I love A Success Story - Defied Her Mafia Upbringing

 Daniela Lourdes Falanga, her family's first male heir, was expected to follow the path of her mafia boss father. She overcame a brutal Naples childhood to become a prominent transgender rights activist.

Dedicated to the cause:

Daniela Lourdes Falanga, 42, is the first transgender woman to chair the Naples branch of Arcigay, the leading Italian organization for the protection of LGBT+ people and the fight against gender discrimination. She was the first son of a local mafia boss.

Daniela Lourdes Falanga

The narrow alleys stretching from the Obelisk of Saint Dominic are a popular image on Naples postcards. Here university students stroll along Spaccanapoli, the main street that cuts through the historic city, drinking espresso and nibbling ricotta pastries. Short, slender doors lead into the vasci, one-room, ground-floor apartments that used to be homes for the poor but are now more often shops, cellars or even restaurants. In one of them, Daniela Lourdes Falanga is taking a break after a series of hectic days.

Says the 42-year-old, surrounded by banners and posters from the annual Pride Parade: 

I've spent the whole night providing free HIV tests to everyone who asked for one. The stigma associated with HIV is still strong in the transsexual community, so many avoid taking the test.

These barriers to genuine acceptance condemned older generations to live as outcasts. "If your body did not fit into a binary representation of gender then you got expelled from the labor market.

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