Monday 6 June 2022, voku to raise money to cover the legal expenses faced by the transfeminist comrades of La Magni*fica in Florence. Food served from 7pm, no reservation. From 9pm, acoustic jam session on the stage.
The transfeminist squat La Magni*fica was evicted in september 2020 by the neoliberal municipality of Florence. As feminist comrades, we really think these kind of feminist experiences are very important and we’d like to support them.
This is what happened to La Magni*fica:
On September 18th 2021, as a queer transfeminist group in Florence, we decided to occupy the abandoned building of the Tuscany Region, giving birth to the Magni*fica squatted queer transfeminist women’s house. The motivations behind our occupation of the building stem from the total lack of safer spaces for women* and LGBTQIA+ identities, migrants and excluded from society. The lockdown exacerbated the contradictions we live every day, where we were forced to stay at home even in cases when it meant being locked in with abusers and homotransphobic relatives. Not to mention the lack of attention to those who had no home, those who found themselves without jobs and protections overnight. So we decided to enter an abandoned villa owned by the Tuscany region and we transformed it into a collective place, of meeting, creation and self-determination.
On September 22nd, the day after the regional elections, hundreds of police, political police, firefighters and municipality personnel arrived at the Magni*fica.The eviction was carried out in a forced and violent manner, destroying the space that had been laboriously, but with determination and joy, inhabited and built by hundreds of people who had rushed in. In 4 days, a study room, a listening desk under construction, a communal kitchen, a cineforum room, and a welcoming space for all those affected by patriarchal violence were already active. 12 people who were inside at the time of the eviction were reported for occupation, some of whom were also hit with the fascist order of the “foglio di via”: an undignified repressive measure in which those affected must leave the city within 48h for 3 years. These same people faced trial, thus incurring heavy legal costs.
This is the message that the comrades sent us:
**FUCKING SUPERINTENDENT YOU’RE NOT OUR MOTHER!
The “foglio di via” is a device of repressive preventive measures put in place by the police to suppress social movements, even before they can become a threat to the oppressors. Created under the Fascist Rocco Code, it restricts the freedom of individuals without the need for a crime committed. In Florence, as elsewhere in Italy, the revival of these measures began a few years ago, especially with the issuance of “fogli di via” to comrades.
After the eviction of the first Magni*fica squat, the police headquarters attempted to give 8 expulsion orders to the feminist comrades inside the squat, restricting the freedom of individuals without the necessity of a crime committed.
In the militarized city of Florence, opening a self-organized women’s home becomes a crime, collective action becomes a moral contest in crime, and not having residence in the city a valid reason to kick you out.
Despite some of these expulsions were not enforced, the police headquarter made an appeal to the State court. We have decided to oppose this appeal, which is gonna be an expensive action, since we will have to go to civil courts and other lawyers in addition to those who already defend us also with much more sympathetic prices. This is why we are doing a benefit campaign.
It will not be a man wearing a uniform to decide where and with whom we should live!
Against all repressive measures, with anger and love!
The comrades of La Magni*fica, queer transfeminist women’s house florence!
Volkseten Vegazulu is a people’s kitchens existing since the very beginning of Joe’s Garage, June 2005. Your donations are welcome. Food is vegan, no reservation. All benefits go to social & political struggles. Joe’s Garage is a space run by volunteers. Without a collective effort, without your active participation, we’re remaining closed. Get in touch in you feel like giving a hand. We’re always looking for cooks. Any help is welcome in the kitchen. Experience not required. If you want to know which days are still available, mail us.
