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Italy’s first trans policewoman: “Gender dysphoria has nothing to do with mental illness”

Stefania Pecchini, policewoman since 1991, cannot understand it. You too have read that, among the procedures for participating in thelast call to join the State Policepublished on May 16, 2022 on the Viminale website, the “current or past gender identity disorders“. Moreover, they are associated with “schizophrenia, current or past mood disorders, current or past dissociative disorders, current or past anxiety disorders, somatoform disorders, tic disorders, current or past eating disorders, sexual disorders”.

An aspiring policeman noticed this and turned to the lawyer Gian Maria Mosca and reported the fact to The print. The attorney presented an application to Minister Luciana Lamorgese and to the police chief Lamberto Giannini, to ask for the wording to be revoked.

Stefania Pecchini, who works on patrol and with the anti-drug canine unit, began the transition about fifteen years ago. She was already in the police force and had a wife with whom she had had two children. Five years after the beginning of the path, the intervention. Today Stefania is a serene woman, she remarried and is perfectly integrated in society and at work. “I find it hard to understand where the alleged mental problem of those in search of their gender identity is”, explains the policewoman. “I’d like to ask the official who drew up the notice which monsters harbored in his head while he wrote those words.”

Still this kind of mentality?
“I was upset too. For about ten years now we have been talking about transitions in the newspapers and on television. Is it possible that nothing has changed? It was like a blast from the past ».

Gender dysphoria is considered a mental problem.
“And it is a great contradiction. Before being able to go through the transition process, the psychiatrist must certify perfect mental health. In the case of gender dysphoria, you just have to put in place what is not accepted in your body: it is a temporary condition, which is resolved perfectly. There is no disease of the mind, but an incongruity between the perfectly healthy mind, which feels projected into a different sex, and the body. But it is a completely bridgeable situation. There is a point in the announcement that leaves me even more perplexed ».

Which?
«There is talk of gender identity disorders, including” past “ones. Imagine the discomfort of a man who made the transition several years ago, who already has his documents in order, who no longer has anything feminine and who is held accountable for his distant past? If a person has a disease and is cured of it, he does not have to carry on carrying the burden for life anyway. If a candidate proves to have the necessary qualifications for that job, why should his career, perhaps even a brilliant one, be compromised by his past? ».

Did you encounter any difficulties at the time of your transition?
“No. More than anything else, I perceived fears from my superiors, who were afraid of losing a person who knew how to do their job. We also went to the prefect: he replied that there was no problem, that it was time to go further, and he also complimented me. During the period in which I completed the aesthetic transition, I worked for three months in the office, to protect myself, colleagues and users. Then, however, I resumed my role in patrols and in emergency response, exactly as before, and without any kind of problem ».

Source: Vanity Fair

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