Italian politics and trans rights

Here is the plain truth: 64.5% of Italians in 2024 support marriage equality [12]. 53.5% recognize that identities exist beyond the male-female binary [12]. And yet Italy scores 24% on the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map (2025), down from the previous year [13]. A country where public opinion runs ahead and the political class brakes, stalls, or — when it can — pulls the handbrake. This is the story of how that happened, with names, dates, and vote counts. No one excluded.

The Zan Bill: anatomy of a shipwreck

The text

The Zan Bill takes its name from Democratic Party MP Alessandro Zan, who introduced it in 2018. The goal was to extend the existing legal framework on hate crimes (articles 604-bis and 604-ter of the penal code) to new categories: sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. It invented nothing new: it applied to these categories the same protections already provided for racial, ethnic, national, and religious discrimination.

The text consisted of ten articles. Article 1 defined key concepts, including gender identity as “the perceived and expressed identification of oneself in relation to gender, even if not corresponding to sex, regardless of having completed a transition process.” Article 4 — systematically ignored by detractors — explicitly safeguarded the free expression of convictions and opinions, provided they did not amount to incitement to violence or discrimination. Article 7 established May 17 as the National Day Against Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia.

The legislative process and the vote

The Zan Bill was approved by the Chamber of Deputies on November 4, 2020, with 265 votes in favor and 193 against. The text then moved to the Senate, where a parliamentary ordeal of delays, obstruction, and negotiations began. On October 27, 2021, a majority of senators approved the so-called “guillotine motion” — a procedural motion that prevented discussion of the articles and amendments [1]. In plain terms: the bill was killed without senators even having to vote on its substance.

The numbers: 154 in favor of the guillotine, 131 against, 2 abstentions [1]. Secret ballot. When the result appeared on the screens, applause erupted from the center-right benches. From the opposition benches, silence.

The dissidents and Italia Viva’s role

The secret ballot made it impossible to identify the culprits with certainty. But the arithmetic was clear: adding up the senators from PD, M5S, LeU, and Italia Viva, the votes against the guillotine should have outnumbered those in favor. That did not happen. Subsequent analyses estimated at least 16 dissidents within the center-left ranks [2].

The most striking case was that of Matteo Renzi, leader of Italia Viva, who was physically absent on the day of the vote [3]. While the Senate decided the fate of civil rights, Renzi was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — a country where homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment, flogging, and potentially death — to participate in the Future Investment Initiative, an event promoted by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund [3]. Italia Viva declared that it had voted as a block against the guillotine. But the leader’s absence, in that context, remained an unequivocal political fact.

Renzi, upon his return, said: “For months I asked for an agreement to prevent the rejection of the Zan Bill. Those who complain about absences should deal with the 40 dissidents.” Responsibility was shifted elsewhere. The Zan Bill was shelved.

The Meloni government: a legislature of systematic regression

The installation of the Meloni government in October 2022 inaugurated the most aggressive phase of policy hostile to the rights of trans people and rainbow families in recent republican history. This is not inertia or indifference: it is a coherent legislative program, articulated across multiple fronts, executed methodically.

The Piantedosi circular and the war on birth certificates

On January 19, 2023, Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi issued a circular to prefects reiterating the prohibition on same-sex couples accessing medically assisted reproduction in Italy [8]. The practical consequence: only the biological parent could appear on the birth certificate. The intentional parent — the one who had participated in the procreative project, raised the child, shared every moment from the decision to become a parent — was erased from legal existence.

In Milan, Mayor Beppe Sala was forced to stop transcriptions. In Padua, the Public Prosecutor’s Office challenged 33 birth certificates of children with two mothers, born through heterologous assisted reproduction since 2017 [9]. Thirty-three families. Thirty-seven minors, aged between 8 years and 40 days. Children who were asked, retroactively, to have one fewer parent.

The Padua Court declared over 30 of the Prosecutor’s appeals inadmissible in March 2024, confirming the birth certificates. But the political signal had been sent: rainbow families were in the crosshairs.

Constitutional Court ruling 68/2025: a safeguard

On May 22, 2025, the Constitutional Court issued ruling no. 68, declaring the unconstitutionality of Article 8 of Law 40/2004 in the part that prevented recognition of the so-called “intentional mother” [10]. The Court established that a child born in Italy from heterologous ART performed abroad by a female couple could acquire the status of child with respect to both mothers — both the biological one and the one who had shared and willed the procreative project.

