“I have the responsibility and the privilege of helping them to become virtuous citizens able to stay in the world and ensure that they are able to cultivate their passions and interests as well. I have the responsibility to ensure that they achieve a degree and above all to guarantee their psychophysical well-being."
Photographic material provided by Francesca Sorge
When I met Francesca (in 2020) through a dating app, I was immediately struck by the variety of interests and initiatives in which she was involved, by the depth of her being and by the ability to know how to articulate important issues in a professional way and with a critical spirit: first in front of a screen and then in front of a glass of wine, I found a "living and active volcano of thoughts, emotions, words and deeds".
I found in her the warmth and concern of an "Apulian by birth and Milanese by adoption", as she often defines herself, the drive and the "pissed offedness" of someone who has something to say, and the desire to share and make useful many elements that populate her inner life!
Francesca is a friend, but that friend with whom the relationship is "sustained", made more of comparisons, thoughts, exchanges of opinions (sometimes even heated) and a little less than aperitifs and evenings. And, although it pains me to say it, we both have so little free time that even continuity is difficult in this relationship.
The initial objective of this interview was, as is the purpose of this column, to make a portrait of Francesca Sorge: the objective was only partially achieved, because to talk about Francesca it would take much more space and much more time to explore the different details and aspects that characterize it.
We had a video call to bring this interview to life, precisely because commitments and distance don't always allow us to do it face to face.
We touched on various current issues with delicacy, courage and responsibility, talking about activism but also about "bubbles within bubbles". It is an interview that deserves a reflective reading.
Table of contents
"TOCCA A NOI" – an experience in the territory
NEWS AND KNOWLEDGE - DATING APPS
Let's start with a question to remove the embarrassment... do you remember how we met and in what period, among other things?
<<Then... I don't really remember the year, but if I'm not mistaken it was 2020. We met on an app, which allow me, I may be a bit judgmental, but I think it was at the time one of the less intelligent dating apps for lesbian women. I was coming out of a very important story with my ex, after spending some time alone trying to put the pieces back together, because it had been a very, very tiring story. When I felt ready to get back in touch with the outside world, especially in Milan, a city where you can be nobody and you can be everything, a city that could absorb so much but could also, by the same principle of the vortex, throw you back out and not really be just a number, I signed up on some dating app and... if I remember correctly, you had uploaded some pictures in the mountains, like you were climbing?>>
Exactly!
<<In fact, I said "this is really sporty!" And then we wrote a little bit, we met, we got to know each other, and I have the presumption to say and acknowledge that there was a certain intellectual affinity right away. And then... that was it. Well, yes, we actually met on a dating app.>>
Sometimes I happen to discuss the topic of "dating apps", with friends but also outside of that context. I would also like to give your reading about using this channel to meet new people. So, what do you think?
<<Dating apps are a tool. The problem is not the app or the social in itself, it's how this tool is used, what role you give to this tool, but above all how you position yourself towards this tool. The important thing is to be clear: that is, if you want to be on the app to have sex, you use it to have sex, if you want to be on the app to meet people, you use it to meet people. It's not necessarily that all dating apps have to lead to casual sex, it's all up to how you use them, always with due care of course. The risk I see, but I am speaking from my own experience, is that you then get so used to it, that you overvalue chats that become a companion, a habit of people who have no physical life. Let me explain: I am a person who does not like to spend too much time writing, like if I chat with someone I like, we meet, we have a beer, if we like each other, fine, if not, there is no problem. On the other hand, it happened to me in the past that I got so used to writing in chat to a person I did not know and whom I chose not to meet anyway, that I had developed a routine in which this person was part of my daily life. Well, that's one of the risks, I repeat from my experience, that I see in apps, that is, the risk of starting to talk to people without getting to the human side, to physical contact, you don't even know what this person smells like, and this worries me a bit and has made me think in the past. But otherwise, why not? In fact, it's as good a way as any to recognise that we are children of our time and in our time there are dating apps.>>
Obviously, always remembering to use them with the right attention, always trying to check the profiles and get to know people gradually, with the common sense of never putting yourself in dangerous situations, also because sometimes, not always on the other hand there are those who claim to be.
<<Exactly. In addition, I think it needs to be emphasised that if you decide to use a dating app, in using it you also need to be a person who is structured enough to recognise who you have on the other side, or at least to pick up signals. And this applies in the world of the LGBTQIA+ community, but it also applies to straight people. This at least allows you to think that you can find a fake profile on the other side, but also to recognise signals instead of mistaking them for attention, for cuddling, when in fact they are not.>>
I would therefore say to maintain the right prudence and shrewdness, as in all things.
