In a speech on the International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT), the President of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy affirmed that promoting LGBT rights “does not mean stripping them from others”.

ANSA reports that Laura Boldrini, the House Speaker and former spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, gave a speech today on the objectification of women and LGBT people.

Boldrini said a rampant “macho and homophobic culture” reduced “women to objects and homosexuals to caricatures, making them isolated groups who are simply tolerated as long they do not claim their rights and their identity.”

She added that LGBT people and women who did stand up for their rights became targets of “attacks at all levels, verbal and physical.”

Homophobia and misogyny should be tackled “by implementing more guarantees for rights, punishing perpetrators of homophobic violence or aggression and by battling cultural prejudices and stereotypes,” she said, adding that this “Does not mean stripping [rights] from others.”

The gay governor of Italy’s Puglia region, Nichi Vendola, recently said that he is afraid to go out alone at night in Rome.

Vendola also said that he would like to have the right to get married to his partner in front of his “community and family.”

Earlier this month, less than 24 hours after being sworn in as a member of Italy’s new coalition government, a junior equalities minister was removed from her post for saying that gay people invite discrimination by “ghettoising” themselves.