Tourist Sparks Fight After Crossing Into Men’s Side of Italy’s Last Gender-Segregated Beach
· Vice
A beach vacation in Italy took a turn this weekend when a tourist from Milan decided that a century-old rule didn’t apply to her, and things escalated from there.
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The incident occurred at Bagno Marino La Lanterna, known locally as Pedocin, a gender-segregated beach in Trieste that has operated the same way since the early 1900s. The beach is split down the middle by a 9-foot wall—women on one side, men on the other, children under 12 on either. To actually interact, everyone swims out to the buoys. It’s an arrangement locals have lived with happily for over a hundred years, the New York Post reports.
The visiting woman crossed to the men’s side to be with her boyfriend and, when other beachgoers asked her to move, she did not take it well. “You’re living in the Middle Ages,” she reportedly told them. Things escalated when a woman in her 50s, who was on the men’s side to help her husband take their disabled son to the restroom, asked the tourist to leave.
“You’re a bunch of sexist oafs. This is a form of discrimination. Shame on you,” the tourist allegedly fired back, per Il Piccolo. She then called the mother “sexist” and “backward” before approaching her with a raised hand.
Tourist Refuses to Follow Gender-Segregated Beach Rule in Italy, Demands $2.73 Refund
The men on the scene stepped in before it came to blows, though a female beach worker was shoved in the process. Before leaving, the tourist and her boyfriend demanded a full refund of their entry fee. The amount in question was €2.40, or about $2.73.
The internet, predictably, had opinions. “It’s true that [the rule seems] like the Middle Ages, but why force your own rules on a place that already has its own?” one commenter wrote on X. Others were less charitable toward the tourist’s approach. “Only stupid, arrogant, and ignorant people could behave like that,” another user posted. “It’s an ancient tradition, and it must be respected.”
Whether Pedocin’s setup is a relic worth preserving or a policy that deserves scrutiny is a legitimate debate—one that’s probably better had somewhere other than the beach itself, mid-confrontation, over $2.73.
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