Franco Grillini (born 14 March 1955) is an Italian politician and a prominent Italian gay-rights activist. His story is inextricably linked to the history of Arcigay.

Career

He was born in

Pianoro Pianoro ( Bolognese: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, in the hills of the Tusco-Emilian Apennines, above sea level. Highway SS 65 connects the town to Bologna and Florence across th ...

Province of Bologna The province of Bologna () was a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its provincial capital was the city of Bologna. The province of Bologna covered an area of and had a total population of 1,004,323 inhabitants as of 31 December 2014 ...

. During the 1970s, he took part in student political movements. He attended the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

, graduating in 1979 with a degree in education, and subsequently became a psychologist, psychotherapist, and journalist. He was 27 years old and engaged to a woman when he

came out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

. Grillini entered politics in the 1970s with the Proletarian Unity Party; in 1985 he ran as an

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party (, PCI) was a communist and democratic socialist political party in Italy. It was established in Livorno as the Communist Party of Italy (, PCd'I) on 21 January 1921, when it seceded from the Italian Socialist Part ...

candidate in the

province of Bologna The province of Bologna () was a province in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Its provincial capital was the city of Bologna. The province of Bologna covered an area of and had a total population of 1,004,323 inhabitants as of 31 December 2014 ...

. From 1991 to 2001, he held continuous membership of the Ministry of Health's National Council for the Fight against AIDS. He was elected for the first time to the Council of the

in 1990 and subsequently re-elected in 1995 and 1999. In 1999, he was named president of the Italian Ministry for Equal Opportunities' Commission for the Rights and Equal Opportunities of Homosexual People. Following the dissolution of the Communist Party, he joined the

Democratic Party of the Left The Democratic Party of the Left (, PDS) was a democratic-socialist and social-democratic political party in Italy. Founded in February 1991 as the post-communist evolution of the Italian Communist Party, the party was the largest in the A ...

, which later became

Democrats of the Left The Democrats of the Left (, DS) was a social-democratic political party in Italy. Positioned on the centre-left, the DS, successor of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS) and the Italian Communist Party, was formed in 1998 upon the merger ...

. He was first elected to the

Italian Parliament The Italian Parliament () is the national parliament of the Italy, Italian Republic. It is the representative body of Italian citizens and is the successor to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Sardinia (1848–1861), the Parliament of the Kingd ...

in 2001 and re-elected in 2006. In 2007, he left his party, refusing to join the Democratic Party, and joined the Democratic Left movement. Among the legislation Grillini has proposed is a

civil union A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, primarily created to provide legal recognition for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage, with ch ...

law similar to the French PACS and adding

sexual orientation Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...

and

gender identity Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...

to the anti-

discrimination Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sex ...

article of the

Constitution of Italy The Constitution of the Italian Republic () was ratified on 22 December 1947 by the Constituent Assembly of Italy, Constituent Assembly, with 453 votes in favour and 62 against, before coming into force on 1 January 1948, one century after the p ...

. On 28 June 1982, Grillini helped found the Circolo Omosessuale Ventotto Giugno in Bologna, the first gay group to receive government funding. This group would develop into the national association Arcigay, Italy's leading gay organization, founded in 1985. Grillini was its secretary for two years before becoming its President in 1987. In 1988, he called a special session of Arcigay for the purpose of recognizing the presence of

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

s in the organization. Since 1998, he has been Honorary President of Arcigay. He also founded LILA (Italian League for the Fight Against

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

), in 1987; LINFA (Italian New Families League - originally LIFF, Italian Common-Law Families League), which aims to promote legislation for the legal recognition of homosexual and heterosexual partnerships, in 1997; and NOI (Italian Gay News), Italy's first gay news agency, of which he remains the editor, on 29 May 1998. He has been suffering from

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibody, antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone ...

since 2016.Dall'intervista
Franco Grillini: «Prima i diritti, ora il tumore: io lotto. E sono più rivoluzionario di Marx»
', ''Corriere.it'', 1º febbraio 2018.

References

External links

Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grillini, Franco 1955 births Living people People from the Metropolitan City of Bologna Italian gay politicians Italian LGBTQ rights activists Democrats of the Left politicians Italian Communist Party politicians Democratic Party of the Left politicians Italy of Values politicians Italian Socialist Party politicians LGBTQ legislators in Italy LGBTQ history in Italy People with multiple myeloma