The reasoning cited Article 3 of the Constitution (substantive equality), Article 2 (inviolable rights of the person), and Article 30 (rights of the minor) [10]. In short: it was the legislature that had violated the Constitution, not rainbow families. A fact that the public debate largely ignored.

Surrogacy: the “universal crime”

On October 16, 2024, the Senate gave final approval to the law making surrogacy a “universal crime”: 84 votes in favor, 58 against [4][5]. The amendment to Article 12 of Law 40/2004 extends the prosecutability of the offense to Italian citizens who resort to surrogacy abroad, even in countries where the practice is legal. Penalties: up to 2 years of imprisonment and up to 1 million euros in fines [4].

Italy thus became one of the very few countries in the world to criminalize its citizens’ conduct in foreign jurisdictions where that conduct is perfectly legal. The law, published in the Official Gazette on November 18, 2024 as Law 169/2024, disproportionately affects male couples who wish to become fathers, since surrogacy represents the only biological path to parenthood for male same-sex couples [5].

The Schillaci-Roccella decree: restricting trans healthcare for minors

On August 11, 2025, the Council of Ministers approved the decree-law on gender dysphoria in minors, signed by Health Minister Orazio Schillaci and Family Minister Eugenia Roccella [6]. The text introduced:

• Mandatory psychiatric evaluation for every minor accessing gender-affirming care pathways.
• Mandatory advisory opinion from the National Ethics Committee before prescribing puberty blockers (triptorelin).
• Establishment of a national AIFA registry to monitor the prescription and dispensing of medications [6].
• Dispensing exclusively through hospital pharmacies.

Eight of Italy’s leading scientific societies spoke out against the decree, denouncing the replacement of already effective clinical protocols with a centralized bureaucratic pathway, and warning that the mandatory opinion from the National Ethics Committee — a non-clinical body — would introduce a virtually insurmountable obstacle to access to care for young trans people [7].

The political message was transparent: gender dysphoria in minors was no longer treated as a medical condition to be managed with clinical tools, but as a phenomenon to be monitored, contained, and, if possible, discouraged.

Schools: banning “gender relativism”

In December 2025, the Chamber of Deputies passed on first reading — with 151 votes in favor, 113 against, and 1 abstention — the so-called “Valditara Bill” (named after Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara) [14]. The bill prohibits the teaching of “gender relativism” in preschools and primary schools and makes sex education in middle schools subject to parental informed consent. The text has yet to pass the Senate.

Ruling 143/2024: the Court that sees what Parliament refuses to

On July 23, 2024, the Constitutional Court issued ruling no. 143, a decision of historic significance for trans people in Italy [11]. Two questions were addressed:

On non-binary identities: the Court declared inadmissible the question raised by the Bolzano Court regarding the possibility of introducing a gender marker other than male and female. But — and this is the point that no one reported — the Court explicitly recognized that “the individual’s perception of not belonging to either the female or the male sex — from which arises the need to be recognized with an ‘other’ identity — generates a significant condition of distress” that can “lead to unequal treatment or compromise the psychophysical well-being of the person” [11]. The Court referred the matter to Parliament. Parliament, to this day, has not lifted a finger.

On judicial authorization for surgery: the Court declared the unconstitutionality of Article 31, paragraph 4, of Legislative Decree 150/2011, which required court authorization for gender-affirming surgery even after the judge had already ordered legal sex reclassification [11]. In practice: a trans person who had already obtained legal recognition of their identity had to seek further permission from a judge for surgery. An anomaly eliminated by the Court.

The party map: who stands where

Fratelli d’Italia

Giorgia Meloni’s party systematically opposes every form of recognition of the rights of trans people and rainbow families. From the Piantedosi circular to the universal surrogacy crime, from the Schillaci-Roccella decree to the Valditara Bill, every restrictive measure bears the signature of the governing coalition led by FdI.

Lega

Matteo Salvini has been among the main promoters of “anti-gender” rhetoric in Italy. The Lega introduced the guillotine motion that killed the Zan Bill [1]. Salvini attended the World Congress of Families in Verona in March 2019, alongside Family Minister Lorenzo Fontana, at an event co-organized by Pro Vita e Famiglia and described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a gathering of “anti-LGBT hate groups” [15].

Forza Italia

Follows the coalition line. Notable is the case of Elio Vito, who left his positions in the party in protest against the vote on the Zan Bill guillotine. The exception that proves the rule.

