"Patriots, Citizens, Lovers..."
А solo Exhibition of Carlos Motta, who shared the Main Prize of the Future Generation Art Prize 2014

My name is Aleksandr Zinchenkov. I work as a coordinator at the LGBT human rights organization Our World, which has been active since 1998. We conduct monitoring and provide legal assistance to LGBT communities in Ukraine. For some time we have also been involved in distributing information amongst LGBT communities about the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

All steps towards the protection of human rights at the official level depend in a way on the victims’ openness. Most people don’t want to be open because after having lived unpleasant situations, they don’t want to live them again. They are afraid to talk to the police and to the media because they fear these institutions would disclose their sexual orientation to their families. That is why our main problem is motivating people to protect their rights.

It is particularly difficult for us to receive information about the violation of human rights. Many LGBT people, especially in the provinces, small cities, and rural areas remain uncommunicative. Sometimes even their friends prefer not to inform public organizations about such human rights violations. We generally learn about these forms of abuse through friends and try to find out more information. It is very meticulous and hard work.

Ukraine was the first former USSR country to decriminalize homosexuality after it gained independence in 1991. At the same time the World Health Organization omitted homosexuality from the list of mental disorders and it appeared that these two occurrences initiated the development of the LGBT community in Ukraine, but unfortunately the situation hasn’t been as good as it promised to be.

Ukrainians were given independence from above after the break-up of a big state; they didn’t build it up from scratch. Consequently, LGBT people didn’t know what to do with that freedom and they continued living as before: They met someone dated them, but they never discussed it in public. The first LGBT organizations were founded only in the mid-90s. They started with essential things such as organizing community meetings and a bit later they took on the fight against HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, the idea of gay rights-as-human rights was embraced by public organizations only at the beginning of this century and it emerged as some kind of trend only in 2005.

By the mid-2000s many homophobic organizations also appeared. It is hard to say where they came from and what motivated them. Perhaps due to the frequent elections in Ukraine and to the constant political fighting the LGBT issue came to occupy a certain niche at the political level. Almost all political forces used it as a threat in their hunt for votes. Consequently, homophobic powers took shape in the form of public organizations and ultra-radical semi-legal nationalistic movements.

Not only politicians used anti LGBT rhetoric as an opportunity to increase their popularity. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Communist Party lost its leading role, the Church took its place. In order to increase its popularity amongst congregations they too have used homophobic rhetoric underpinned by dogmas from the Bible. This has heavily impacted society.

Everything would have been under control if the state had not refused to address these problems. Since 1991 politicians haven’t made any efforts to protect LGBT people. This has negatively influenced the image of the LGBT community: they have been turned into monsters in the eyes of Ukrainian society. In fact, there is no other unprotected group that faces such negative attitudes as the LGBT community.

Euromaidan and the subsequent post-revolutionary events of our recent history unfolded against that background. The LGBT people who participated in Euromaidan did it without displaying any LGBT insignia in order not to compromise the primary political aim of the revolution in front of the conservative forces. We also tried to resist the provocations of the pro-Russian side: for example, in January 2014, at the very height of the revolutionary events, certain political powers decided to play the LGBT card again. They organized a “gay pride” event in the center of Kiev where they hired people to pretend to represent the LGBT community and they tried to provoke conflicts. Fortunately, they didn’t succeed at this and during our press conference we informed people who had done that and why. That specific provocation failed but the right-wing radical powers continue to claim that LGBT people didn’t participate in the events at Maidan and didn’t take part in the anti-terrorist operation to protect Ukraine.

I would also like to add that the current events in the east of Ukraine have boosted violence and extremism. Cases of physical violence towards LGBT people are more frequent we have once again become a scapegoat used by our society to vent its anger. We saw this clearly at the end of last year when a cinema was set on fire during the premiere of an LGBT-themed movie or during the attack on the Equality March. It can be seen in what is constantly happening to gay people who continue to be killed and maimed throughout Ukraine because they are gay.

It is important to start working with society as a whole to organize informational and educational campaigns and to build up tolerance and patience. In addition, it is important for gays and lesbians to become more open about themselves in their daily lives and with their friends and relatives. Their social milieu should see that they are ordinary people, that they are not monsters, as the media suggests it. One of the most difficult tasks is convincing gays and lesbians to be more open. It is a “logical” fear because there are cases when young people are kicked out of their homes because their parents discover they are gay. Gay people can be fired from their jobs, find no employment, or sometimes their colleagues create such a negative atmosphere that they are forced to quit. In my opinion, such cases are less frequent than situations when people find out that a person is a gay and then accept him or her.

