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After the death of Maria Paola Gagliano, she was murdered because her brother Antonio was chasing her and her boyfriend on a scooter, Ciro Migliore, to teach them a lesson (the man did not accept the relationship because Ciro was transgender) in social networks and in some online newspapers (for example, Tpi and Wired) there was a lot of discussion about the terminology used by the media to spread the news. One of the expressions cited as improper by Wired as well lgbt relationship, which we use on the Corriere website. An attentive observer of these issues, Giorgia Serughetti, in a post on Facebook refers to the guidelines of the UNAR, the National Anti-Discrimination Office, elaborated in a series of seminars a few years ago (I had been one of the speakers). In the guides, for example, it is suggested not to use the term gay family, to indicate the nucleus in which the parents are of the same sex because it implies precisely this risk, of transferring the homosexuality of the parents to all the components. The expression lgbt relationship may have recalled this objection. However, I am convinced that in this case it is not valid.
Meanwhile, a premise: whoever correctly reflects on language does so once the information about a news item has been disseminated, having all the elements available. But when you write in the newsroom it doesn’t work like that. When the news of the Caivano case emerged, we did not know that the person who was with María Paola was a trans man. Il Mattino spoke of her as a woman. She was chased and attacked by her brother for a homosexual relationship, fell off the skateboard on board that he was with his girlfriend and died, wrote the Ansa at 10.19 on Sunday. The companion was injured and, still bleeding on the ground, he was also beaten by the victim’s brother, we read in the boat. This is why all the sites initially talked about a lesbian relationship. How was this possible? Cyrus in the registry office still registered with the female sex, who picked up the news, if she did not speak to him (who was in the hospital at the time) she did not know that Ciro’s identity, unlike his documents, is male. On the Corriere website we change it as soon as we find out. And we correct the term lesbian relationship to lgbt relationship.
Why? Meanwhile, why? it was a relevant fact: María Paola died because the brother who was persecuting her did not accept that she was with a trans person. But while you write the gay relationship or lesbian relationship is correct, the trans relationship is not, since only one of the two people involved is transgender. The correct expression would have been queer relationship, where rare the Anglo-Saxon term that indicates all minority, non-heterosexual, non-cisgender (a cisgender person who identifies with his biological sex) or non-traditional identities. But queer is a very vague term for most readers even in Anglo-Saxon culture, at least outside of academic contexts, and almost completely unknown in Italy. That is why we chose lgbt because it is an inclusive term but immediately understandable to everyone.
The objection of many transgender people that the correct term would have been heterosexual relationship, because María Paola was a woman and Ciro a man. But in common parlance, heterosexual indicates a diversity of sex, not gender, and therefore would not have allowed us to understand a significant element of this tragic story (a transgender man a person of sex – understood as biological data – female, but male). a perfect expression? No, but it was the best possible in this context. And when we could, for reasons of space, we wrote a relationship with a trans boy.
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