We are in New York and it is the 1960s. Homosexuality expressed in any form is poorly tolerated. We are far from the terms that today (almost) are part of everyday life: the “queers” of the time are labeled as indecent, transsexuals are perceived as a danger. Nobody gives them a job or a home and the result is that they often find themselves on the sidewalks, overdosed. Prostitution and the resulting diseases such as AIDS are also widespread. Incursions into bars and clubs by the police are usual and as soon as they intercept a transsexual they arrest him. Often the faces of those arrested could be seen in the local newspapers the next day. On the night between 27 and 28 June 1969, however, a transsexual woman decided to break the pattern: her name was Sylvia Rivera and at the time she was just 20 years old: she had been living on the streets since she was just 11 years old, abandoned by her family. It is the city’s Drag Queen community that raises her and introduces her to prostitution to earn some money. Sylvia throws a glass bottle at a policeman, as a sign of rebellion. That same night a riot broke out at the “Stonewall Inn”, a well-known gay club in New York. And from that night, after the Stonewall uprising, June became LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.
THE ITALIAN STONEWALL
In 1971 Angelo Pezzana, a Turin bookseller, founded “Fuori!” acronym for Italian Revolutionary Homosexual Unitary Front. Turin was in fact the city where the first homosexual liberation movement was born. The following year Pezzana and his team took part in an international sexology congress held in Sanremo. The theme, the deviant behaviors of human sexuality. The focus is precisely on homosexuality. It is in that context that the first mentions of conversion therapies are made: “Gays must be treated according to pathologizing and therapeutic criteria”. A spontaneous procession was born to counter ideology. There are around forty people also coming from Belgium, Holland and France. It’s the first open-faced homosexual fight. Since the events of Sanremo, various demonstrations in Italy aimed to show the difficulties of homosexuals, who claimed the right to equality and protection. In 1979 the mayor of Turin Diego Novelli met a delegation from Fuori!, the same year a demonstration was held in Pisa with 500 participants.
ROME, 1994: the first Gay Pride
THE GAY PRIDE
The first event marked “Pride”, in Italian translated as pride, has the aim of creating a parade where those who do not reflect the standards of a heterosexual man or woman parade in a colorful carnival march: it is no coincidence that the Pride flag is a rainbow, representing all the nuances not yet conceived as the norm. The first fashion show is in Rome. It’s 1994. It was organized by Vladimir Luxuria and Imma Battaglia. 10,000 took part. The following year it was Bologna’s turn and in 1996 it was Naples’ turn. In Turin, the parade made its debut in 2006: among those present were the then president of the Piedmont Region Mercedes Bresso, Daniele Capezzone – in fact secretary of the Italian Radicals – and Luxuria, who in the meantime had become a member of the Chamber of the Communist Refoundation Party. However, the mayor, Sergio Chiamparino, is absent. 20,000 of them marched from Porta Susa to Piazza Castello.
