The media continues to lavish both praise and criticism on Italy’s treatment of the LGBT community after it reported in TheDailyBeast.com that Italy’s High Court has allowed a couple to remain married even though one of them has successfully completed his transition to a woman. “For 20 years, [Alessandro] Bernaroli struggled openly with gender dysphoria, with his wife by his side. In 2009, they traveled to Thailand, where Bernaroli had sex reassignment surgery and became Alessandra. When Bernaroli officially changed her name and gender when she renewed her identity card, the Bologna court annulled the marriage. The couple appealed the unwanted divorce and lost again, but now Italy’s high court has overturned the ruling, allowing them to stay married,” reports the respected investigative news site.
This is the third in a series of high-profile events in Italy that have rocked the conservative nation, home to the Vatican. Last September, Guido Barilla, the 55-year-old CEO and great grandson of the founder of the world’s largest pasta maker, publicly spoke of his outright disapproval of homosexuality and promised never to feature a gay couple in one of his advertising campaigns. (After a worldwide backlash and a threat to boycott his company’s pasta here in the states, the company softened its stance and promised to include more diversity in the future.)
Then, last week, an ad for Risotto features a young man coming out to his ‘mamma’ who approvingly supports his decision by telling him at the end of the spot, “My darling, I got that. And he’s a very good cook.” The spot for Findus Risotto is arguably the first pro-LGBT commercial ever aired in Italy.
But the High Court’s decision to allow Alessandro Bernaroli (now Alessandra) to remain married to her partner – also named Alessandra – has the potential to shake up Italian society in ways that that these other two events cannot. But the case has vexed the Vatican and the courts. As TheDailyBeast.com notes, “[T]he Catholic Church has not officially annulled the Bernaroli union because it does not recognize gender reassignment and therefore still considers Bernaroli to be male, her gender when she was baptized. But the Alessandras now hope that Pope Francis will use their historic case to preach acceptance and maybe one day recognize same-sex unions.”
Whether or not the case is challenged in court and whether or not the Vatican intervened, the two Alessandras are showing Italian society, and the rest of the world, that at the end of the day, the LGBT community is no different than anybody else in its desire for love. “It’s obvious that some things have changed in our marriage,” Bernaroli’s wife told the court. “But she is still the same person I married. We share the same ideals, and that’s what counts when you share a life together. We have survived because we have a strong love connection.”
