I am from Italy and last year members of the Senate cheered loudly and applauded as if they were in a stadium when a law that would protect queer people from discrimination and violence was tanked. The rage that learning about it caused is something I can still experience while writing this piece. The LGBTQ+ community in Italy have been waiting for such legislation for decades. The first attempt at introducing it was made in 2002 and now, 20 years later, my country still has no law that recognises a discriminatory motive for hate crimes perpetrated against queer folks.
I believe that the lack of such legislation is simply not acceptable anymore, in either of our countries. Because refusing to recognise a hate motive for these crimes is disregarding completely their core element, the very reason why they happen in the first place.
According to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), there are two elements that make a hate crime: an act that constitutes criminal offence and a bias motive. This second element is what distinguishes a hate crime from any other crime, because it means that the perpetrator chooses the survivor based on the prejudice they have against them. I use the term ‘survivor’ instead of ‘victim’ because the latter has negative connotations associated with weakness, helplessness and passivity and thus fails to grasp the resilience and the active role of a person who has suffered violence in overcoming the consequences of the aggression.
Portrait by Stefano Pappalardo.