LIFE - PERSONAL GROWTH PATHS
One of the first things that intrigued me when I met you was the variety of interests, but I was even more struck by how you gave shape to these interests by carrying out different initiatives with great strength and determination. The question now is: among all these things that surround you and are part of you, which we will talk about better shortly, which is the thing that makes you feel most alive? Or rather, the one thing that makes you feel like yourself the most?
<<I don't feel just one at the moment. I have always been quite a curious person and have always sought stimuli. I have always given shape to these stimuli, cultivating what are then my passions, from music to photography, reading and writing. At the moment I can tell you that what makes me feel most alive is definitely my work as a community coordinator for adolescent victims of abuse and mistreatment, and then everything that gravitates around the LGBTQIA+ community. So these two macro-areas make me feel alive, they intersect and practically represent me, that is, my work, what I do, and then what I really am: a homosexual person within an LGBTQIA+ community. Hence all the battles that ensue, which I espouse and from which my activism also stems, in my own small way of course, and my whole political side, in the highest sense of the word, which I shape every day.>>
How did you understand this? Let me explain better, regarding your activism, for example, it's not like one wakes up in the morning and says "ah today I'm an activist!". I guess there was a path of awareness that led you to be like this today. So how did you get there today? How did you start?
<<It is a path of awareness that has certainly matured from the university years onwards. So, I would also say late, but not too late if I think of my generation (born in 1984). I started with a political path because I was a member of the "Giovani Democratici" at the time, so I was involved in current affairs. I started with activism there, but then this inevitably led to a path of personal awareness that led me to realise, after 15 years of a relationship with a man, that I was homosexual. Having reached this awareness and satisfied the need to admit it to myself and admit it to everyone, because I needed to tell everyone that I had understood this, almost as if it were a victory for me, from that period onwards, and we are talking about 2017, my whole path of activism began, in the sense that I immediately felt part of a community and I also felt like a minority within society. I immediately tried to pursue battles and causes in which I saw myself, and in parallel I have always volunteered with associations. My part of activism, and therefore also my political part, was not only linked to the community, but also to everything that concerns the world of the third sector, the last, the poor, the unheard, the unseen. I have always had this concern, which then also resulted in a job. So if I had to say where this path of awareness originated I would say from when I started taking part in political activities.>>
“TOCCA A NOI” – AN EXPERIENCE IN THE TERRITORY
Let's begin to explore the first part of the two macro-areas which is that of activism. I would like to talk about "TOCCA A NOI", a cultural association that promotes participation and stimulates legislative action on civil and social issues, of which you are the contact person for Lombardy. What is the reason why you decided to follow this Association and become a contact person for Lombardy?
<< I discovered "Tocca a noi" two years ago, when there was all that mobilization in Italy relating to tampon tax, because the "Tocca a noi" association toured throughout Italy, taking around time that issue and that battle for the reduction of VAT on tampons, which we then obtained with the Meloni government. The theme of this association belongs to Francesca of the present: I fully agree with the causes, the battles and all the projects that will come from it and that I cannot spoil at the moment. I think it came at the right time and way, because the Francesca of the past hadn't focused on these issues with tact, if not the political macro-theme and therefore the elimination of differences between gender and generations and the egalitarian welfare which are themes that tend to be discussed a little on the world political scene, but without ever having the opportunity to experience them firsthand and more closely, touching the variety of issues they bring with them.
On the other hand, the strong point that I feel about this association, which I like very much, is the territoriality, the possibility of creating a network between people physically in the area, a habit which, especially after the pandemic, has diminished a little in general and which in “Tocca a noi” instead assumes a central role. We meet live, we create human contacts and interconnections. One of the many objectives that "Tocca a noi" is realizing is to create a network of local administrations that get in touch with each other, that bills are passed on, that information is passed on and that obviously follow a homogeneous political trend. In Lombardy we are many and on the national territory we cover almost all the regions. Keep in mind that the regional subdivision was born very recently, since November 2022, and now, we are reorganizing ourselves for the transition from national to regional structure with the related regional committees, precisely because with the increase in the number of members and the desire to maintain strong roots on the territory it has become a necessary passage and to be done with care. As I told you, there is great excitement about the projects but above all, it will remain important to provide tools to the territory to engage in activism also at the local level precisely on all those civil and social issues fundamental to supporting equity and equality between genders and generations. Just to give you an example, there was an "able to sustain" weekend organized to learn about current national campaigns open to anyone, to discuss how to do advocacy and to learn new tools for activism and participation in the area. We'll talk about the new projects when they will be on air!>>
THE PROFESSION – THE EDUCATOR
Let's move on to the other of the two macro-themes that are representative for you, namely your work in the educational field. From your CV I read that in 2011 you were co-founder of "Su Le Mani-che", a childcare center in Trani, in 2018 you joined the Caf onlus association in Milan as an educator, which welcomes and cares through its educational residential communities, minors victims of serious ill-treatment and abuse. Since October 2022 you have been the coordinator of two of these communities for the Caf onlus association in Milan. Your studies in the pedagogical and educational fields are constantly evolving. One of the first things I ask myself about your profession is: what is the most critical and difficult aspect of this job?
