Naples: LGBT+ activism beyond the pride parade
Naples is home to one of the world's biggest transgender communities, activists say. A grassroots movement here is fighting gender discrimination as it builds an alliance against stereotypes.
Dedicated to the cause
Daniela Lourdes Falanga, 42, is the first transgender woman to chair the Naples branch of Arcigay, the leading Italian organization for the protection of LGBT+ people and the fight against gender discrimination. She was the first son of a local mafia boss.
Culture of tolerance
Naples is considered a welcoming and tolerant city. Activists claim it has the world's second-largest transgender community.
Building a movement
Arcigay has been fighting for equal rights, self-determination and smashing stereotypes and prejudices against LGBT+ people since 1985. There were 41 Pride parades in Italy in 2018. Five years earlier there were only five.
First gay pride event
A mural depicts the legs of drag queen Sylvia Rivera. She may or may not have been at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in June 1969, when drag queens and other patrons fought back against police harassment. The Stonewall riots, a series of clashes that marked the beginning of the LGBT+ rights movement. It's unclear who threw the first brick — or high heel; it doesn't appear to have been Rivera.
Father of the 'Pride Wave'
Antonello Sonnino, 42, is Arcigay Italy's sports spokesperson. He began his career as an activist after the 2010 death of Marcella Di Folco, a leader in Italy's LGBT+ rights movement who also starred in movies directed by Fellini and Rossellini. Sonnino presided over Arcigay Naples for six years and came up with the idea for the "Pride Wave," a joint political platform for all LGBT+ marches.
Student support
The University of Naples Federico II set up a help desk, the Synapse Center, where Daniela Lourdes Falanga also works, to support and promote the active and full participation of LGBT+ students. The university was the first in Italy to grant students an "alias career," which allows them to decide how they want their gender to be defined and to use the name they prefer.
Femminielli resistance
"Femminielli" here, in the San Giovanniello neighborhood, took part in the September 1943 popular uprising against the Nazis, remembered as the "Four Days of Naples." "Femminiello" is a term used to refer to males with markedly feminine gender expression in traditional Neapolitan culture. They were first mentioned in literature in the 16th century
'Love and nothing else'
"This illiterate heart you brought to school, and learned to write and learned to read one word: 'Love' and nothing else.'' The verses of a poem by Neapolitan actor Antonio De Curtis, best known by his stage name Toto, illuminate a street in Rione Sanita, one of the neighborhoods with the highest number of transgender people of Naples.