At least 10,000 people marched for gay pride in Cagliari, on the Italian island of Sardinia, yesterday afternoon.

Pride-goers celebrated with a pride march on the beach, enjoying the tropical sea and a fresh breeze.

‘Now, we want the national pride to be held in Cagliari, this is a wonderful way to fight gay hate and homophobia,’ the city’s mayor Massimo Zedda told Gay Star News.

The first Sardinian pride ever – last year’s one was only a city event – made some people angry, but the capital of the island reacted well.

Some city councillors said in the assembly: ‘This is an offence, we have to think about unemployment and economic crisi, not about the rights of some minorities’.

But Cagliari’s mayor replied: ‘No public money has been spent for this pride, they collected their own funds. And the city is going to gain in visibility and tourism.’

Yesterday, in Cagliari, LGBT people from the whole Sardinia gathered on the beach.

There was the MOS – Movimento Omosessuale Sardo – which combines LGBT rights and independentism. Sardinia is a region with a strong tension towards independence from Italy, with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of the island fighting for this as well.

MOS former president Massimo Mele told Gay Star News: ‘We are very united and we love solidarity. We think as Sardinians and we think as LGBT people as well.

‘But we have to understand that our fight for our rights is a fight for everyone’s rights. We are talking about civil and moral needs, not about minorities.’

Yesterday, on the beach, there were also ARC and CGIL. ARC stands for “arcobaleno”, rainbow in English, and is Cagliari’s main LGBT association. CGIL is Italy’s main union, which, in the last years, started focusing on LGBT rights as well.

ARC’s president Carlo Dejana told GSN: ‘Only ten years ago, Cagliari was a sort of desert. No one spoke about LGBT rights, it was a taboo.

‘Now, thanks to our hard work, something has changed. And this pride is a proof of our commitment.’

CGIL Nuovi Diritti (new rights) is represented in Sardinia by unionist Sandro Gallittu. He told GSN: ‘We’ve been busy since the world day against homophobia, in May. And we will keep on fighting against discrimination.’

But the real winner yesterday was the Collettivu S’Ata Aresti, a lesbian community living in a small village in the Sardinian mountains.

S’Ata Aresti means ‘the wild cat’ and its members, all women, are creating new networks and opening new horizons in a bigot and homophobic area.

They bought some houses and started living together. They cook, do some gardening, manage the local library and organize cultural events, all is done together.

Lucia is one of its members. She told Gay Star News: ‘We are very well integrated and we gained the respect. It’s been a hard work, but something magic can happen in the Sardinian mountains as well.’