<<The most difficult aspect is responsibility. This work, especially in the community, which I have been doing for five years through the Caf onlus association, because I used to work with children and adolescents, not in the community, but always in the educational field, in home work, and school work, but not in the community, is a delicate job with a high responsibility because I do not build toothbrushes or toy cars, I work with people. The responsibility for the care and attention I have towards these fragile human lives, children when I worked in childhood, and adolescents now, who I repeat are fragile human lives, because of what they have suffered and what they have witnessed. I have the responsibility and the privilege of helping them to become virtuous citizens capable of being in the world and to ensure that they can also cultivate their passions, their interests. I have the responsibility to ensure that they achieve a qualification and above all to ensure their psychological and physical well-being. This, in my opinion, is the most difficult part: having the responsibility for a human life. My responsibility in that sense ends when my working day ends.>>
Are you sure it ends when your working day ends?
<<Very sure. It is the result of a long work I have done on myself. Now, take away the fact that I've been coordinator for six months, so I also have a team of fellow educators to coordinate, but I've learnt over time not to bring the suffering of these kids home. I have done a lot of therapy work, I have shielded myself from this aspect because I risked burnout in the past. I have learned to protect myself and this protection allows me to do this work with a certain lucidity, a certain detachment that is needed to be able to make important decisions later on. This is definitely one of my strengths.>>
Have you ever thought about leaving this professional field?
<<No, when I was close to burnout, I changed cities and changed jobs. But the burnout was not due to the job itself, it was the saturation to which my profession had led me. Before that I was vice-president of a cooperative, I was the coordinator of a children's service centre, I was the pedagogical coordinator of a team. I left everything and went to be an educator. I demoted myself and started from scratch in Milan.>>
And then you came back to being a coordinator after four years. What has changed compared to the coordinator of the past?
<<I definitely have a different awareness, different responsibilities but also a different security compared to my profession. And then today the clients are different, they are older, but above all before it was not a residential educational community for abused minors. Before I only interfaced with families and colleagues, now I interface with families, social workers, their neuropsychiatrists. There is a whole clinical aspect that I didn't go into before like the work of psychologists, the court, the curators, the guardians.>>
That choice to change and start from scratch turned out to be a preparatory path to leading you to do what you do today in the best possible way?
<<Absolutely, otherwise neither would they have proposed this coordination to me, nor would I have been able to do it. I would not have accepted the proposal if I did not feel secure, professionally speaking. In addition to that, I think there must also be character sides of you, personal sides, that allow you to cope with everything that this role requires. I mean, banally, if you are a shy person, introverted, afraid to talk to people, ashamed, you cannot be a coordinator. There are character traits, characteristics that are essential to be able to perform this role. Here, I am certain that if I were not Francesca and did not have behavioural and character traits that set me apart, I might not be here.>>
Honestly, before meeting you, I never thought about the lives of these guys.
<<Everyone tells me so! Because these realities are very far from us, from our everyday life, by "us", I mean the people who have been lucky enough to have two parents, to have a proper education, to have a "normal" life. The first thing I said to my mother on my first day here in Milan was: "the things we see on TV really exist". That was my first impression, because as long as they are on TV and do not happen to you and do not belong to your bubble, it is as if things do not exist. But when I started working here I realised that these situations are not so far from our bubble.>>
PHOTOGRAPHY - “TEMPO SOSPESO”
And you have to say that in a creative way you tried to pierce these bubbles: let's talk about your photo-reportage "TEMPO SOSPESO" first exhibited in Milan and then in Trani, where you combined your passion for photography with the complexity of community life during the first lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The result was a story that has an important photographic aesthetic and that can truly be an element to improve awareness of these realities in each of us. What triggered this idea?
