Italian conservatives are demanding that schools stop promoting the LGBT agenda following the strange case of a 13-year-old boy who was disciplined for refusing to walk up a rainbow staircase.
The details of this ‘incident’ differ depending on who is relaying them. The boy’s parents claim he was incorrectly labeled “homophobic”—by the headteacher, no less—and that “other students are also uncomfortable going up those stairs, but they did not have the courage of my son.”
Officials from the Verona schools say, however, that the boy was only disciplined for dangerously clinging to the handrail of the staircase. Piergiorgio Sartori, who is president of the Verona Association of Principals, even stressed that this “is not a gender staircase,” despite it having been created on the International Day of Awareness Against Homophobia.
However, Lega, one of the junior parties in Italy’s conservative government, has called for a halt to all attempts at LGBT indoctrination at schools. Responding to the case, which he described as an “educational disaster,” party representative Rossano Sasso said:
We cannot want to forcefully inculcate gender culture in young people. And the boy’s parents did well to ask for the intervention of [the education minister] who started the investigations into the case.
Un ragazzo di terza media di Verona avrebbe ricevuto una nota disciplinare e l'accusa di omofobia per non aver voluto salire la scala arcobaleno della sua scuola.
— Rossano Sasso (@roxsasso) March 4, 2025
Uso il condizionale perché sono in corso degli accertamenti.
Il ragazzino di 13anni, si sarebbe dichiarato… pic.twitter.com/ZQop56ibak
The liberal +Europa party has expectedly taken a different stance, saying in a fairly stock statement that “integration and respect for all diversity must be 360 degrees regardless of ethnicity, religion, emotional orientation or gender identity.” Others have defended the rainbow staircase on the basis that it contains words including “tolerance,” “welcome” and, at the top: “Love is love. Nothing else.”
Lega will this week present a new bill to counter what it describes as the imposition of gender ideology in schools. The Culture Committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies also last year adopted a resolution stopping the curriculum from being “hijacked to unilaterally and uncritically champion behaviours rooted in ‘gender ideology’ among young people,” which prompted anger in the European Parliament.
