This year my mother went to her first Pride. We did half the parade together with my aunts, until the heat and tiredness took over. She sent me photos, videos and selfies while I – in the meantime in Milan – asked her on Whatsapp: how is it going? Are you too tired? But she told me she did better than expected. She told me that she had a lot of fun, that she saw a lot of freedom and pride, and she would have liked to go with me.
It’s the first time my mother goes to Rome Pride, and the first time I don’t participate. I would like to say that I had to work or I didn’t want to spend the train money (partly true), but the reality is that this year the Rome Pride didn’t convince me, and also on the Milan Pride I have my doubts: rather, I chose to give priority to Marciona‘lateral’ Pride which will be held this Friday 21 June again in Milan.
Priot Pride 2024 in Rome on June 1st – the report here >
What are the so-called ‘lateral’ or ‘antagonistic’ prides? They are self-financed prides, free from any sponsor or brand, they have no godmothers, they follow a more accessible and shorter route. It is not at 3pm in the sun, but at 5.30pm, and during the march they provide earplugs, snacks, sugar packets, plasters, and cans of water. They are expressly transfeminist (therefore in support of every marginalized subjectivity; au revoir, TERFs!) and they have no qualms about screaming ‘Free Palestine!‘because there is no multinational to put pressure on what not to say. Law enforcement agencies are not allowed (no, not even Polis Aperta – an association of law enforcement agencies pro and part of the LGBTQIA+ community) because if they beat us up fifty years ago, they continue to do so today (among the most recent: see Bruna, trans* woman beaten by Milanese policemen in 2023) and it seems a bit of a contradiction. In addition to Milan, last June 1st it was also held in Rome with the Priot Pride, while both in Bologna and Venice – respectively il Rivolta Pride in Bologna and Lagoon Pride in Venice – have completely replaced institutional Pride events.
In this regard, this year Priot Pride has come out harshly against Roma Pride, defining it as “a ridiculous catwalk of institutional representatives who simultaneously support Pride and the States General of Birth, 28 sponsors, 22 institutional patronages of which 20 embassies of states at war (such as the United States which is carrying out a proxy genocide in Gaza) and with a contribution of 350 euros also to wagons of self-organized political realities.” Also the president of Arcigay Roma, Rachele Giuliano and vice president Pietro Turano they expressed doubts regarding the event: from the ‘lack of transparency’ in the selection of sponsors to the unclear position towards the Palestinian genocide.
All reasons that lead me to choose another march this year, but don’t believe me to be any less confusing: lateral prides are demonstrations that arise from the bottom, they put marginalized people at the center and not trusted pop stars, but if you are not registered with specific Telegram channels, you have connections with collectives or people in the environment, you barely know the time, day, or meeting place. They don’t have social pages, they don’t do promos, and you can only take photos if you ask for consent. It’s something that I like conceptually, but if I think about it as a whole I can’t help but ask myself: Who exactly am I addressing? To everyone or just me and who is like me? Isn’t there a risk of becoming a closed circuit? It makes sense to fight inside a ‘bubble‘? I ask myself all these questions as I make a choice of which I am sure but not without contradictions.
On the other hand, this year’s Rome Pride saw over a million participants, including the Mayor and secretary of the PD dancing on floats. Last year Milan Pride had a turnout of over 300 thousand people and if visibility won’t save us, I find it hard to believe that all of this isn’t important. But I also can’t ignore Turano and Giuliano when they say they don’t want to take to the streets like “a commercial target useful for making someone earn money”, and disagree with them. The fact is that so many people liked Roma Pride, including my mother – that she doesn’t know all these things unless I explain them to her. But she also tells me: ‘nice, except that at times it seems like they use you a bit‘.
In all this I think that in June 1969 a Stonewall there were the first revolts by the LGBTQIA+ community against the American police, but in Naples in September 1943 we had the little women who held weapons and shot at the tanks of the Nazi insurrection.
The struggle has always been there, before and after 1969: we fought for our community, but also against gender violence, ableism, systemic racism, the liberation of all oppressed people. Thinking that we inherited it only from the United States risks making us miss an important piece of the puzzle. June will never be a month like the others, but it continues to seem like one to me glittery reminder of something that we should expand and question more throughout the rest of the year, and only for those 31 days it seems to be ‘relevant’ outside my bubble. Almost one external concession to make noise, as long as it is salable and convenient enough for those who finance us.
I don’t have a solution to all this: on the one hand there is a Pride that reflects more what I believe in and makes me feel ten times safer, but I seem to play and sing it alone. On the other there is a Pride that represents me less and less but it also resonates with who and where I never thought possible.
And so I ask myself a question: is it essential that these Pride events represent me at 360 degrees? And above all, is this really the point of the fight? In the words of an authoritative source (a meme on X/Twitter):
baby, es un movimiento, no tu manager’ (it’s a movement, not your manager).
For today the only solution I have found is to continue to be there. Demonstrate how we can and where we want, but also contemplate the options, ask ourselves a few more uncomfortable questions even if we don’t have answers. Whatever procession we choose to follow, let’s not anesthetize it: let’s observe the lights and shadows of that movement, Let’s ask ourselves what it has become and what we would like it to bewithout ignoring the contradictions but possibly looking them in the face and questioning them again this year.
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