“I’m increasingly certain if us parents also took to the streets for the rights of our children, results would be different.

If it was us manifesting against those who dare insulting you – then something would change, yet we prefer staying home, crying, asking ourselves what we’ve done wrong,
in despair because this society considers you different or ill, and we don’t consider we could be the ones changing society by standing by your side”

 

Flavia Madaschi – Bologna Pride 2012

Flavia Madaschi was born in Fiume on November 14 th 1942, the youngest of four children. Her father died during the war, and her mother decided to emigrate once Fiume ceased being part of Italy. Her family was entrusted to the refugee camp in Bologna, where she stayed for a few years. She started working at a really young age, first in the Majani factory, then with Ducati and she was eventually hired by postal services (Poste Italiane). That’s where she met her future husband, Oriano, and she became a CGIL union official.

 

She started attending reunions and political events by experiencing 1968 firsthand, and started becoming familiar with gay, lesbian, and trans realities of that period. Her son Mattia was born in 1982. As a sign from the universe, the taking of Porta Saragozza’s Cassero was celebrated the same night. She resumed her union activism at the start of the ‘90s, after some years spent away, but she was deeply disappointed by the experience.

 

In 2000, while World Pride was taking Place in Rome, her son Mattia came out. That’s why she decided to join A.GE.DO. Associazione Genitori, parenti, amiche e amici di persone LGBTI+ (Association Parents, relatives, friends of LGBTI+ people), an association she had previously heard about. She quickly became really active in that environment: she attended every Pride event, proudly wearing her self-made shirt with the unforgettable slogan O etero o gay sono tutti figli miei (Whether straight or gay, they are all children of mine); she soon updated the slogan herself to include lesbian and trans subjectivities.

 

In 2006 she founded the Bolognese A.GE.DO. branch hosted in Cassero offices, where she met parents contacting her from all over Italy. Flavia’s speeches were direct and confident, often enriched by jokes, and they could always turn those parent’s tears into smiles; after a meeting, she would almost always lead them to the library to give reading suggestions, and proving to them an LGBTI+ space can’t be that transgressive if it includes a library!

 

She passed too soon, on January 7 th 2015, leaving an empty space in our hearts and in the LGBTQ+ community. Naming our Center after her was the obvious and best way to remember her, as well as to keep her fierce and proud spirit alive through the following fights for rights.

 

In June 2015, when the Center was officially named, we dedicated an exposition to her, Una straordinaria umanità: la lezione di Flavia (Extraordinary humanity: Flavia’s teaching), a collective remembrance which gathered exchanges, correspondence, photos, impressions, tales of political engagement, and anecdotes that are now part of our archive, available to anyone who may want to know our beloved Flavia better.

 

“During all these years I’ve been and I still am among you, you’ve made me laugh, you’ve made me cry and you also made me so mad. But most of all you’ve given me so much love, and this love has always kept me going through moments of disappointment and dejection, and allowed me to start again stronger than before.”

 

There is no doubt this love will keep on moving and moving us, stronger than ever.