Partito Democratico (PD)

The PD was the promoter of the Zan Bill through MP Alessandro Zan, who re-introduced an updated version of the proposal in the subsequent legislature. The party supports marriage equality and the extension of anti-discrimination protections. However, the dissident affair in the 2021 secret vote exposed internal ambiguities that have never been fully resolved [2].

Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S)

The M5S supported the Zan Bill and, through Senator Alessandra Maiorino, introduced a bill on marriage equality and parentage [17]. Maiorino, coordinator of the M5S Committee on Gender Policies and Civil Rights, collaborated with Arcigay and jurist Antonio Rotelli on drafting the text. The party has declared itself in favor of marriage equality and adoption by same-sex couples.

Alleanza Verdi e Sinistra (AVS)

AVS represents the most advanced position in the parliamentary landscape. Its platform includes: marriage equality, adoption by same-sex couples and single people, access to ART for women and female couples, a ban on conversion therapies, a ban on unnecessary surgeries on intersex minors, and a law against homo-bi-transphobia and ableism [18]. No other parliamentary party proposes a package of this breadth.

Pro Vita e Famiglia: the extra-parliamentary apparatus

The association Pro Vita e Famiglia, chaired by Toni Brandi, represents the main civil society actor aligned against the rights of trans and LGBTQ+ people in Italy. Founded in late 2013, it has 110 local chapters and organizes over 150 conferences and training sessions per year.

In 2019, Pro Vita merged with Generazione Famiglia during the XIII World Congress of Families in Verona (March 29-31, 2019), an event that saw the participation of Salvini, Minister Fontana, and Veneto Governor Luca Zaia [15]. CNN described it as a gathering where “far-right groups unite under the pro-family umbrella” [15].

The most recent campaign, ”Mio Figlio No” (Not My Child), launched in February 2025, demands a law on prior informed consent for every school project regarding sexuality and relationships [16]. The national petition has surpassed 51,000 signatures. The stated goal: to keep schools “free from gender.”

The relationship between Pro Vita e Famiglia and the governing right is documented in academic research as symbiotic: the association’s positions find legislative expression in the coalition’s measures, and the coalition finds organized territorial support in Pro Vita e Famiglia’s associative network. The Valditara Bill banning “gender relativism” in schools is the most recent example of this dynamic [14].

Minister Roccella, co-signatory of the decree on gender dysphoria in minors, has repeatedly echoed the positions of Pro Vita e Famiglia on matters of “educational freedom” and “child protection” — rhetorical formulas that translate, in practice, into opposition to any recognition of gender identity in educational and healthcare settings.

Public opinion: the gap no one talks about

The Eurispes numbers in its 36th Italy Report (2024) photograph a country very different from the one represented by its Parliament [12]:

• 64.5% in favor of marriage equality (up from 47.8% in 2016: +16.7 points in eight years).
• 54.5% in favor of adoption by same-sex couples (+23.4% in five years).
• 40.7% in favor of self-declaration for gender change.
• 53.5% in favor of recognizing identities beyond the binary.
• 69.3% in favor of legal protection for de facto couples regardless of sex.

The generational divide is enormous: adoption by same-sex couples is accepted by 72.2% of 18-24 year-olds but only 39.2% of those over sixty-four [12].

These data make the gap between public opinion and legislative action not a simple delay, but a measurable democratic deficit. A majority of citizens demand rights that a parliamentary majority denies. The numbers are there. The debate ignores them.

Meanwhile, the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map records the decline: Italy is at 24% in 2025, down from 25% in 2024 — on a scale that measures the conformity of national laws with European LGBTI rights standards [13]. For comparison: Malta is in first place, Denmark and Belgium among the top five. Italy stands with Poland and Romania.

The overall picture

Between 2021 and 2026, the trajectory of trans rights in Italian politics has been marked by a structural paradox. On one side, the Constitutional Court has progressively expanded protections: it recognized the legitimacy of non-binary identities (while referring the matter to Parliament) [11], eliminated the requirement for judicial authorization for surgery [11], and declared unconstitutional the lack of protection for the intentional mother [10]. On the other, the legislative and executive branches have marched in the opposite direction: they sank the Zan Bill [1], criminalized surrogacy as a “universal crime” [4], bureaucratized access to trans healthcare for minors [6], and initiated censorship of “gender relativism” in schools [14].

The result is an institutional short circuit in which the Constitutional Court corrects Parliament’s omissions, Parliament legislates against the Court’s principles, and in the middle remain the people: families without certificates, adolescents without care, identities without recognition.

Eurispes data show that Italian society has already moved on [12]. Politics is not listening. And when it does, it is often to say no.