Controversy in Riccione over the AIO course for assistance in the birth of trans people

A course on how to assist pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding of trans people scheduled for the National Congress of the Italian Association of Obstetrics underway in Riccione has become a case for the controversies raised by the "RivoltaTi" movement, founded by the former councilor of the League Matteo Montevecchi and which also contests Futuro Nazionale from the right. And who yesterday organized a flash-mob with 25 people (showing signs with slogans such as "Milk belongs to the mother", "The pregnant man does not exist", "Nature does not update itself with gender courses" and "People with a uterus are and are called women") to protest against the course "If it is not a mother who gives birth", an event of the congress hosted until today, 4 October, at the Hotel Nautico in Riccione. Obviously "RivoltaTi" not only rises up but also announces that «we are here to knock on the door of the Minister of Health Schillaci and ask him to come out of hibernation: the congress of the Italian obstetrics association, in fact, is accredited as an Ecm event for 10.5 training credits».

But to explain what really happened, beyond the controversies used in an anti-government key to show who is more to the right, is Antonella Marchi, honorary president of the Italian Obstetrics Association (Aio), promoter of the Riccione congress: «As health professionals we do not respond to party logic but to the protection of human health. Not all people with pregnancy skills identify as women: you may not like it, but it happens, and the midwife profession must evolve to better manage these life choices too."

She is joined by the president of Arcigay Rimini, Marco Tonti. «We understand that when told like this it may be surprising, but it is pure and simple biology - he observes in a note entitled 'The Vannacciano deputy and the real world in reverse' -: a trans person who suspends testosterone therapy can become fertile again and can give birth. At a certain point that person enters a delivery room and there is a midwife or obstetrician in front of him. The only question that matters is whether that professional has been trained or not, to protect the person giving birth and also the fetus. The AIO has decided to train these professionals, but instead Futuro Nazionale asks to review the criteria with which credits are attributed to that training. The world on the contrary is this: a parliamentarian who prefers possible medical incompetence in order to ideologically defend a vision of the family that can only be found in the black and white propaganda of the twenty-year period."

On this topic, the AIO clarifies how, for years, the profession has begun to find itself faced with issues that intersect with the changes taking place in society. «Instead of attacking, with a debate mounted for the purposes of speculation, those who keep up to date and study, think about engaging in politics. And doing politics - specifies Marchi - means creating fair, equitable, complete and person-centred care. Transsexuals, like everyone, have the right to comprehensive, inclusive and self-determined medical care, including access to safe abortion to eliminate maternal deaths and the initiation of breastfeeding."