<<It came out of a reflection related to the talk we had a moment ago: we live a bit in our own bubble, don't we? Here, the community during the lockdown was a bubble in the bubble and so I wanted to capture that period and how the children of the community and the community itself were living during that time. I decided to leave a photographic trace of how the community lived, but not only the children, also the colleagues, because being a residential service and working on shifts, we were considered as if we were people at the hospital, so we tended to follow all the health regulations and circulars. I said to myself OK can I take some pictures? Yes, so let's try to show this moment. There is the boredom, the slowness, the days all the same and the waiting. And this last thing the waiting, as I always say, is the most present part. The users of the community, whether children, teenagers, have always been used to waiting. They wait for Friday to arrive, they wait for the phone call with the parent, they wait for Monday to arrive for the visit with the parent, they wait for the appointment with the social worker, they wait for the summons from the judge. Theirs is a life of waiting. During the lockdown this waiting was amplified. Amplified by the fact that the days were all the same, that there was this slowness, that time seemed never to pass within the community, so much so that all of us educators at the time invented carpenters, physical education teachers, painting teachers, in short, anything to give those children a new routine and try to counteract the anguish of waiting in the best way possible.>>
Do you think this photo report may have actually punctured some bubbles?
<<Look, if even one person saw this photo exhibition and thought that there are human lives to be rebuilt outside their bubble and became aware that these realities exist, for me the goal is achieved. I received many messages both when I exhibited in Milan and when I was in Trani, from people who did not know this reality, who thanked me for these photos, saying that they really did not know of such a reality, because these are those worlds that, as I said before, if they do not touch you, they do not exist.>>
I had the honor of seeing the color shots with you, which in my opinion are equally worthy of emotion... Why did you choose black and white for the press and to display them in the exhibition?
<<In black and white, because it was not a colourful time, neither for the children nor for us. I read you the words, which I very much share, from part of the synopsis of 'TEMPO SOSPESO' from the exhibition at the Tempio del Futuro Perduto in Milan:
“Francesca chooses to fix small gestures in a reassuring grayscale that mark the passing of time in a tired everyday life, because she is waiting to resume the movement and energy of contact with the other.”
And this was my intention, to increase the intensity and also the effect to follow the difficulty of those days. It was also a bit of a denunciation, because we were practically not considered and not even mentioned in the slightest by the State, that is, while the State passed decrees for gyms, for shops, for the health sector, we were not in the least calculated either as a range of user nor as personal.>>
How did the children react to this photographic experience?
<<So the children were young to understand the meaning of an exhibition, maybe some of them didn't even know what the exhibition was, but I made them give me the titles! And it was definitely exciting, beautiful, engaging: I mixed up the photos and gave the photograph to each child, not of course the one of themselves, and I literally asked "now tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you look at this photograph", that thing became the title of the relevant photo. It was a nice journey we had together, a nice experience. Then you take into account that the photographs don't have the children's faces on them, they are from behind, and the photos are all spontaneous, because during the lockdown I used to teach photography to the children always in the wake of reinventing themselves to fight the wait, so I always had the camera in my hand and I would shoot but without it being something invasive for them, it was normal.>>
Will we have the chance to see "TEMPO SOSPESO" exhibited in some other city?
<<Yes, I would like to continue to take it around, I am thinking of Rome and Turin.>>
READING - LET'S GO TO THE BOOKSHOP
Let's move on to reading, which is one of your other great passions, since when you're not doing activism you read a lot...
<<That's activism too! >>
Quite a question: 3 books you would recommend: to a teenager, to a woman, to a parent.
<<OK, let's begin!
-Adolescent: I would recommend Francesca Cavallo's book "Ho un fuoco nel cassetto" - because it is a beautiful book that overwhelmed me and really gave me a lot of energy. It's her story: basically she defines herself as a woman, queer and southern, who escaped from what was her home town in the province of Taranto and became the master of her destiny. It is a story of courage, of determination, of going off the rails even, which pushes one to try, obviously within one's limits, to do what one can to be the master of one's own destiny.
-To a woman: "Morgana" The book by Michela Murgia and Chiara Tagliaferri. It is the story of ten women who have lived against the tide, they are dangerous, exaggerated stories, ranging from Caterina da Siena to Moana Pozzi, and they are certainly examples. Great examples of women, who nonetheless stood out for the battles they did, as an incentive to emerge to every woman who may still be afraid and feel inferior to a man.
