TITLE: Lgbt Crime: We always see the sunset twice

In July 2020, Alves, a transgender sex worker, was killed with 85 stab wounds in a neighborhood in Milan. She was one of 42 trans women to be killed in Italy since 2008.

According to the Trans Monitoring Project, which monitors the number of transphobic murders in the world, the killings of transgender people in Italy have increased in recent years, in direct correlation to an increase in incidents of discrimination.

Via Moscova in Milan is home to the Carabinieri’s ‘homicide squad’ - a department of law enforcement with the highest average of solved cases in the world (exactly the 96,5%). The Moscova team is made up of a small group of investigators aged between 33 and 53 years old. They come from all over Italy and work around the clock. When reports came through of the Alves case, they were quickly assigned to its investigation.

This story follows the Moscova team as they work to solve Alves’ murder - equipped with a few bugs and excellent intuitions that will lead them, within 48 hours from the finding of the body, to put in handcuffs the person guilty of the atrocious act.

Tragically, Alves was killed before Italy’s ‘Zan Law’ could be implemented - a law that made transphobia a criminal offence, established the national day against discrimination; in addition, it establishes as a priority the creation of centres for the protection of transsexual victims.

The murder of Alves passed in over in silence, and have not the media coverage.

AUTHOR: Gabriele Micalizzi (Italy)

Gabriele Micalizzi is an Italian photojournalist. He collaborates with national and international newspapers such as: New York Times, The Guardian, Internazionale, Wall Street Journal. His works focus on the social condition of people and the relationship they have with the territory in where they live.

He is one of the founders of the Italian collective Cesura. In 2011 he began to reporting all the events related to the “Arab Spring”. Since 2016 he is testimonial of Leica and is the first winner of the European photographic talent, Master of Photography.

In November 2016 he presented his work on the Libyan situation: DOGMA. In 2019, during the Kurdish offensive in the Baghuz area against the last bastion of Isis, he was wounded by an RPG rocket. After the accident, during 2020 in Libya he cover the arrival of Turkish troops sent to help President Al Sarraj resist General Haftar’s attack.

During the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, he followed the area with the highest number of cases, covering Bergamo and the rest of Lombardy, following doctor Cavanna’s work in the countryside of Piacenza. The pictures have been published in journals such as Time Magazine, le Monde, VICE USA and Internazionale.