I think that the attitude of the younger generation attitude towards these issues is much lighter. They don’t deal with so many oppressing stereotypes. They were raised in a free society with fairly free views and media. I’m confident that this background will help them make the world into what they want it to be. And of course this would mean progress.

I became engaged in activism not so long ago. I participated in organizing KIEVPRIDE in 2015 and I am also an activist in a human rights organization that works against LGBT discrimination. It is very hard work because people, from regular citizens to the political elite, do not want to acknowledge LGBT issues.

There are two ways of resisting this: On a basic level, people should be more open about themselves. This may sound strange since I am not out myself. But I have reasons for that… The second level concerns state policy. If educational programs were launched, if teachers at schools taught that LGBT people are the same as other people and that homosexuality is not abnormal, maybe then, through education, our society would become more tolerant. The main problem is that people don’t have information and base their judgment on stereotypes.

For me there are two reasons: First, the situation with my work is not stable and it could prevent me from earning money for living. Second, I am not out to my family. Due to their beliefs, it would be very painful for my relatives if they knew the truth about me. Regarding my openness and my partnership with my girlfriend, we won’t have any problems unless we come out. Luckily, society is more tolerant of relationships amongst girls. As long as we are not public about it, problems are not so frequent. But the fact that we have to hide our relationship causes huge inconveniences. I think this is not right.

During my work in the police department I never faced problems because of my sexual orientation, apart from instances when colleagues showed interest in me and I had to stop them quite strictly. That behavior didn’t make me very popular, but it is in my character not to mix my private and work lives. The type of work I did never involved very close contact neither with people nor with LGBT people in particular. As far as I know, we didn’t have any special rules regarding the interaction between the administration and those subordinates who might be LGBT. I only know that several of my colleagues, who are also LGBT, hid their identities and had to be careful about that issue.

The difference between Kiev and Luhansk is astonishing. Different movements have developed here, there are organizations where you can receive information and psychological aid. There are psychologists and doctors. Many things are different. People are more consolidated here. You have a society where you can feel safe. In Luhansk we have never had that. The LGBT community has not been formed there, it is scattered. There are some people who communicate with each other, but the movement has not been formed.

A consequence of this is the large migration of LGBT people from the regions, which is very bad for those areas in particular. The strength and progress of human rights are people themselves; passionate individuals who can change the circumstances around them. In other Ukrainian regions however there are branches of organizations that aim at consolidating a local community. In some regions the atmosphere for LGBT people is good. As far as I know, the LGBT movement is strong in Zaporizhia, where different projects are implemented. This gives me some hope.

The conflict with Russia has affected the life of sexual minorities as well as of the entire society. LGBT people have migrated away from the places where they lived, facing the same difficulties as others who are in the same circumstances. Those difficulties however are often more acute because of their identities. Have social attitudes towards them changed? Yes, because a new enemy has appeared, one that is seen in an even more negative light than LGBT people. If ordinary people had to choose between a so called “Moskal” and a gay person, the “Moskal” would be considered worse.

I would like to suggest people to further cultivate themselves, to widen their world views, to escape the stereotypes which govern them. In our country the influence of the past is very strong, including the influence of the USSR, where sexual identity differences were considered negative and were seen as the influence of the prison subculture. This is a heavy heritage for us all. The perception of LGBT people and of gay men is still tainted by that. Even if people never lived such experiences, there is a genetic memory reminding them about times when many people faced criminal persecution for their political views. I would like to ask people to be more objective and to try to get to know something new before they judge it.

I came to terms with my identity since childhood. I always knew that I was a girl and I tried to say it to my parents but they suppressed it very strongly. I then started to suppress it myself. I started to consciously develop male characteristics and I succeeded: I am firm, courageous, I am decisive and I have the ability to take on responsibilities. I usually call these qualities “male features.” Many women possess such qualities but our society does not approve of them. Society presumes that a woman should be tender, compliant and family oriented.

When I was about 30 years old the dysphoria got to me so strongly that it led me to a suicide attempt. I tried to shoot myself while hunting. The gun failed to fire and I understood that it was a sign of fate. I decided to go through the transition and to start hormonal therapy.