- To a parent I would recommend Carolyn Hays' book, "Una storia d'amore. Lettera a mia figlia transgender". It is a beautiful story about law, politics, action, even the transformation of the whole family context. This woman has retraced in a book the whole story from when her son came out to the path of transition. It is beautiful because it allows us to see the point of view of a parent, which is hardly ever the case because almost always what we have in literature is the story of one's own life. Here, on the other hand, the author recounts the hardship of being a mother, of being a mother of other children, of being the partner and wife of a man in a very Catholic context, of moving to another city to guarantee safety and protection for her child. It is very interesting her point of view, that of a parent, which very often in my opinion is also put in the background, whereas I think it deserves due importance.>>
THE NEED TO WRITE – THE EDITOR
Among all these things, you also have time to write! After several years of collaboration with "Culturalmente" you have recently started writing on "Trenta Quaranta - visioni generazionali", with a room of your own for the readers. Your latest column "sui generis... e tu di che genere sei?" I find it a nice idea, also something that everyone would need a bit and to think about. Where did this idea come from? And do you think this rubric is applicable only to genres referring to sexual orientation choices or also to every type of person due to their characterization and type of life?
<<So this column is more or less a continuation of the one I used to edit on "Culturalmente", in the sense that I liked and still like the idea of interviewing people from the LGBTQIA+ community but with stories of ordinary people. What I often see is that people that are interviewed are the well-known people and well-known activists. Instead, I like to tell and collect stories of the little people, of people, of friends, of stories close to me. When "Culturalmente" closed, we, the former editors of "Culturalmente", felt orphaned, in need of living, because it also corresponds a bit to the need and necessity you have, and so we opened "Trenta Quaranta". Here the idea of this column was born, and not necessarily "Sui generis" represents a gender of sexual orientation. On the contrary, I have defined myself as a slightly crazy gender, for example, or another example in the last interview about a woman who was a victim of psychological violence by another woman, when asked what gender you are, the girl defined herself as an explosive gender, so it is a characteristic of you.>>
Conclude the presentation of your column "SUI GENERIS" with the phrase "the beauty of sharing is in the stories". What would you say to those who have come to read this story about you to the end?
<<I hope you are not bored and I hope this interview can be a source of inspiration in some ways.>>
There's nothing else to add!
Thanks for this nice chat! A little fresh air!
It wasn't easy to write this portrait at all, it's a half-finished portrait that requires its completion in the next installment!
The issues we have dealt with require a certain depth and Francesca has had the ability to know how to talk about these topics with a critical spirit that distinguishes her and with the mastery of those who grow up with these issues, document themselves, reflect on them and questions.
Finally, it was a pleasure for me to retrace Francesca's words in drafting this blog article, to report many phrases of personal inspiration that I found in her, to reflect on events that I often forget, to remind myself that in my own way I can get out of my bubble, even if it's not always easy.
BIOGRAPHY OF FRANCESCA SORGE
Francesca Sorge was born in 1984.
In Puglia, in Trani, her hometown, she grew up and immediately entered the educational field. He graduated as an "expert professional educator in the field of juvenile hardship, deviance and marginality", deepened the "pedagogical sciences" in the master's degree and then completed a Masters in "Evolution and Development of Pedagogical Techniques." He also has a "Master in Counselor".
In 2011 she co-founded "Su le Mani-Che" in Trani, a childcare center that offers growth and development activities based on a play-educational approach. The main objective is to stimulate children's creativity, to arouse in them the desire to look at things from a different point of view and to transmit the game-learning method.
In 2018 she moved to Milan, where she joined the Caf onlus association as an educator in residential educational Community for minors victims of serious mistreatment and abuse. In her spare time he starts writing on "Culturalmente" on current issues and related to the world of the LGBTQIA+ community. In 2022 she became the contact person for Lombardy for the "Tocca a noi" association, an association that was born in spring 2021 to promote participation and stimulate legislative action on civil and social issues: for equity and equality between genders and generations.
In the meantime, she also became the contact person for the School area at the Caf, and in 2022 she exhibited her photo reportage "TEMPO SOSPESO", first in Milan (2022) and then in Trani (2023).
Since October 2022 she has become the coordinator of two residential educational communities at the Caf onlus association in Milan. In her spare time she continues to read, drink lots of coffee, write. Today she writes for "Trenta Quaranta", where she edits the column "Sui generis... e tu di che genere sei?" which roughly translates to "Above the generis... and what gender are you?" . In her days, Pound remains present and always with her: her labrador-like dog!