Trans Women in Italy

The history of trans women in Italy is a story of extraordinary courage in often impossible conditions. It is the story of those who fought to exist even before there were words to define them, before there were laws to protect them, before society recognized their identity. From the pioneers who defied police raids in the 1960s to the activists who now sit on city councils, from the actresses who starred alongside Fellini to the athletes who competed in the Paralympics—Italian trans women have written pages of history that the country tends to forget.

Before Law 164: Existing in Illegality

The Years of Silence

Before 1982, the year Law 164 was passed, trans women in Italy lived in a state of total legal invisibility. There was no legal mechanism to change one’s name or gender marker on documents. A trans woman was, to the State, a man—with all the consequences this entailed in daily life.

Italian trans women in the 1960s and 1970s lived on the margins of society. Many concentrated in major cities—Rome, Naples, Milan, Bologna—where they found informal communities of mutual support. Formal employment was practically inaccessible: anyone living openly as a woman but carrying male documents was rejected everywhere. Sex work became for many the only means of economic survival [12].

Raids and Repression

The Italian police regularly conducted raids against trans women, arresting them for “obscene acts in a public place” or “solicitation” even when they were doing nothing at all. Trans women were profiled, photographed, and often mistreated in police stations. Confino—a form of internal exile that prevented a person from residing in their own city—was applied as a tool for social control.

On July 4, 1980, a group of trans women organized the first public protest for transgender rights in Italy, in Milan [4]. It was an act of extraordinary courage in an era when the mere public existence of a trans woman was considered a crime.

The Pioneers

Marcella Di Folco (1943-2010)

Marcella Di Folco was one of the most important figures in the Italian and international trans movement [1]. Born in Rome in 1943, she worked as an actress and extra in Italian cinema, appearing in films by Federico Fellini (including Satyricon and Roma) and other directors.

After her transition, Di Folco moved to Bologna, where in 1995 she was elected city councilor—becoming the first trans woman in the world elected to public office [1]. From 2001 to 2010, the year of her passing, she was the president of MIT (Movimento Identità Trans - Trans Identity Movement), transforming it into a national and international benchmark organization for trans rights [5].

Her contribution went well beyond institutional politics. Di Folco was one of the main promoters of the depathologization of trans identity in Italy and Europe, working with European institutions for the recognition of transgender rights.

Vladimir Luxuria (1965-)

Vladimir Luxuria is one of the most well-known trans figures in Italy [2]. An activist, politician, writer, and television personality, in 2006 she was elected to the Chamber of Deputies on the Communist Refoundation Party list, becoming the first openly transgender person elected to a European parliament.

Her election sparked enormous debate. Detractors accused her of being a “freak show”; supporters celebrated her as a historical triumph. Luxuria served as a deputy for the entire legislative term (2006-2008), bringing the demands of trans people to the highest legislative body in the country.

After politics, Luxuria became a familiar television face and a public commentator, maintaining high visibility for trans issues in the Italian debate. Her media presence has had an ambivalent effect: on one hand, it made trans people visible to millions of Italians; on the other, her figure has sometimes been reduced to a caricature or curiosity, feeding stereotypes that everyday trans women endure daily.

Valentina Petrillo (1973-)

Valentina Petrillo wrote a page in sports history in 2024, becoming the first transgender athlete to participate in the Paralympic Games [3]. A visually impaired sprinter, she competed in the 200 and 400 meters at the Paris 2024 Games in the T12 category (for athletes with visual impairments).

Her participation sparked intense debate, with criticism from those who considered her presence in women’s races unfair and support from those who defended her right to compete in the category corresponding to her gender identity. Petrillo faced the media pressure with determination, declaring herself proud to represent Italy and the trans community on the same stage.

Trans Women in Italy Today

Employment and Economic Discrimination

ISTAT-UNAR data (2023) paints a concerning picture of the working conditions of trans women in Italy [6]. Discrimination is widespread and systematic:

• Hiring discrimination: Many trans women report being rejected after an employer discovers their trans identity, often through not-yet-updated documents.
• Dismissals and mobbing: Those who manage to access formal employment often face a hostile environment, with colleagues and superiors using their deadname, refusing the correct pronouns, or creating unsustainable conditions.
• Exclusion from formal work: The combination of direct discrimination, lack of congruent documents, and social stigma pushes many trans women toward informal labor. Sex work remains, for a significant number of Italian trans women, the only available source of income—not by choice, but due to a lack of alternatives [12].