I then met Angelina. The war started and we relocated to Kiev. We created our public organization and I found a joab. My colleagues respect my gender identity. I don’t work at an LGBT organization; it is a law firm. I was promoted to the leading lawyer in one year.

I made a court appeal against Act # 60 of the Ministry of Health. In particular against the medical contraindications, which prohibit transgender people who have children and who don’t have a job or a permanent residence to undergo gender reassignment procedures. We began this process because one of our girls has a child. Like me, she moved to Kiev and lost her home because of the fighting Eastern Ukraine. She had also been given a fake diagnosis. So I reestablished her diagnosis to “transsexualism,” according to the International Classification of Diseases. I then went through a number of court proceedings and made an appeal against that part of the Act.

At the moment, gender transition is based on Article #51 of the Healthcare Act, which states that change of gender can be done only on the basis of a personal declaration, with due regard to medical indications/contraindications and after appropriate medical intervention. This sphere is regulated by the state and the juridical recognition of one’s gender identity is only possible after medical intervention. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has pointed out many times that this Act violates human rights. And PARE has made similar declarations. We started the procedure to repeal the Act but the process is not easy. We began the development of a new standard of public health and of a unified clinical protocol on the issue of gender dysphoria that could replace this Act. First, the Commission, which is in fact an extra link, has to be abolished. It will define the notion of gender self-determination and of the appropriate medical treatment based on every person’s personal needs.

We started by writing many letters to the Ministry. In every letter we provided very strong argumentation. We were supported by members of the Commission and by the staff of the Research Institute for Social and Forensic Psychiatry. They helped us a lot. At first we had the paradoxical situation where we had demonized the members of the Commission. We considered them our enemies. But after working with them we realized that they too wanted to change the norm in favor of transgender persons. The Commission is a hostage of the legislation. They are restricted to making decisions concerning the issuing of medical certificates only after surgery. It has become accepted in the medical field that surgery means a complete vaginoplasty for trans women and metoidioplasty for trans men. All these surgeries involve the removal of organs and are very difficult to perform. Not everyone can agree to them and not everyone can afford them financially. The health care service is free but there is a problem with specialists and surgeons. Patients have to go abroad to Russia, Thailand and Belarus.

A transgender boy from Khartsisk lived not far from my house. He could not change his documents, as he hadn’t undergone any surgical interventions. He hardly managed to escape from the Russian occupied territory. He was attacked several times. A transgender person faces many problems until they change their documents, until their appearance corresponds with the gender role they choose. I know some transgender people who have stayed in the occupied territory. They have to hide because the DNR have announced that they see no differences between transgender people and gays. My friends have informed me that the self-proclaimed DNR militia has shot gays. It has happened in Yasynutava and in Donetsk. My friend witnessed this. He saw how they shot them and where they buried them.

It is difficult to speak about the situation in the occupied territory because when the fighting began many people moved to the big land and others to Russia. Only those who can hide very well stayed behind. I am mostly talking about transsexuals, because transgender persons constitute a very diverse group. We are not so many, because only a few amongst us can live up to the transition. Many people take their own lives, many are driven to despair and others develop mental illnesses or simply give up.

I am a nationalist and a patriot. I love my people. I love my homeland. Nationalism is not the hate of others. It is love for everything that you consider yours. The fact that radicals exist means they have a problem. Their patriotism hasn’t developed since the 1940s. It is very important for them to overcome the German inheritance of the Third Reich. For the genesis of a nationalist that is a natural process. I don’t hide the fact that I was attracted to the ideology of the Third Reich for some time. As the years went by it helped me to understand human rights better. The ideology of hate has helped me discover and understand the values of life and the values of other people.

All of you are different. It doesn’t matter what your attitude towards me is: Whether you consider me a hero or whether you hate me or despise my gender identity… I can simply say: Love your homeland and love your nation in all its diversity, because this diversity is what constitutes our Ukraine.

Hello everybody, my name is Anatoliy Yerema. I am a TV producer and I have been working in TV for more than 20 years. During an interview in the past I admitted who I really am. I spoke about the fact that at the age of 33 or 34 I felt gay, about the consequences of this feeling and how I had to live with it. The story caused a lot of interest perhaps because I am a public figure. People were interested and it may even have helped someone realize who they really are. Maybe the story helped someone at that moment. I don’t know, but I really hope it did.

