The Region of Lazio revokes the protection of Rome Pride
There Lazio Region revokes patronage in the Pride of Romescheduled in the capital on June 10. This was decided by the new governor Francesco Rocca, center-right candidate who replaced Nicola Zingaretti, president of the Region for two terms (10 years) and beat Alessio d’Amato, center-left candidate.
At the center of the controversy is, in particular, surrogacy, which is defended by the Roma Pride 2023 manifesto, which this year will march through the streets of the capital shouting “Queeristance“: “In the first year of the Melonis government, the Queer community suffered multiple attacks – explain the organizers – From the elimination of the names of transgender people from school registers to the cancellation from the census of the daughters and sons of same-sex couples. These and more. We never stopped fighting. We took out our bodies, our identities, our existences. Because no government can stop us. We will not stop proudly claiming that there are different families and relationships that cannot ignored”.
Cultures
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If initially the center-right regional administration had maintained its patronage – a kind of “silence-agreement” – the strong intervention of the ProVita association pushed Rocca, the candidate personally chosen by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to run in the Lazio regional elections. , to immediately take a (distant) position: “The decision to withdraw the patron has been made necessary and inevitable following the statements, tones and intentions contained in the manifesto of the event, which can be publicly consulted on the website of the event – we read in the press release issued by Pisana – these statements violate the conditions expressly requested for the grant of previously of good support loyalty from part of the district of Lazio”. The text, the official note continues, “infringes the terms of compliance expressly requested against the sensitivities of the citizens of Lazio and demands the enforcement of the legalization of illegal actions prohibited by Italian law. The institutional signature of the region of Lazio cannot and will never be used to support demonstrations aimed at promoting illegal behavior, with specific reference to the practice of the so-called rented matrix.”
The reaction of the organizers of Rome Pride, who spoke of “an excellent turn of the waltz“, recalling how Rocca “after first granting us patronage, then withdrawing it, now proposes to grant it again, asking us in return for an apology, and what is much more serious is to eliminate from the political document the part concerning rights of our sons and daughters. A crazy and politically ungrammatical request, which has no historical precedent in the relations between institutions and movements. It is Roma Pride that demands an apology from Governor Rocca for this absurd request.”
Therefore, the demonstration for LGBTQIA+ rights will continue the auspices of the Municipality onlyas confirmed by the mayor Roberto Gualtieri on Twitter: “#RomaPride is an important demonstration for the #Lgbt+ community and for all citizens who fight discrimination and support rights – said Gualtieri – That’s why #Roma Capitale has secured its patronage and for this saturday i will be in the square for #Pride”.
No free birth control pill (at least for now)
Ifa is in the face free birth control pills. If in April the price and reimbursement committee of the Italian Medicines Agency (Aifa) had approved the decision Make some hormonal contraceptives free for women of all age groupswith a total public investment of 140 million euros, at the end of May the board led by Giorgio Palù referred the matter to the committees, the CTS, that is the technical-scientific one, and the CPR, the one that deals with prices and returns money, effectively blocking approval.
“The Board of Directors of Aifa has taken note that the advisory committees of the organization they have not yet developed precise indications on the age groups in which the contraceptive pill should be given free of charge, on the methods of distribution and on the cost to the National Health System in the different scenarios of reimbursement adoption – we read in a press release – For example, all women of reproductive age, for economically disadvantaged women or for young women up to the age of 19/26, as is the case in some European countries and in the six Italian regions that offer free contraceptive pills. The Board of Directors therefore found that the essential elements for making a decision do not exist.”
Therefore, the committees will now have to decide whether to proceed as is already happening in the Regions where the pill is distributed free of charge, in clinics, only for under 26s and to those facing financial hardship or whether to reform the measure approved last April 21 from scratch.
Bologna is the first municipality to approve the nickname career for civil servants
The Municipality of Bologna is the first to activate the so-called “career nickname,” meaning the ability for transgender and non-binary employees to to be identified in an alternate gender of birth, and to recognize this right at an institutional level. This means they will be able to request that their chosen name appear on their badge, email address and office door sign. Citizens can submit the same request with the municipal library card and city transport season tickets.
The initiative was proposed by the president of the Committee for Equality and Equal Opportunities, Porpora Marcasciano, together with the deputy mayor Emily Clancy: “The Municipality of Bologna, since this term, has made enormous progress in this respect: in the Plan of Integrated Activity and Organization that we approved in the council there is the recognition of the identity of the nickname for the workers, to guarantee to the people who intend to they use a choice name according to their gender identity to be able to ask for badge, email address, door plate of their office with the name of the option the employee chose,” Clancy said.
The deputy mayor then confirmed that the administration is working to achieve the same process “so that we can use the pseudonym in municipal library services or on the urban transport season ticket. All this was made possible thanks to the work of Porpora Marcasciano, chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission – Clancy concluded – who encouraged the debate and activity of the City by convening various fact-finding hearings that resulted in an agenda passed by the city council in which the self-determining registers within the municipal administration are set up and the provision of toilets without gender restrictions is launched”.
In Uganda the harshest anti-LGBT law in the world: homosexuals could be punished with the death penalty
LARGE’Uganda launch one law against homosexuality has become among the harshest in the world: the provision signed by President Yoweri Museveni in late May means that people convicted of engaging in homosexual acts between adults are at risk Life imprisonmentand that whoever is guilty of what is defined as “aggravated homosexuality” (i.e. homosexual relations with minors under 18, persons with disabilities or based on threats) even risks death penalty.
“The new law represents a cruel attack on human and civil rights. It criminalizes us simply for being who we are – a Ugandan LGBT+ activist who chose to remain anonymous due to the current security situation in All Out – We face the prospect of prison terms of up to twenty years for “promoting homosexuality” and to the death penalty for so-called “aggravated homosexuality”. The hateful and genocidal rhetoric targeting the LGBT+ community expressed in the Ugandan parliament is now causing a violent and brutal backlash against our community. Unfortunately, I have already seen a significant increase in cases of extortion, eviction, denial of health care and brutal gang violence.”
The day after the approval of the law – the president had 30 days to sign it after the approval of the Parliament – associations fighting for the protection of the rights of the LGBT+ community promised to try in every way to challenge it, appeal to the Constitutional Court and receiving the support of many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, but many LGBTQIA+ Ugandans have already mobilized to leave the country, horrified by the government’s (legalized) homophobic derogation.