The pews of the Church of the Annunziata in Mercogliano—just outside Naples—filled Feb. 2 with participants dressed in theatrical ways as they took part in the annual Juta pilgrimage for femminielli, a nonbinary gender identity with roots in local Neapolitan culture. The Mass, celebrating Candlemas with blessed candles and Catholic ritual, also reflected mourning as the priest and participants spoke about harms they said LGBTQ people still face.
In his Feb. 2 homily, the parish priest, Rev. Vitaliano Della Sala, framed the event as more than tradition. He said the Juta “is a celebration of the encounter between the human and the divine,” and he stressed that such gatherings matter now, as violence, prejudice and war threaten rights around the world.
The Juta dei Femminielli is traditionally held every year on Feb. 2, when Catholics mark Candlemas. Participants bring candles to the church for blessing, and many then travel to the Sanctuary of Montevergine, which holds an icon of the Madonna of Montevergine. This year, organizers said a landslide on the road to the sanctuary forced a change, moving the celebration from Montevergine to the Church of the Annunziata.
While the Mass was meant as a celebration of joy and prayer, the service also carried a tone of grief. In the homily, Della Sala remembered the recent death of Paolo Minturno, described by the report as a 14-year-old who died by suicide after alleged relentless bullying by classmates who called him “Paoletta,” a feminized version of his name, and “femminuccia,” a derogatory term likened to “sissy.”
Participants described the way the community held that grief together during the service. A femminiello named Jupy said, “We live it deeply — we cried in church, we held each other because we talk about transphobia, we talk about sisters who have died,” according to the report.
The pilgrimage’s religious and cultural focus also intersected with changing inclusion within the church. The report said that while Juta is an ancient tradition, this year was the first time transgender women were invited to do the church readings. Outside the church, Gold Queen, a transgender entertainer, said, “They want people to believe the church is a place of darkness for us,” adding that “there are people inside the church who open their arms, open the doors and help tear down the walls of inequality.”
The report described femminielli as a traditional Neapolitan third gender role, with the term’s roots in the Italian word for female combined with a male diminutive. It said the concept has broadened in contemporary usage to refer to a larger LGBTQ+ community while still retaining a distinct cultural identity tied to Naples and surrounding traditions. It also noted that over the centuries, the Juta event has not always been held; in 2002, femminielli were barred from the Sanctuary of Montevergine.
Local history and mythology around the Madonna of Montevergine shape how participants describe their community’s place in the sacred story. The report cited medieval lore about two young men accused of a same-sex relationship who, in 1256, were dragged by townsfolk and tied naked to ice slabs on Mount Partenio, left to die; believers say the nearby Madonna of Montevergine melted the ice and freed them. Since then, the figure known as Mamma Schiavona has become a symbol for those participants say are oppressed but still worthy of divine protection.
Participants also tied the Juta to broader Neapolitan religious practice and gender-variance scholarship. Marzia Mauriello, an anthropologist at the University of Naples L’Orientale who studies gender variance, embodiment and popular religion in southern Italy, said femminielli can function as “a floating signifier, like ‘queer,’ which changes depending on who is speaking.” She said that part of the tradition’s social acceptance has rested on what she described as a “high level of performativity,” where songs, gestures and dances helped femminielli “stay on the public scene” and contributed to social inclusion.
The report said the Trans Association of Naples has worked since 2007 to revive and preserve the traditions around femminielli, after Loredana Rossi, the group’s vice president, said some rituals had been fading before people “started coming back” and the community saw “a multitude” again. Rossi also described how the culture of femminielli flourished after World War II when, she said, men were away and women took on jobs outside the home.
In addition to the Mass itself, the report described post-service celebrations that blend Catholic and older local elements, including a pagan ritual with flickering candles and hymns. Jupy said, “This is a queer cultural heritage that predates the importation of American LGBTQ categories. It’s an inestimable heritage, alive within us,” and she added that the local world feels “so queer, so sirenic,” referencing Parthenope, an alternate name for Naples, and its link to the siren figure.
At the end of the day, participants said the homily reinforced their sense of belonging in both religious and cultural roots. For Rossi, the priest’s words echoed an image of a God who welcomes people without dividing them by identity; she said Della Sala spoke of “a God who is love, who embraces everyone without looking at color, ethnicity, status or religion — a human God,” and she said she did not feel “like I was in a house taken from others,” but rather “in the Lord’s house,” where “it was our home too.”