Vittoria Schisano, actress and currently competitor to dancing with the Stars, tells OK Salute e Benessere about her delicate path to change sex and finally find herself.
Vittoria Schisano: “I convened a family meeting to communicate my decision”
At the time, it was 2011, for the registry office I was still Giuseppe and I was a young actor who had begun the climb to success. Co-star with Lando Buzzanca of the Rai 1 series Me and my son, Young Oscar winner in the show category as best new actor in 2010, I had just shot the film Mad Dog by David Petrucci. But that day I had left Rome, where I had moved at eighteen, to return to my Pomigliano d’Arco, a hinterland of Naples. I had called a family reunion: seamstress mother, worker father, brother, sister and brother-in-law.
I told them my decision. “What does it mean? Are you gay? », My father asked me, to whom I had never previously talked about my feelings. “No, dad, that’s not the truth. The truth is that I really feel like a woman. ” “And what is the problem?”. “Maybe you don’t understand. I started hormonal treatments, I want to become a woman in all respects ». None of the others present said a word, probably they wanted to leave Dad the inconvenience of making war on me. Instead, after a pause for reflection, he asked me the question that all parents should ask their children: “Do you think you will be happy afterwards?” “Dad, I don’t know if I’ll be happy, but I’ll be myself.” “All right. If that’s what you feel, do it. ‘ My mother turned her head 360 degrees like Linda Blair The exorcist. Why did he do it? I think he was afraid of people’s judgments, or maybe why to deliver his daughter he would have to have his son die, or because mothers probably give themselves blame that they don’t have. The fact is that at that moment I felt betrayed.
A woman made with a difficult path behind her
I am not a mother, maybe I will never be (even if I froze my semen before starting hormonal treatments), but I am of the opinion that, for a mother, a child is always a child and that, therefore, must be protected and loved as it is, not as you want it to be. Of course, now I have an excellent relationship with her, but today it’s easy to clap my hands: I’m Vittoria Schisano, one accomplished woman with a difficult path behind her. But, if this were not the result, what would have happened? There gender dysphoria it is a disease which, however, is not incurable. After a psychological and medical-surgical path, science manages to bring balance where it was not before, making a person’s life happier and more serene. And a happy person generates happiness, sets a good example for others too. The big difference between Giuseppe and Vittoria is that, while Giuseppe was sad even when he laughed, Vittoria is a resolute, well-defined person. Now even the worst days are beautiful.
You are born a woman, it is not a scalpel that makes you so
It’s all a matter of awareness. In reality, from the earliest memories of my childhood I immediately had the perception of myself, the truth I have always known, even if I have hidden it for a long time: each of us knows who he is. Mom used to take me for a walk in a stroller through the streets of Pomigliano and passers-by exclaimed: “How beautiful is this little girl!” I was very happy, even if my mother corrected them immediately: “No, it’s a child!” But I knew I was a child, a belief that came as natural to me as breathing. Not that one wakes up in the morning and says: “I’m a woman, now I’m changing sex.” My feeling and my nature have always been completely feminine. I was a woman. You are born a woman, it is not a scalpel that makes you so. A scalpel can only balance where it isn’t, but if you’re not a woman in your brain, heart, and soul, you’ll always be just a man mimicking a woman. And I say this with all due respect to those who find their balance in this in-between phase. Thus, my points of reference were my mother and my sister, not my father and my brother.
Vittoria Schisano: “Those who used to bully me now woo me”
At carnival I dressed as a kitten or fairy and the year in which my mother, to prevent my companions from deriding me, imposed a male mask on me, I chose to impersonate one of the Queen of England’s guards, solely because they wore a hat of fur. I also signed up for dance, the teacher was beautiful in that emerald green leotard that I wanted to wear. Obviously I was withdrawn after six months because my comrades called me a fag. Same insult I received in junior high school. Except that no one, starting with the professors, took my defense by silencing those who attacked me, but they silenced myself, with the result of making me feel wrong and not them. They, that is – for the record – those same guys who court Vittoria today. In short, of bullying, as it is easy to guess, I have suffered in quantity, but I received the first in the family. Nobody wanted to see things for what they actually were, the excuse was always the same: “He’s a prince, he’s an elegant person, he’s sensitive.” In the end mom, instead of trying to understand with me the reason for my behavior, when I was seven or eight she acted in the simplest and wrong way at the same time: she took me to the doctor to have me injected male hormones. But the nature of a human being cannot be destroyed. Alone in my room, I wanted to die to be reborn as a female. A real woman, not one of those circus characters who were flaunting the media at the time.
