Two thousand march at Pavia Pride: “We are people, not ideologies”

Pavia. Two thousand people, maybe even more. The long Pavia Pride procession gathered all the desire to affirm their freedom (and respect for the rights) of the LGBTI+ community but not only of all those minorities who are still not sufficiently protected.

Marching for rights

So many people really united in the single cry “Involved? -Todes against indifference”, which started from the Covered Bridge to pass along Strada Nuova, the Castle, Corso Cairoli and arrive in the shadow of the Towers of Pavia for the words of the two testimonials of the event promoted by Coming-Aut with the patronage of the Municipality and Province: Elena Di Cioccio, daughter of the musician Franz Di Cioccio and Egon Botteghi, who spoke about her trans parenting. Opening the procession was the Coming-Aut van dressed in rainbow with Niccolò Angelini on board leading the songs and slogans at the microphone, flanked by a decidedly wild Elena Di Cioccio and Barbara Bassani at the mixer.

«Pavia are you there? – shouts Angelini, greeted by a kilometre-long yes – I don’t feel enough fagotism!» Closing it, with their pink t-shirts, are the children of the Arcobaleno families on the motor train rented for the occasion. The parents are in front of them. In the middle, as mentioned, two thousand or more people with the desire to shout – as one banner said – that “love is never wrong”. Many well-highlighted signs, all along this line: “Gay, lesbian, bisexual… only humans”, or “The heart sees no barriers” and also “Queers for Palestine” of the Palestinian representation.

Girls hand in hand, boys embraced and wrapped in their rainbow flags and then a large space for the trans Miss Beauty parade, wrapped in her immense blue and pink dress. And on the sides of the road many people stopped to take photographs and were also ready to join the procession. Others look out of the windows or onto the balconies. Few, very few complaints. Only a few people caught shaking their heads in their “but where have we ended up” and others ready to abandon the colored area in total indifference. And in this lively climate we arrived under the Towers of Pavia to listen to many testimonies: those of parents with trans, gay and lesbian children who chose to stay close to them instead of abandoning them to themselves. And then messages from non-binary trans people, gay Nigerians forced to flee their country, lesbian women, sex workers, disabled people… all requests for help which every day also arrive at the Coming Aut listening center, in Corso Garibaldi.

Then Cecilia Bettini, the first trans president of Coming-Aut, takes the floor. «Todes is the word that leaves no one behind – she begins – we have known and know how to be a community and our strength, our involvement against minorities, has come from here. In Pavia, three ferocious attacks on LGBTI+ people have occurred in the last year, amidst everyone’s indifference. The silence of those who still choose not to intervene is striking, also due to a government that considers us ideologies, not people and legitimizes hatred against minorities.”

Stories from the stage

After Elena di Cioccio, the second godmother of Pavia Pride spoke on stage: Egon Botteghi. «I am a “kind” of trans man, mother of Pietro and Viola – he says – on 17 May 2006 I got married, it was Pietro’s first birthday. It was a straight marriage, but a gay divorce. In fact, I married as a woman and divorced as a man. I was terrified for my children, I didn’t know how they would react to seeing their mother turn into a man. They told me that I would create confusion and trauma in them. Everyone knew I was a man, except my children, the two most important people in my life. One evening at dinner my 5 year old son asked me: Mom, why does everyone call you Egon now? I told them the truth, simply because I had become a man. My children call me mom, because they say they came out of me. They have no trauma, they are fine. And I am proud to be a mother man.” Daniela Scherrer