Nice insights! I know from personal experience that the Italians and French (yes, the French) tend to be more conservative on cultural matters like LGBTQ than many Americans, Canadians, and Brits, but that conservatism usually manifests in ways we wouldn't recognize or understand unless we spent a lot of time exploring the subject.

All in all, I'd probably be more comfortable being out as queer in a small northern Italian city than in say, Shelbyville, Tennessee or certain small towns in Saskatchewan. But I might be more loathe to LIVE in that northern Italian city where I would not have the legal right to marry my partner or adopt children.

It's complicated.

Being out, though, is an excellent antidote to queerphobia.