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This chapter introduces the case of G., a man interned in Collegno (near Turin) in 1928 because of his “homosexual tendencies”. It illustrates the research methodology and then succinctly talks about the legal issues connected with research on sexuality in Italy, in terms of legislation on data protection and privacy legislation. It also gives an explanation of why the subject of the persecution of homosexuality during Mussolini’s dictatorship has not been investigated until very recent times, highlighting the problematic aspects of memory of Fascism and of the Shoah in Italy.

Through G.’s admission and medical files, this chapter illustrates internment laws and procedures, highlighting how Fascism pushed pre-existing legislation to its extreme consequences. In reconstructing internment’s bureaucratic and legal practices, the chapter emphasises how the law could be bent to accommodate the regime’s need to isolate those perceived as “different” and how psychiatry acquiesced in offering to “correct” individuals considered “non-conforming”, “amoral”, “immoral”, “deviant”, rebellious and, among them, homosexuals, in exchange for an increase of power and status.

This chapter explains how homosexuality was pathologised: to do this, it traces the origins of the “effeminate male” stereotype, explaining how the socio-cultural concept of degeneration was extended to include “sexual inversion”. Through the doctors’ words, G.’s biography starts to take shape and it becomes clear how it matched the “degenerate” and “effeminate pederast” stereotypical description.

This chapter analyses the autobiographical piece of writing that G. deposited at his lawyer’s office before being arrested and interned. In this unique and precious document, he recounted his version of the story, narrating his life and describing the discrimination he had to endure. He accused his brother of persecuting him and attempted to reveal what lay beneath his hypocrisy. This document, that G. entitled , reveals the level of pressure and persecution a homosexual had to face under the fascist regime. Ahead of his time, G. highlighted the socio-economic consequences of homophobia and felt entitled to compensation.

This chapter explains the extent to which liberties of every individual had been restricted by the regime. It focuses on censorship and the so-called moralisation campaign to show how the regime had managed to invade its citizens’ private lives. The situation in Turin is used to exemplify what went on at a national level in terms of repression. The second part concentrates on repression of sexuality and homosexuality: although homosexuality was not mentioned by the Code of Laws, a number of legal measures existed and were deployed to repress and punish it. The intention is to depict the climate that surrounded G. in the last days of his “freedom”, as his world was shrinking and becoming increasingly dangerous.

This chapter concentrates on the Collegno asylum where G. was interned. It brings evidence to show how psychiatric institutions had become a place of detention for “deviants” and those who had committed actions against current morality, against Fascism and its values. Collegno asylum’s detention, rather than medical, role clearly emerges and this research also shows, through several patients’ cases, how families, psychiatrists and public security forces collaborated in ensuring that “unfit” individuals could be removed from society. The chapter reconstructs the Collegno mental health hospital routine while G. was interned there: through patients’ files, it proves that morality constituted an increasingly decisive element in mental health diagnosis and care.

This chapter sheds light on the last part of G.’s internment and tries to explain why he was released. It is based on archival evidence found in the Racconigi asylum, where he was sent for a second psychiatric assessment. The chapter further sketches G.’s personality, as it emerged from this last series of events and from his writings, and draws a hypothesis on the likely conclusions of the family saga that had brought him to an asylum in the first place.

This chapter highlights how families had a large responsibility in the decision to have someone interned, but at the same time it shows how psychiatry was, at least in this case, fairly reluctant to collaborate with relatives and security forces in implementing the repression of homosexuals. G. demonstrated that he knew the system, its rhetoric and its methods, and was willing to compromise and adapt, in order to obtain his freedom. However, he was, in certain respects, a pioneer, showing that he had an awareness of his rights and the courage to fight a fierce battle to obtain compensation for the injustices he had endured. This ambiguity is in many ways representative of the survival strategies implemented by many Italians under the pressure of the dictatorship.