Vittoria Schisano: “I tried to convince myself that I was gay”
After a childhood spent in silence, since no one had explained to me that there are people who are born in the wrong body, I swallowed the pill saying: “Okay, I’m homosexual.” I have never had a real girlfriend, with the exception of a “test” that went no further than a kiss in a relationship that could have been between brother and sister. The first person to make my heart beat, at 18, was a boy. So… I was gay. Yet I knew I was telling myself a lie: a homosexual is a man who likes another man, while I was female in the head. Deep down I wondered what it would be like to be loved as a woman. I was unhappy because I wasn’t living my life to the full. Despite professional awards. Although I had been to the Venice film show and bought myself a house. A lot of stuff for the son of a humble Pomigliano family… But how was it possible that I wasn’t happy? Simple: I had not reached the most important milestone. Myself.
During the shooting of the film Mad Dog the truth came like a tsunami
The truth came, like a tsunami, in 2011, during the filming of Mad Dog, the last set by Giuseppe Schisano. For the first time, I wasn’t playing the role of Italy’s sweetheart, but I was playing a worn out psychopathic killer, with glasses and a bum. I looked in the mirror and liked me, yes, but as my potential boyfriend. As soon as I realized that, instead, I was the man in the mirror, I asked myself: “Do I have to live this big lie all my life?”. I had spent my childhood and adolescence making others happy. Until then Giuseppe had been the perfect son, the one that all parents want, educated, good at school and then successful at work, and I was gratified by the idea that my mother had such a child. I had lived my happiness through that of others, as well as my femininity through that of my sister or my friends. Telling my face the truth sent me into crisis. I started refusing life, not sleeping, not eating. I will have lost about ten kilos.
Vittoria Schisano: “My voice changed immediately with the first hormones”
When a tsunami hits you, you have two choices: either you drown or you jump into the sea and swim as hard as you can to reach your island. I transformed suffering into strength and I came with difficulty to be who I am. I didn’t even wait for the end of shooting to take the hormones, so much so that Mad Dog it’s the only movie I’ve been dubbed in. My voice had changed immediately and no longer went hand in hand with my image. The transition lasted just over five years. Initially I turned to Saifip in Rome, the Service for the adaptation between physical identity and psychic identity. There was a protocol to follow. An analyst made me draw drawings on a sheet of paper, and when I handed them to him I expected him to prescribe hormone treatment. “No, I can only give it to you after a certain number of months of interviews,” was his reply. “Are we joking? It took me 30 years to tell me the truth and now you have to see who I am from my drawing? ‘
Born a second time
I got up and left. I found the same psychologist when, by now a full-fledged woman, I returned to the Saifip offices to have the identification on the identity documents and change. He followed my path on TV, shook my hand and complimented me on my courage. In the meantime, in fact, I had taken all my savings and, after researching the best specialists in the world, I had turned to an enlightened surgeon in Spain, Iván Mañero. I chose him because he never looked at me as a patient, but as a woman. He really pulled out of the marble a shape that was already inside. For me he is a second dad: put me a second time in the world, giving me the life I wanted.
Vittoria Schisano: “I kept repeating to myself ‘What are you doing?'”
It was, however, a very tiring period on an emotional level. Meanwhile, I had distanced myself from my family, because one part did not understand or support my choice. My agent asked me, “Do you know you can lose everything? Work, home, family, friends. Everything you have fought for up to now ». I replied: “Yes, I can lose everything, but I gain the most important thing: myself.” Of course I was scared, no one guarantees the final result of a transition. Hormones create mental and physical imbalances. I had a moment where I got really awful, I lost the beauty I had as a boy. The body was swollen from the treatments, the face full of holes from the treatments to remove the beard. Then there were aspects that reminded me of Giuseppe and, every time they re-emerged, they were a punch in the stomach. In the shower I didn’t look at myself, what I had between my legs made me sick. So I tried to concentrate on the final result; when I came home from the clinic I would close my eyes, play my music and dream of Vittoria in the distance. There was, however, always a part of me that wondered, “What am I doing?”
The best gift: the father’s smile
I only found peace when I completed my transition process. After I underwent the vaginoplasty I went back to Pomigliano. Dad was already suffering from the disease that would soon take him away. In Joseph’s life he had not been present, and only because of Joseph, who had not given him the opportunity to be important. A chance that, instead, Vittoria had granted him and he had carved out a fundamental role for himself. I looked out the door of his room. “Rosaria?” He confused me with my sister. In fact we are very similar, you and me. «I’m not Rosaria. I’m Vittoria ». He focused me: “How beautiful you are!” The best gift of my life.
Vittoria Schisano (testimony collected by Marco Ronchetto)
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