President Sergio Mattarella spoke out in favor of LGBT+ rights on Tuesday in a message for the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. “This international day focuses attention on the violation of the dignity of a person motivated by them having a different sexual orientation from one’s own,” Mattarella said. “It is necessary to educate (to create) a culture of non-discrimination, to build a community that eliminates all forms of abuse based on the rejection of differences. Respect for the rights of every person and the equality of all citizens, as laid down by our Constitution and by international law that we have made our own, cannot be set aside”.
A bill with measures to combat homophobia has become bogged down in the Italian parliament among major differences over it among the political parties. Young LGBTIQ+ people between the ages of 13-29 suffer 60% of the violence aimed against them in a family setting, Gay Help Line said Tuesday in releasing a special report for the anti-homophobia day. Over 50% of reports of violence come from under 35-year-olds, the help line said. Violence from family members rose from 35% of all discriminatory attacks in 2021 to 42% in 2022, the help line stated. Some 20% of users of the help line between the ages of 18 and 26 asked to be housed in gay shelters set up by the Refuge LGBT organization. In this case. too, there was a sharp rise in the number of young gays reporting violence and discrimination from their families, the report said. Some 26% of Italian gays said they had been penalized at work after declaring their homosexuality or bisexuality in a 2020-21 report by ISTAT. The national stats agency said the LGBT respondents said they had suffered in at least one of three areas: getting lower pay, being passed over for promotions, and seeing their professional skill-set undervalued, ISTAT said.
The report was also issued specially for the international day against homophobia. A school in Ravenna is to have Italy’s first ‘gender alias’ roster of students’ names. Students at the Liceo Artistico Nervi Severini will be able to pick a name and gender different from their given ones for the morning roll call, the school announced ahead of the International Day Against Homophobia on Tuesday. The initiative is aimed at “fostering the psychological well-being of people,” said the school. “Our action stems from a couple of requests we have received and it seems absolutely correct to meet them,” said head teacher Gianluca Dradi, who in 2019 gained headlines by not cancelling the would-be scrawled insult “the head is gay” because he said that being gay was not offensive. One of the girls attending the school has already got her chosen name on her bus pass. There is another student who does not identify as male or female. “Our teachers have already been calling them by their elective names, but we have decided this should not only be a concession, but also a right,” stated Dradi.
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