Economic discrimination has cascading effects: without stable employment, it is harder to access housing, healthcare, and social relationships. Economic marginalization fuels social marginalization, creating a vicious cycle that the lack of legislative protections helps to perpetuate.

Violence

Trans women are the group most exposed to transphobic violence, both in Italy and worldwide. Data from the Trans Murder Monitoring Project shows that 90% of the victims of documented trans murders globally are trans women or transfeminine individuals [8]. The vast majority are women of color.

In Italy, the Arcigay report on transcides documents murders and serious assaults against trans people in the country [7]. Italian numbers are lower than those in countries like Brazil or the United States, but daily violence—verbal assaults, threats, harassment, non-lethal physical violence—remains a widespread and under-documented reality.

The absence of a specific law against hate crimes based on gender identity—the Zan Bill (DDL Zan) was defeated in 2021—leaves trans women without adequate legal protection. OSCAD (Observatory for Security Against Acts of Discrimination) collects reports, but the data remains partial.

Healthcare

Access to healthcare is another critical area. Trans women in Italy can access gender affirmation pathways through the National Health Service (SSN), but waiting lists are long and the distribution of centers across the territory is uneven [3]. The main centers are concentrated in the center-north (Florence, Bologna, Rome, Turin), leaving trans women in the south with fewer options and longer wait times.

Beyond transition pathways, trans women face specific barriers in accessing general healthcare. Many avoid going to the doctor for fear of discrimination or being addressed with the wrong pronouns. Health screenings are often inadequate: guidelines for cancer prevention, for example, are not always correctly applied to trans women (who may need both typically male screenings, such as for the prostate, and female screenings, such as mammograms post-hormone therapy).

Representation and Culture

In Cinema

Italian cinema has depicted trans women with mixed success. Films like Le favolose (The Fabulous Ones) (2022) by Roberta Torre, which follows a group of Neapolitan trans women gathering for a friend’s funeral, have offered authentic and respectful representations [10]. The Neapolitan cinematic tradition, in particular, has a long and complex relationship with trans women, sometimes portraying them with genuine affection, and sometimes with paternalistic exoticism.

On an international level, the documentary Disclosure (2020) systematically analyzed how Hollywood has represented trans people, showing how decades of negative depictions—the trans woman as a deceiver, a victim, a freak show—have shaped public perception. Italy is no exception to these dynamics.

In the Media

The presence of trans women in the Italian media has grown over the last twenty years, but it remains problematic. Trans women frequently appear on talk shows in predefined roles: the showgirl, the provocateur, the “diverse one” invited to comment on her own diversity. Less often are they seen as journalists, experts, professionals—simply as women doing their jobs.

The language used by Italian media is another issue. Despite guidelines from GLAAD and organizations like UNAR, many newspapers and news broadcasts continue to use the deadnames of trans women, place female pronouns in quotes (“the so-called woman”), or describe transition in sensationalistic terms.

In the Community

Italian trans women have built support networks that have endured for decades. MIT in Bologna [5], transfeminist collectives in major cities, self-help groups, online communities—these spaces often represent the only place where a trans woman can be fully herself, without having to explain, justify, or defend her existence.

Naples holds a special place in the history of Italian trans women. The Neapolitan trans community—depicted in the film Le favolose and in the collective memory of the city—is one of the oldest and most deep-rooted in Italy, with a tradition of solidarity and resistance that predates any law or institutional recognition.

The Future

Italian trans women have achieved a great deal, starting from a condition of total illegality. They have won the right to legal recognition, access to medical care, political representation, and cultural visibility. But the gap between formal rights and daily reality remains vast.

A trans woman in Italy in 2026 can change her documents without gender-affirming surgery, but she must wait months or years for a court ruling. She can access hormone therapy through the SSN, but must wait months for an initial appointment. She can vote and run for office, but risks being attacked on her way home.

The journey is not over. But the women who paved the way—from Marcella Di Folco to Luxuria, from street activists to the girls who are now coming out in Italian schools—have shown that change is possible. Slow, exhausting, incomplete. But possible.