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ARCIGAY: "THE DEBATE ON HOMOTRANSPHOBIA AND BULLYING NEEDS STRUCTURAL RESPONSES."“
Bologna, April 23, 2018 – “The latest news of a young gay man being beaten leaves us alarmed and deeply disheartened,” said Gabriele Piazzoni, national secretary of Arcigay. He continues: "The news in recent weeks has produced a dramatic daily bulletin of violence against adolescents, in schools, at home, and in public places. Some of these kids become targets because they are homosexual, others because they are overweight, for example. Generally, they are persecuted because they don't live up to the expectations of their surroundings. This alone is enough to trigger violence from classmates, passers-by, and even parents. In this case, a young gay man was beaten and kicked out of his home by his father. We have heard numerous comments on bullying in recent days, for example, but they all stop at analysis or even dismiss the phenomenon with a logic similar to the law of retaliation: once the bully is punished, the issue is considered solved. The dramatic story of Turin, where the violent perpetrator is a father, is a slap in the face to this superficiality. We want to say it clearly, once and for all: we need complex prevention and counteraction strategies, which politicians are failing to provide. An example for everyone: in Emilia-Romagna In Bologna and Parma, where two serious homophobic attacks have occurred in the last month, the regional framework law to combat homotransnegativity is blocked by a veto within the center-left majority, and President Bonaccini, along with his entire cabinet, remains stubbornly silent. We have seen the same silence in other regions and even in Parliament, for many years. So, what is to be done? The lack of adequate responses, in our opinion, is at least as serious as the phenomenon itself: those who fail to react are complicit in the violence. "We extend our full solidarity to the young man from Turin and to all the other young people who have been subjected to violence repeatedly, first by those who reject them and then by politicians who ignore them," concludes Piazzoni. The solidarity of Arcigay is also joined by that of the "Ottavio Mai" group in Turin: "We express our deepest sympathy to the young man," declares President Francesca Puopolo, "and we are making our services available to him, from psychological assistance to legal assistance," she concludes.
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