Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has cautioned against the gender ideology growing in popularity among European liberals, warning the movement will ultimately be “to the detriment of women” who will become “its first victims.”
In an interview with Grazia, an Italian weekly women’s magazine, the Italian premier dismissed the claims by the progressive movement that gender is a social construct that is fluid in nature, insisting it is determined solely by biological sex.
“Today, the unilateral right to proclaim oneself a woman or a man is being claimed, beyond any path — surgical, pharmacological or even administrative. Male and female are rooted in the body, and this is an incontrovertible fact,” Meloni told the magazine.
She warned that any suggestion to the contrary is an ideology that will ultimately infringe on women’s rights and women’s security.
“Today, to be a woman, one claims that it is enough to proclaim oneself as such; in the meantime, work is being done to erase a woman’s body, its essence, its difference. Women are the first victims of gender ideology. Many feminists think so too.”
The Brothers of Italy leader lamented the fact that women often “don’t believe they can compete with men and end up competing with each other, convinced that there is a lower level to which to relegate their skills.” She revealed her belief that “women have a great autonomous strength that must be freed from the thousand obstacles that cage it, but also from the taboos of which women themselves often become victims.”
Meloni’s words were appreciated by some members of the LGBT community, including Cristina Gramolini, the president of ArciLesbica, an association of lesbians and pro-lesbian groups.
“I agree with Meloni on the fact that giving a man the possibility of declaring himself a woman, beyond any surgical, pharmacological and administrative path, damages women,” Gramolini said, as reported in Italian newspaper Il Giornale.
“I agree with the fact that I do not believe one can skip the sexual body, i.e., a woman cannot be a male by self-declaration alone, this would harm reality and women, for example in women’s sports or in equal opportunity policies.”
Gramolini did, however, say she disagrees on the matter of gender fluidity, insisting that men and women do not need to act as such and can act “over time in different ways,” as “masculinity and femininity are not natural” unlike the female and male bodies.
Meloni has long claimed to be a staunch advocate of women’s rights and came under pressure from some feminist groups following her electoral success when some Italian media reported she wanted to abolish abortion laws.
Speaking in September after her election win, the Italian premier reaffirmed her support for abortion, insisting she wanted abortion laws to work for women in a bid to promote greater family values in the future.
“I do not intend to abolish law 194 … I want to apply law 194 to add a right: If today there are women who find themselves forced to have an abortion, for example, because they have no money to raise that child or because they feel alone, I want to give them a chance to make a different choice, without taking anything away from those who want to choose abortion,” Meloni said last year.
