When Activism Loses Its Capacity for Pluralism
This article stems from an institutional and political analysis of radicalization processes within the Italian LGBTQ+ debate, with particular attention to the relationship between activism, institutions, and the rule of law.
I am writing because, throughout my political and institutional work, I have repeatedly encountered the same pattern: internal dissent that stops being a form of democratic debate and turns into personal and political delegitimization.
When a dynamic repeats itself, it ceases to be an isolated episode and becomes a political issue.
In recent years, this pattern has also emerged within parts of the Italian LGBTQ+ movement, intertwined with an increasing radicalization of language, intolerance toward autonomous positions, and a growing confusion between criticism, dissent, and political violence.
When Dissent Becomes Intolerable
Since my election to the Milan City Council in 2021, every time I have addressed complex issues—such as public safety, political violence, or the relationship between dissent and legality—I have faced harsh attacks, insults, and organized campaigns of delegitimization.
These attacks have come from a radicalized minority within the LGBTQ+ and transfeminist movement. A minority that does not represent the whole, but that embodies an increasingly intolerant and aggressive drift, both in tone and substance.
This is not healthy dissent, which is vital to any political community. It is the idea that on certain issues one must not reason, but simply comply. That the boundaries are already drawn, and stepping outside them amounts to betrayal.
Activism and Institutions: Different Roles, Both Necessary
Much of this tension stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between activism and institutions.
I began my engagement in civil rights activism in the late 1990s. Activism has a crucial role: pushing boundaries, breaking inertia, forcing issues onto the public agenda, exerting pressure, raising awareness, and ensuring that constitutional equality does not remain a formal declaration, but becomes lived reality.
Institutions, however, serve a different function. They must hold together rights and duties, freedom and security, pluralism and legality.
These are distinct roles. Both are necessary. They can interact, but they are not interchangeable.
When this distinction collapses, debate deteriorates and conflict turns into moral excommunication.
Non-Violence as a Principle, Not a Tactic
My stance on non-violence is not recent, nor is it a by-product of my institutional role. It has always been part of my political identity.
Even during my years as an activist, I never justified or supported political violence. The Italian LGBTQ+ movement historically achieved progress through visibility, speech, pressure, and peaceful provocation—not through violence.
Condemning political violence today does not mean betraying a cause. It means affirming that the rule of law is not a technical detail, but the very condition that makes rights possible within liberal democracies.
The distinction between dissent and violence is not a matter of opinion. It is a foundational principle of democratic systems—and it cannot become negotiable depending on who is protesting or against whom.
Stonewall and Ideological Simplifications
Every time I speak about public safety or condemn political violence, the same objection emerges: that doing so means “betraying Stonewall.”
The Stonewall riots of 1969 are often invoked as a permanent justification for political violence. This is both a historical simplification and a political error.
Stonewall occurred in a context of systemic repression, criminalization, and the complete absence of rights. It was a rupture, not a universally replicable model.
Recognizing its historical significance does not mean turning it into an eternal alibi. Context matters.
The Italian LGBTQ+ movement developed in a very different framework and deliberately chose other forms of conflict and visibility. Condemning violence today—within a democratic state where rights, however imperfect, exist—does not erase history. It protects the political effectiveness of present struggles.
Violence: Means or Principle?
Too often, violence is condemned only when it is considered tactically counterproductive—because it “helps the right wing” or legitimizes repression.
In this logic, violence is not wrong in itself; it is wrong only when it is inconvenient.
I reject this framework entirely.
Non-violence, for me, is not about convenience. It is an ethical position that concerns responsibility, language, and conduct. Not what works—but what is right.
There is also a form of violence driven by the pleasure of confrontation itself: an agonistic violence that turns demonstrations into battlegrounds and erases tens of thousands of peaceful participants. This is a privatization of public space that damages both democratic discourse and the causes it claims to defend.
I will never justify or defend violent behavior.
Internal Fractures and Identity Cages
A deeper fracture has emerged when internal dissent is no longer considered a resource, but a fault. When autonomous positions are immediately placed “on the other side.” When debate is replaced by moral labeling.
This dynamic impoverishes thought, rigidifies communities, and makes evolution impossible.
Within the LGBTQ+ movement, an increasing ideological codification has produced rigid categories, moral binaries, and a growing difficulty—even impossibility—of asking questions without being delegitimized.
A movement that stops questioning itself and starts policing itself inevitably loses its capacity to influence society.
Representation, Bias, and Subtle Discrimination
One final point is the most insidious.
Many of the criticisms directed at me are rooted in prescriptive expectations: the idea that, as a transgender woman, I should only address certain topics, speak in a certain way, or hold predetermined positions—especially on issues like public safety.
This is a cognitive bias. Reducing a person to a single identity dimension and demanding that it dictate all political positions is not inclusion. It is a subtle form of discrimination.
I am a transgender woman.
But I am also a citizen, a policymaker, and an institutional representative accountable to all voters—not only to one identity group.
When a voice is considered legitimate only as long as it confirms expectations, dissent ceases to be political and becomes suspect. At that point, pluralism is already compromised.
A Necessary Reflection
Writing this does not mean distancing myself from the LGBTQ+ movement. It is part of my history and remains part of who I am.
But just causes are not defended by narrowing internal pluralism. They are strengthened by it.
Rights endure only within an adult democracy—one capable of distinguishing dissent from violence, debate from delegitimization, and activism from ideological rigidity.
This is where, in my view, the conversation must begin again.