Per leggere questo articolo in Italiano.

MAP Union, or Mu, is an organization that advocates for MAP visibility, equality, cautious legal reform, and youth rights. If you're curious about the 'MAP' term, perhaps considering it a euphemism, please read here.

Recently, we have been the subject of a smear campaign by the far-right anti-trans hate group Gays Against Groomers, which has in turn led to our organization being defamed by firebrand Sicilian politician Francesca Donato.

Responding to Gays Against Groomers

GAG's comments were the most violent and vitriolic, making references to running us through woodchippers. They also got quite a few things wrong. Let's take a look at some of their rhetoric:

MAP-Union mentions Virpeds or "Virtuous Pedophiles," who claim not all pedophiles are evil and that some are "good people." They call pedophilia simply an "attraction." 🤢 EVERYONE should harbor animosity towards pedophiles. They're all monsters. Nothing is worse than a pedo.

Mu's website contains a mass of information on MAP-related issues, referencing resources from across the community. In some of our articles, we referred to the organization VirPed, which is a community of 'pedophiles' who are outright opposed to the idea of sexual contact with minors. Mu as an organization takes no stance on legal reform, but a key focus is to correct misunderstandings about MAPs. One of these misunderstandings is that MAPs are monstrous rapists.

Mu would rather everyone use terms like Boy Lovers, Girl Lovers, MAPs, Virpeds, or "attractions to gender non-binary kids." No thanks, keep your euphemisms—we’d rather call these people what they really are: PEDOPHILES.

Mu would like people to use the term 'MAP' because it accurately describes a particular group of people that it is specifically intended to describe. The meaning is not the same as 'pedophile' and it is not a euphemism.

Mu's to-do list for 2025: 1. Build the MAP community, including reaching MAPs who are unaware of the community. 2. Achieve protected class status. 3. Access to legal services. 4. Remove “pedophilic disorder” from the DSM and ICD. 5. Abolish the sex offender registry. 6. High-quality factual MAP media for public consumption. 7. Improved sex education that also talks about minor attractions. 8. Legalization of all fictional sexual outlets, including LOLICON AND CHILD SEX DOLLS. Full List: https://t.co/zUzZGRrwSp

This is not Mu's list of demands, but in fact a list endorsed by a group of people connected to a MAP rights forum and another MAP rights organization. Our article, which GAG linked to, made this quite clear. Mu will vote at the upcoming Mu Camp on whether to officially endorse this list.

"Are MAPs queer?" Shut them down.

GAG expressed outrage over our article explaining the historic connection between homosexual MAPs and the gay movement, but at no point did Mu claim that LGBTQ+ people are 'pedophiles'. However, GAG wrote:

The "trans kid" movement goes hand in hand with pedophilia because the end goal is the same: sexual autonomy for minors.

GAG are the real enemy of all sexually progressive groups, including LGBTQ+. Members of GAG have repeatedly attempted to "cut" Queer and Trans voices from the LGBTQ+ identity umbrella, engaging in acts of extremism both on and offline.

Francesca Donato

Donato is a former member of the European parliament, whose extreme opposition to Covid-19 precautions and vaccinations led to her 'resigning from' the right-wing party she represented.

According to a translation, she wrote:

A new organization appears to join the LGBTQ movement: it is called MAP-Union and represents the rights of PEDOPHILES. They call for the decriminalization of sex with children if the latter give consent, starting from the recognition of the ability of minors to express consent to sexual acts with adults. They complain of prejudice and discrimination, because after all - they say - they are good people. Of course, they are making use of the legal basis given by the recognition of the ability of minors to decide their sexual identity and give consent to gender transition. Among the requests, there is also the ok to the sale of "sex dolls", i.e. fetish dolls that represent sexy children. If we don't put a stop to this aberrant drift IMMEDIATELY, what kind of world are we preparing for our children???

Clearly either something was lost in translation, or Donato has willfully misinterpreted the claims made by GAG, who themselves had misread our site. She repeats the claim that we wish to legalize sex dolls, which is not as of yet part of our platform, and she goes on to accuse us of calling for the decriminalization of sex with children. It seems unlikely these are mere misunderstandings, given her political history, and are far more likely to be an attempt to use a vulnerable minority to pander to her base.

As an umbrella organization, and a moderate representative of the MAP community, it is Mu's policy not to endorse extreme positions. In particular, we do not advocate for the outright decriminalization of sexual contact with children, and we have not done so anywhere on our website. The claims made by Donato are blatantly defamatory. They are equivalent, perhaps, to claiming that Donato was responsible for the death of her husband, whom she 'found' in her car, resulting in a 'campaign for justice' and a demand to stop 'speculating' over the cause of death. For us to claim that she murdered him would be shameful, and so Donato should be ashamed of making up spurious claims about others.

Other popular Italian commenters took up the cause of insulting us based on the lies spread by their populist right-wing idol. They repeated the blatant lies, without making any attempt to check our website for themselves.

It is quite sad that we are receiving so many hateful comments from Italy, as it is currently our preferred location for hosting the inaugural Mu Camp, where Mu leaders and our allies will meet for the purpose of socializing and planning our next steps. Despite the hate being thrown our way, we do enjoy Italian wine and pizza, and we hope we'll be able to avoid Donato and her angry followers.

Final words

Mu is a moderate organization and does not appreciate being defamed on social media. Should you have any questions about our organization and its positions, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Feel free to discuss this press release on our dedicated forum thread.