New legislation in Italy is part of an expanding push by elected officials in Europe and the United States to restrict or prohibit discussions of LGBTQ+ issues in classrooms and to more strictly limit gender affirmation of transgender minors. Photo / 123RF
The Government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is taking Italy’s culture wars to a new front: the classroom.
A Bill now being discussed in the Italian lower house of Parliament would ban lessons on gender relativism in preschool and primary school and expand parental control over the teaching of “sexuality” in later school years.
It draws some comparisons to Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill and efforts in Eastern Europe to ban LGBTQ+ themes in schools.
Proposed amendments would go further, echoing moves in some American states by banning transgender minors on sports teams that don’t conform to their birth sex, and by adding a layer to the approval process for trans students to attend school under their chosen names and genders.
The legislation is part of an expanding push by elected officials in Europe and the United States to restrict or prohibit discussions of LGBTQ+ issues in classrooms and to more strictly limit gender affirmation of transgender minors.
It also fits into a larger pattern of right-wing parties in Europe and Republicans in the US putting progressives on the defensive by pursuing an “anti-woke” agenda.
That includes advocating tougher treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers, casting doubt about the risks of climate change, and encouraging women to have more babies.
In Italy, the education Bill is still taking shape, but its approval in some form is likely given the Meloni Government’s majority in the lower and upper houses.
The move comes a year after Bulgaria passed a Russia-like anti-propaganda law censoring LGBTQ+ themes in schools and following on the heels of similar legislation in Hungary.
Slovakia last month became the latest country to act, officially recognising two genders, an edict the Government said school curriculums must reflect.
The country also moved to amend its constitution to limit adoption to married heterosexual couples and to ban surrogacy.
Italian Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said the aim of the country’s law is to reinforce parental rights over lessons that deal with “gender theory” and LGBTQ+ “sexuality”.
Valditara said the law would not prevent lessons on non-discrimination of LGBTQ+ people - which he said is covered by government guidelines on teaching respect for “diversity” in classrooms.
“We believe these are just common-sense measures ... [that] protect the serenity of children, who, at such a young age, have the right not to grow up with theories that can confuse them,” Valditara said in an interview.
“When they are [older] … they will be able to approach any such topic with greater awareness.”
The education Bill is moving forward as a separate proposed law is set to be debated this month that would restrict gender-affirming care for minors.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January seeking to end federal support for gender transition care for people under the age of 19.
Last month, 16 US states sued the Department of Health and Human Services, alleging that it is violating federal law by threatening to pull sexual education funding in schools that mention diverse gender identities.
In Europe, Britain has already banned such treatments outside clinical trials, saying more research is needed on potential benefits and harms.
Denmark, France, Finland, Norway, and Sweden have issued more-restrictive guidance on gender-affirming care for minors.
Critics say Italy is also in danger of becoming the latest country to limit academic freedoms in the West, and they fear that vague language in the Bill could leave it open to expansive interpretation.
“Even if you didn’t feel any particular way about LGBT rights, which of course we do, it is an attack on academic freedom of speech,” said Bella FitzPatrick, executive director of IGLYO, a Brussels-based LGBTQ+ youth advocacy group. “It’s a gagging mechanism.”
The proposed legislation marks the latest attempt by Meloni’s coalition to enshrine conservative values in Italy.
She is a leader who co-founded a party that maintains an emblem of the remnants of Benito Mussolini’s fascists in its logo. But Meloni has striven - and largely succeeded - to be embraced internationally as a traditional conservative.
She has done that by balancing a relatively moderate foreign policy, including a tough stance on Russia, with a staunchly conservative social agenda at home.
Last year, Italy approved the West’s most restrictive law against international surrogacy.
Same-sex couples are already barred under Italian law from domestic or international adoption. Thus, the new law effectively cut off the last, best route for gay couples residing in Italy to start families.
The Government has also issued an order to cities and towns forbidding the registration of children with same-sex parents, a move that is being challenged in the Italian courts.
The government Bill would not explicitly forbid schools from teaching sensitive topics, but rather, give parents the right to pull their children from classes if they find the content objectionable.
Its conservative supporters have focused their arguments on discussions of gender fluidity, and curriculums that include books on same-sex couples and surrogacy, and what they otherwise describe as “woke” instruction.
“The woke wave has reached Italy, and the League is trying to stem a progressive drift,” said Rossano Sasso, a legislator from the nationalist League party, one of the three members of Meloni’s ruling coalition.
“As good Italians, we put the family at the centre. We don’t say ‘don’t say gay.’ We say, ‘family first.’”
Lessons distinguishing gender and sex are uncommon in Italian schools, though experts say there are instances in which teachers or guest lecturers offer instruction on gender fluidity and sensitivity, as well as other kinds of training.
In some Italian schools, discreet agreements also exist between parents and school principals to allow transgender minors to experience school life under their gender-affirmative name - known here as an “alias identity”.
Those deals allow children to access bathrooms and locker rooms that do not conform to their birth sex, and some level of discussion about gender can sometimes result. A 2024 study found that at least 249 schools in Italy allow alias identities.
The new Bill would compel schools to offer alternative lessons to students whose parents object to any sensitive topics, which would need to be provided in detail to parents seven days in advance.
Critics including teachers’ unions say that requirement would effectively mean that cash-strapped schools will stop offering such lessons all together.
Manuela Calza, a member of the national secretariat for teachers in Italy’s General Confederation of Trade Unions, said that giving each parent a “preventive opinion” would threaten the Italian legal concept of school autonomy, which gives ample discretion to teachers and principals over curriculums, albeit with the impute of parents and students.
“You are harming a student’s right to an education,” Calza said.
“It is clear that the real obsession of the sitting government is on gender theory, although of course we don’t know what that refers to.
“What we do know is that they talk about gender education following only a binary logic, exclusively as male and female, denying that in our classrooms and society, there may be other sensitivities.”
Sasso initially wrote a separate bill that included a provision compelling minors to use the school bathrooms and locker rooms of their birth sex. That provision has not been included in the main Bill. Some opponents fear it might.
“I hope that the Minister of Education and the Government will feel a surge of responsibility” before including such a mandate, said Irene Manzi, a lawmaker from the centre-left opposition Democratic Party.
“That would affect fundamental rights that would truly impact the daily life of students.”
Parents of transgender youths are already worried about a proposed amendment to the main Bill that would require parents to start the legal process to legally change their child’s gender before sending them to school as anything other than their birth sex.
Sasso, whose allies proposed the amendment, said that bar could be met through a “simple” doctor’s note from the Italian national health service. Parents fear the ambiguity of the wording could lead each school to treat the rule differently, with some potentially requiring legal court filings or other proof.
“I can’t sleep at night since I heard about this bill,” said Claudia, a 50-year-old mother- of-two, whom the Post is identifying only by first name because of the risk of reprisal against her children.
This month, Claudia’s 11-year-old transgender daughter began attending her new intermediate school in Rome as a girl. Claudia said a lawyer told them that their daughter is too young to start the legal name-changing process, leaving the family to fear that she may be forced to attend school as a male if the amendment is included in the adopted law.
“She told us she didn’t want to live if she had to go by her birth name and sex,” said Claudia.
“It is not acceptable to have children not seeing their future. This is why I’m angry and scared. Angry because the politicians don’t see that.”
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