefully monitoring the phenomenon. We are therefore only talking about the tip of the iceberg, which nevertheless tells us something about a hidden fact of silence, of violence that goes unreported or, in some cases, disappears in reports that ignore the chosen gender of the victims, imperiously returning them to the orthodoxy of biological. Of course, the The trans movement in Italy has a strong and stubborn voice, but the political will to heed and then act on that voice is often lacking. It's no coincidence that our country lacks a law establishing an aggravating circumstance for homophobic hate crimes, and every time a debate has opened to approve it, we've witnessed a progressive emptying and then silencing of those processes. Transphobia, like homophobia, is not a marginal phenomenon in Italy; it exists within the institutions, an almost legitimized fact in the name of "freedom of opinion" that transforms a constitutional value into a container for the worst forms of racism. There is much, much work to be done: even before we can stop the hand of the violent, we must counter the culture that legitimizes them. And we must do so with a broad perspective, taking into account, in these years of migration, how widespread transphobic hatred is, and in some parts of the world even brutal, to understand and welcome those who seek to escape that hatred. This is why it's important to bring this issue to the forefront. streets, as many Arcigay clubs are doing these days in the many Italian cities where TDoR is being celebrated. And as we are doing today in Turin with this important march, the result of a strong associative network and an institutional tradition that has successfully engaged with that network. In this regard, I want to thank Mayor Chiara Appendino, who by supporting the march places it at the center of the institutions and the city of Turin's attention, strengthening the foundations for concrete actions to combat the culture of hate and the crimes it generates,“ concludes Piazzoni.
