Massimiliano Fiorucci explains to “Repubblica” why the Pro Vita Famiglia campaign does not hold: “Pioneering project, research is free”
Massimiliano Fiorucci can no longer tolerate accusations and attacks against his university, Roma Tre, for its project of listening to children who have doubts about their gender identity. Gender laboratory, we called it as a shortcut. But according to the rector, this label is already misleading, and has contributed to amplifying the controversy. Fiorucci, himself an educator and former director of the Department of Educational Sciences, responds blow for blow to the protests of pro-life associations and right-wing groups in an interview with Republic. He says he is “angry and shocked” at the exploitations, which he now intends to reverse one by one, to protect his university from what he does not hesitate to describe as a “smear campaign”. “We are a university and a research group has launched a small qualitative research activity – explains Fiorucci to Corrado Zunino – A researcher presented a project of listening to a group of children-adolescents who have doubts about their identity of gender. A project, I emphasize, of listening, without any form of forcing. It is not a course nor an experiment and the word laboratory gave it an aura of mystery which caused the protests to explode.” Starting with Pro Vita Famiglia, who launched an appeal against the project which, according to her, has already reached nearly 36 thousand signatures “I saw it, many of the names are the same repeated two or three times”, replies the rector polemically.
Fake news about the project and threats
The project, Fiorucci is keen to point out, specifically involves “a meeting with certain families and their children, the latter aged between seven and fourteen, accompanied by their parents”. Common denominator: minors' doubts about their gender identity, which the parents themselves confided to the researcher who leads the project and who aims to collect their ideas, thoughts, experiences, with particular reference to their school and family experiences. All this, it is important to specify, “with respect for the wishes of the families”, without pressure or indoctrination. After clarifying the meaning of the project, Fiorucci also debunks another myth that has emerged in recent days. What the project would “impose” on the taxpayer. How much does it cost? Zero euros. With all due respect to those who threatened the University Minister to “cut off funding for the project”. Is this just fake news circulating in right-wing or traditionalist circles? The rector has no doubts about it. Which points to the “crusade and, behind it, the media massacre” which began after the release of an internal leaflet on the project in the circles concerned. “They wrote that we wanted to hypersexualize children, we pushed them to be trans. A real Nazi experiment on minors. The charge, which has lasted six days, has gradually become more aggressive. » And the threats also became personal, against him: “By email and on social networks, they wrote that I was a pedophile, a pervert, that I should languish in prison.”
“Pioneering” research on gender diversity
Now Fiorucci can only hope that the storm will calm down, also thanks to these clarifications. Because, he forcefully reiterates in the interview with Repubblica, “research is free, as long as we remain a democratic country”. Furthermore, “a university has the duty to also enter into the phenomena that exist in this society, without prejudice and without fear”, including, yes, the still too little studied phenomenon of “gender diversity in childhood and adolescence. In short, a project that has just started and which, once the veil of controversy is lifted, will prove to be “a pioneer in Italy and will contribute to advancing the understanding and awareness of gender diversity, beyond the academic world.
