abstract
| - It is reductive to insert the Neapolitan Femminiello within the macro-category of transgender or transsexual, usually adopted in Anglo-Saxon and North American contexts. The femminiello, instead, could be considered as a peculiar gender expression, despite a widespread sexual binarism. The cultural roots of this phenomenon are embedded in confer to the femminiello a cultural and even socially legitimized status. For the historical and symbolic coordinates of Naples, the identity construct of the femminiello is not superimposable to more common European and euro-centric transgender clusters. In late 2000s many sex scandals have rocked Italy involving high-profile politicians (e.g., former President of Lazio, Piero Marrazzo) and transsexual sex workers often of Latin American descent, who are usually referred to as transessuali (shortened to trans) in Italian media. In 2009 the term femminiello gained some notoriety in Italian media after a Naples native femminiello Camorra mobster Ketty Gabriele (legal name Ugo Gabriele) was arrested. Gabriele had engaged in prostitution prior to becoming a capo. Gabriele has been referred to both as a femminiello and transessuale or trans in Italian media. However others maintain that i femminielli are decidedly male despite their female gender role, saying that "they are male; they know it and everyone else knows it." Achille della Ragione has written of social aspects of femminielli. "[The femminiello] is usually the youngest male child, 'mother's little darling,' (..) he is useful, he does chores, runs errands and watches the kids." A certain incompatibility between the notions of femminiello and (often foreign-born) transsexuals can be observed, e.g., a news headline reading Rivolta ai quartieri Spagnoli: i femminielli cacciano le trans ("Revolt in the Quartieri Spagnoli: femminielli drive out the transsexuals.")
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