Italy is one of the few European countries which lacks specific laws against homophobia and the legal recognition of gay and lesbian families. On these issues, LGBT movements have been supporting and implementing campaigns and political actions since the early eighties, but the Italian Parliament has never fully met their expectations. This paper develops an analysis of the discursive strategies which have been adopted by individual and collective actors in order to oppose LGBT rights and social integration of gay and lesbian citizens in Italy. The analysis will also highlight the proximity between anti-LGBT arguments and the results of the first national survey on the perception of lesbian and gay population in Italy. This survey clearly show that the inclusion of lesbians and gays is subordinated to the possession of specific features of privacy and gender conventionality.