I saw the journalist’s sincere intention to understand the issue—not only to make a sensationalist program—and also to raise the question: What does it mean for a person to admit who he or she is? What would the effects of such an admission be for their career? Generally speaking, the outcome wasn’t negative for me. But of course, it wasn’t easy. I didn’t take everything into account. I didn’t foresee that this would be very hard for my children and that they would have to answer difficult questions. But this is what life is. It is not always nice and pleasant. Sometimes there are moments when you have to defend yourself and your father. I am very proud of my children because they managed to protect their dignity and their father’s dignity.

During a certain period in my life, I was closely connected to the Molodist Film Festival. The Molodist team is very progressive and they have brought many movies to Ukraine from different festivals. Once the director of the festival and I had a meeting with the coordinators of the LGBT section of the Berlin Film Festival and, surprisingly, we realized that no other big film festival had the Teddy Awards format. The Molodist is quite big, so together with Andriy Khalpakhchi we thought, “why not?”

Less than half a year later, in 2002, the program Sunny Bunny appeared as part of the Molodist Film Festival. Though it resonated, there was no negative reaction at the beginning. Maybe people did not understand what it really was. We wanted to show movies about gay, lesbian and transgender lives being very similar to the lives of other people, to demonstrate that they have their problems too. We didn’t want to do this to entertain. We wanted to deal with important social topics such as the adaptation problems these people face in society. There were a lot of people at these screenings. We started organizing conferences and roundtables and things were set into motion. It was one of the first LGBT events in Ukraine. I am very glad that after I left, the Molodist team continued the project and, thank God, this program has been part of the festival for 13 years.

I know it is impossible to overcome obscurantism in one fell swoop. You need patience and consistent work. And you have to believe in what you do. Even under pressure from some religious orthodoxs who don’t want to hear you. You have to continue saying what you need to say, telling the world the truth about yourself. Only when people see that you consistently stand by your ideas, they will acknowledge that you believe in those ideas and that means that people will also understand that the truth is on your side. That is the only way to get things done. So, I’m sure that if the Zhovten Cinema was burnt down we will restore it. The Sunny Bunny program will be on the screens of Zhovten again.

I think the LGBT movement in Ukraine is in critical need of help from public figures: Writers, influential intellectuals, or even politicians. This help is very important because the influence of these people on society can make the wide majority think about what they say and what ideas they support. The support of gay pride was very good: It was supported by writers, journalists, and even MPs… It is hard to overestimate the importance of the presence of several MPs at the pride march. In such a society as Ukraine, it is indeed very important.

If we look at the evolution of the LGBT movement in the last 20 years, the first decade was dedicated to doing local work. Interestingly, one of the first organizations was founded in the east, in Lugansk, where no one expected such an organization to appear. It was doing everything it could: They published brochures, magazines, and created a website. Now this work has turned into something bigger. It has received the support of such organizations as Amnesty International and also western embassies that support LGBT events.

Don’t forget that Ukraine is a “Facebook country.” It may sound like exaggeration, but Facebook made the Revolution of Dignity possible. People gathered in Maidan after a famous journalist posted a Facebook post. The possibilities provided by this social network and the way it affects the success of the country and of the projects taking place here now is a new reality whose potential we probably haven’t fully estimated yet. It seems to me that we have to work more here, to develop this potential more, but we shouldn’t forget that the virtual Facebook world doesn’t cover 100% of society. We should not forget it and lose sense of reality. We should work both on the Internet and beyond it.

People, I want to say this to all of you: Don’t forget you are human. Don’t forget to remain human and to see the human beings beside you. Don’t think about the color of their skin or their sexual orientation: See human beings who have a right to be who they are. In my opinion a human has two main rights: The right to life and right to love. Love is limitless and does not know borders and colors. It can be red, blue, or pink, anything. The main thing is that this is love, that there are feelings, mutual feelings.

My name is Yuriy Yoursky and I’ve been an LGBT activist for a long time.

The current economic and political situation in the country is very difficult. That is why LGBT activism is extremely important at the moment. The economic situation is not very stable and people have to think about earning enough money for a slice of bread and about feeding their families first. It is not a priority for them to think about their rights, about what their awareness of others means or about human rights education. Thinking about your rights on an empty stomach is very hard. The political situation related to the war is very acute and it influences issues of human rights. As many people say, including our opponents from the Pravyy Sektor, it is impossible to think about the “special rights” of LGBT people now since we have more important issues such as the war with Russia.

