Pride parades through the streets of Perugia and bursts, vehemently and without asking for permission, into the city’s electoral campaign. It does so with slogans, with demands, even with criticisms shouted at everyone, from the government to the mayor, to the centre-right candidates. A procession which, this year, was unable to march through Piazza IV Novembre, for reasons of public order, mainly linked to the elections. But who, in fact, has not given up on taking sides, on taking a very clear position. Moreover, the centre-left mayoral candidate, Vittoria Ferdinandi, demonstrated – as expected – with the rainbow audience of this event, which every year brings to the streets those who want to fight for the rights of the GLBT community. And on the street, “escorted” by a fair number of uniformed officers, there are not only gay and lesbian boys and girls, drag queens and trans people. Here, in fact, were the university students, some foreigners, some tourists intrigued by that colorful wave, and the heterosexual families, arriving with lots of children in tow. It’s true, many are “rainbow families” – therefore families made up of two parents of the same sex -, but many have taken to the streets in solidarity with a community that demands equal rights.
THE APPEALS FROM THE CHARIOTS
“Please don’t tear up Scoccia’s posters,” shouts a boy from the CGIL wagon – equipped with a DJ set, even if the slogans against the centre-right candidate abound. “You’re annoying, you’ve annoyed us,” the same boy said a few minutes later. Appointment at 3pm at the Etruscan Arch, although the procession will begin to move after about an hour, along via Pinturicchio, via XIV Settembre, Tre Archi, Via Marconi, Via Masi and Viale Indipendenza, concluding with the final speeches from the Giardini stage Carducci. “We are more than 10 thousand”, shout the organizers, led by Stefano Bucaioni, president Omphalos and spokesperson for Umbria Pride, whose claim this year is «Guastafeste», the slogan that opened the procession. «Taking to the streets this year is even more important – says Bucaioni – because we live in a country where if a personality comes out with violent, homophobic and sexist expressions, instead of receiving a strong unanimous and transversal condemnation he is nominated for the European Parliament. We want a mayor who thinks about potholes but who also guarantees equal rights to everyone.” The cartels target the prime minister, but also the church. Fifty associations joined the demonstration: from Legambiente to the CGIL and the UIL, up to the middle school students and the UDU, while for politics there are only the Dems, the 5 Star Movement, Volt and the Green and Left Alliance. From Rome, for Avs, here is the parliamentarian away Massimiliano Smerigliotogether with the mayor’s delegate Roberto Gualtieri for GLBT rights, Marilena Grassadonia. «We are taking part in this wonderful procession because it is consistent with the slogan of our electoral campaign: ‘Every citizen and every community'” – says Ferdinandi, who demonstrates that she is at home here, giving selfies and hugs to everyone – At the root of our political vision there is first and foremost respect for the dignity of every person, understood in their irreducible uniqueness. So if ‘Perugia belongs to everyone’ as Margherita Scoccia also says, we are here to practice a real idea of a city that truly respects everyone, that knows how to recognize and value diversity, that is capable of including and leaving no one behind . A square of rights cannot be considered a divisive square.” Divisions that have emerged – unfortunately like every year – on social networks: dozens of insults have accompanied the organizers’ posts on Umbria Pride in recent days.
Ferdinandi then announces: «If I am elected, I will give the city’s patronage to this event». There is also Tommaso Bori, regional secretary of the dem: «We have joined this procession, as already done by the national Democratic Party and by the secretary Elly Schlein, with the desire to reiterate that there are no citizens of series A and series B and that the rights they must be the same for everyone. We are in the streets to explain that the world we want to live in is made of inclusiveness, without inequalities and differences, at a time when there are those who return to talking about walls, divisions and spreading fear.” The city greets the colorful tide, someone looks out of the windows, others photograph the very young. This year too, Pride made itself felt.
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