Turin’s Welcoming Heart: Piedmont’s capital city has a long tradition of supporting diversity and inclusion
Turin has a long history of tolerance towards the LGBTQ+ community. FUORI (United Italian Revolutionary Homosexual Front), the first movement to claim LGBTQ+ rights in Italy began in 1971 in Turin. It was a response to the controversial debates at the time in the field of psychiatry, specifically whether homosexuality was an illness that could be “cured” or not. From that moment on, a wave of awareness began its long journey of raising consciousness against prejudice and to support the fight for social equity through Italy. Turin was the first Italian city to take a stand on the issue of LGBTQ+ rights, including from its government institutions. This continued support for the community was acknowledge with Turin being selected to host the next European Pride Conference that will take place from September 23-26, 2021.
Turin is also where the Quore Association was founded in 2007, thanks to the tenacity of three founders, Silvia, Alessandro and Davide. Over the years, Quore has developed a series of projects for widespread shelters in the community, aimed to help vulnerable people without basic needs: from young gay men abandoned by their families, to migrants with nowhere to go, to families with no means of subsistence. Their greatest success is without doubt the “ToHousing” project: consisting of five apartments in a residential area of Turin. Thanks to a strong partnership between public and private sectors, ToHousing accommodates and guides people with housing needs, along with psychological and employment counseling which leads participants towards becoming self-sufficient. The association carries out many activities with high social impact, while benefiting both families and individuals living in difficult and precarious conditions in the neighborhood.
Among the many activities in which Quore takes part, “Friendly Piemonte” stands out. It is a networking project of public-private tourism activities and territories in Piedmont aimed to help the LGBT community.
Piedmont is full of important tourist attractions: from museums to libraries, from the Museum of Cinema in the Mole Antonelliana to the Reggia di Venaria, summer residence of the House of Savoy, the ruling royal family until the Second World War. Turin was the Italian capital through the mid-1800s, so the history is extensive, not to mention the wine and food of the nearby Langhe and Monferrato regions.
Turin, the capital of the region, is representative of the culture of acceptance. This is discussed extensively during the tours called “Tutt’Altra Storia” ( the whole other story) created by Laura, a tour guide who leads walking tours of about 2.5 hours telling the stories of 12 well-known people who lived in the city, but whose private life, relating to homosexuality, has often been hidden by historical records: such as Julius Caesar; Leonardo da Vinci (whose self-portrait is housed in the Royal Library); Princess Christina of Sweden; Italian actress Eleonora Duse and many others.
The Quore Association continues to work and to look towards the future: “The ToHousing project is very challenging” – Silvia tells us – “but we are also in process of creating advocates for social inclusion, thanks to our network of partners all over Italy. It is essential, especially in this era of Covid, that has brought out the social inequalities in a high level”.
