A recent fast change: diffusion and acceptance of homosexuality among university students in Northern Italy during the twenty-first century

The acceptance of same-sex relationships and the diffusion of associated behaviours reflect pivotal developments within the broader ‘intimacy revolution’, aligning with Inglehart’s Silent Revolution and the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) theories. Drawing on a 2023 representative sample survey of 2600 Northern Italian university students aged 19–21, this study shows notably higher levels of engagement in same-sex behaviours and of supportive attitudes towards homosexuality compared to previous generations. It further shows that the pace of diffusion of SDT-related changes—observed in other sexual and reproductive behaviours—shapes the prevalence of these phenomena. Multivariate logistic regression analyses identify sex at birth, political orientation, and secularization as key individual-level predictors of attitudes and behaviours. Results situate Italy within a comparative framework, revealing both convergence with and divergence from patterns in other high-income countries. In the concluding section, we discuss the validity of the hypotheses previously formulated, on the basis of the empirical results.