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“Mistakes must be loved. Spots are part of the design, they really are the design; you can’t think of removing them. Like suffering in love, an unwelcome necessary evil, like adolescence. What doesn’t break you makes you stronger, I feel like a survivor. I’m grateful for my mistakes, without them I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
The speaker is only 32 years old, bright eyes and a brilliant career. Josephine Yole Signorelli aka Fumetbrutti child prodigy An Italian comedian and transgender activist, she decided to tell her incredible story the way she does best: drawing. And one day, with a more honest drawing than others, the world took notice of her, changing her life in less than four months: the author of daring graphic novels in which she spoke about her thirst for love, unhappiness, hopes dashed in Bud and his transition from man to woman through eight operations, some of which were wrong, all of which were painful and aggravated by loneliness.
“Turning pain into art saved me,” she says in the days leading up to the launch of a new grand project, indulging in splashes and conversations about love with us. Where she decided: We are sitting in a bar near the Bologna station. The station is symbolic: a place of transition, waiting and transformation, where those who come never become what they leave.
When she got off at the Bologna train station, she hid that she was a trans girl and did so for a long time; ten years later, she is a proud activist, a model of the starry sky. She got rid of all the ballast?
“The denial of myself was the most serious form of abuse, I don’t fall for it anymore. At the time, I hid the fact that I was transgender, otherwise they would have kept me at home, instead I had to work to get some money back. It was a tortuous path, and during this time I hit the bottom, and then rose again.
Explain to us.
“It was a big blow. I’ve met people but haven’t done it yet exit, at one point, when the story took a certain turn, I ran away, afraid of their reaction. I suddenly vanished into thin air, out of the blue, feeling wrong and without explanation. I was afraid of being rejected when I found out the truth, but who knows how many good people I have disappointed. From here, like my book about exitI started to change.”
Born in Catania in 1991 to a “demanding” family, he completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in years when there is a growing sense of inadequacy to a body that does not feel its own. A misguided but decisive love story takes a turn in the spring when she has to take a train to Bologna. Here he switched to the specialization “Languages of comics” at the Bologna Academy: the course ended in 2019, when his project had already become a media phenomenon. But the story is not so smooth and devoid of unexpected twists…
“I consider myself a survivor, I am trained in cruelty. If it didn’t break me, then in some way it did me good, starting with love.
She built her popularity on the brutal love story that marked her life.
“I wrote a lot about my ex, talked about that toxic but fundamental love in books “Obvious Romance”, “P-My Trans Teenage” , “Anesthesia”“.
An autobiographical trilogy (Trilogy Expliance, ed. Feltrinelli), which will soon become a series?
“Without this trilogy, I would not exist. Without this love, without other sad stories, if I were spared from this suffering, I would not be who I am today. We grew up with him, we were very young, I was 19, he was a little older. A 5 year relationship is worth 15 considering the intensity. Toxic love, today we finally define the kind of love that hurts, those psychologically destructive relationships that come from need, but I admit that it was a necessary step. This story allowed me to understand, choose and go. I can’t want to hurt him.”
He told with his comics about the suffering that you caused yourself, about the drama, the cruelty of some scenes.
“Yes, suffering should not be denied, but understood, strokes cannot be erased.”
On your journey of transition, you have encountered two delicate interventions; at first he was too focused to examine, and then too tired to take her to the hospital. He sent her to operate on herself.
“He too, like me, was going through a delicate moment of transformation, we were too young. We measured each other’s bodies and souls, and these were meters that could be used later.”
Do you feel anger or tenderness if you see a photo of these two children together again?
“Tenderness. Sometimes I joke about him, he seems to speak badly about him, but deep down I love him very much. I realize the importance of this very painful and necessary step for both of us.”
Do you still hear?
“Sometimes yes, on birthdays… I wish him all the best.”
Why did she need this cruel love to fulfill herself?
“We lived together, did everything together. When I was able to get away from him, he encouraged me to leave Catania, it was like spring! Spring to jump back. Thanks ex! Ariana Grande teaches.
Then she imagined love as a flutter of butterflies in the toilet and drew it, “love according to her”, exceeding 2.5 million views in one day. WhatThe day the world noticed her.
“I had a huge thirst for love, and I was looking for what I could not find in myself. I’ve been doing this for years. I drew butterflies in the toilet because it was love for me and this cartoon made me travel the world and then it became the cover of my book. It was a pipets, which is needed, in addition to talent. I don’t recognize myself today, but I’m happy I did it.”
What does love look like today?
“Many, different, sometimes superbly banal, but everything is worth telling about. Today I draw differently, I read many stories from the past with great tenderness and I understood one important thing: it is not love that makes you happy, love doubles happiness. If you fall in love, you shine even more, two people can blow up the room with light.
Is she in love?
“I am in love and happy, there is so much light here. We have been together for two years, living together for several months. If I’m going to live together, it’s important! I said it on social media but didn’t add anything else. Many write to me that they find me different, more calm, that even the stretch has softened. Today I feel respect, I have a healthy relationship, I’m here to tell her about love as a teenager!
What is the effect of this change of perspective?
“It’s great to believe in it, feel cared for and want to care. A mutual exchange, which at first I considered undeserving, for a long time I did everything myself.
When you saw yourself on the cover of Sette: beautiful, in a long Gucci dress, sassy and with a victorious expression on your face, what did you think of yourself?
“It was very powerful. I knew that with this cover I was talking to a lot of girls and that they needed to see this image; the set was supposed to convey strength and confidence. It was an important step, these are situations that rarely happen and become excellent opportunities to put things in order, to understand who is really happy with you and who is not. My family was by my side.”
Fumetibrutti: An alias that relieves performance anxiety?
“This is a call not to stop at the shows and an invitation, of course, to those who do not like my comics, to go ahead. He doesn’t know he lost.”
Have you already decided which ending to tell?
“It will be a sincere finale. “Happily Ever After” seems like a nightmare, no one believes in it.”
What did he ultimately understand about love?
“That it doesn’t really suck, that it can be trusted.”