Background
In a country such as Italy, where every day there are serious episodes of homotransphobia, misogyny, discrimination against people with disabilities and feminicide, there is still no law that adequately protects minorities. To investigate the knowledge, opinions and attitudes of the Italian population towards gender identity and sexuality, analyzing how much stigma is radicalized in the everyday life of the Italian reality.
Materials and methods
A nationwide online study involving the Italian population was conducted from March to August 2021 through social networks.
Results
A total of 1532 subjects participated in the survey. The majority of participants (64.8%) stated that they were only attracted to people of the opposite sex to their own. In addition, 93.1% of participants stated that they had heard about gender identity and 93.3% of participants defined “gender identity” as: “role in which the individual identifies, feeling a male, feeling a female, or feeling something else they do not psychologically recognize in their biological sex at birth.” 96.1% defined “biological sex” as an “anatomical category of membership.” 89.2% defined “gender role” as “socio- culturally defined behaviors or expectations as masculine or feminine.” 55% felt that it is not possible to choose one’s sexual orientation. 94.7% know LGBT people directly, and 25.4% said there are LGBT members in their family. Statistically significant differences were found between participants’ attitudes for the proposed situations according to their personal knowledge about gender identity (p < .05).
Conclusions
Personal identity is not something unitary and stable over time and in different situations.