There is a big difference between being gay in the capital city and being gay in a small industrial town like the one I come from, Zaporizhia. In an industrial region there are many plants, the level of population is very high and people are hard workers who toil nine-to-five. The level of tolerance, intelligence and education is not high enough. That is why unfortunately the percentage of homophobia, violent actions, and bullying is much higher than in the capital.

Coming-out to my relatives has been in the making for a long time. It is still partly unrealized. Just two months ago I came out to my older brother. He is the typical citizen of Zaporizhia. He works at the plant that produces engines for planes. He has a wife, two kids, and I am a godfather to one of them. I was extremely afraid he would forbid me to communicate with his children. As I had heard homophobic jokes from him, I thought his reaction would be negative. I was extremely surprised by his reaction and with words: He said that I am his brother and that he would love me no matter what. He said he would be glad if I came to his home with my boyfriend and we could spend time together. Since my coming out our relationship has become better and stronger.

The problem with Ukrainian society is that it is patriarchal like many others. We have this idea of masculinity imposed on society. Men and women must have roles that are clearly divided. Men are expected to be strong and to protect and be the breadwinners in the family. A man is expected to find a typical man’s work: Work hard while his wife sits at home, cooks, cleans the house and raises his children. This pressure starts from childhood and it is imposed in school. That is why gay boys who understand their homosexuality since boyhood are afraid to take a wrong step under the pressure. They are afraid to fail somewhere, to show their femininity. Talented children are afraid to go to a dance school, are afraid to become artists or designers, just because these are not typical jobs for men. Unfortunately, they have to give up their future plans and their dreams about the future.

The war between Ukraine and Russia has influenced the work of LGBT activists as a radicalization of society has taken place. For all the forces that decided to fight for a stronger Ukraine, all methods came to be seen as good. Ultra right-wing forces got access to weapons, to money and resources, and it became easier for them to mete out their judgment. By doing the right thing in the war with Russia they became at society’s favorite characters and thought they could decide the destiny of any minority. These guys started expressing their opinions in public more often, saying that the LGBT community is not appropriate for Ukraine, that Ukrainians don’t need imposed European values. Despite the fact that we are heading towards Europe, people are being frightened that this is “Gayropa,” that a huge number of homosexuals will come from Europe and that due to their propaganda the whole Ukrainian society will be dominated by LGBT people.

It became more difficult to work. The recent Equality March held in June demonstrated this. Ultra right-wing groups had no difficulty coming there, voicing their opinion, showing their position and just beating up people who are not of the same sexual orientation as they are. Many activists have received threats. This is not investigated by the state. Ultra right-wing groups think that the LGBT community is somewhere on the margins, that it is occupied with its own activities and that it doesn’t have rights and it is not acceptable in other spheres of society. They don’t want to believe that there are LGBT people in the army, in Eastern Ukraine or that the majority of the community is patriotic. During Maidan we were also there, standing up for an independent Ukraine.

Ukrainian society is not very stable and unfortunately we require support the outside and as well as from one another. Instead of dividing each other into desirables and undesirables, into acceptable and unacceptable individuals, I would like us to support each other and unite. I would really like to appeal to the society. To ask people to stay tuned and check any information you see. Formal and informal statistics prove there have always been 5 to 10% of LGBT people. It has always been like this and always will be. You may not be aware, but gays, lesbians and transgender people are around you: They may be your friends who are still afraid to open up to you. Do not use homophobic speech. LGBT propaganda does not exist. You were born with your sexual orientation, it is is not chosen. Therefore, judging a person born this or that way is totally unacceptable. And I would like you to think about it more and more.

My name is Maxim Eristavi. I am an independent journalist and the co-founder of Hromadske International. I work on media coverage of Ukraine: Mostly on LGBT issues and media rights. I am also one of the few openly gay journalists in Ukraine. As a journalist I have always thought that if you know a topic really well or if your background helps you to cover a specific topic well, then you must do it. I decided that I can cover LGBT news better than non-LGBT journalists or those who do not quite understand the daily realities of LGBT people’s lives in Ukraine.

After I came back to Ukraine at the end of 2013, after a long absence, and the revolution had begun, I understood that this was an opportunity for the implementation of civil rights in Ukraine. The Maidan revolution was and is a unique opportunity for the majority of people in Ukraine to realize the importance of equality. Equality as a wide concept that concerns everyone and that has to do with the civil rights that all people should have since they are born. The revolution presented a unique opportunity to define this and to help the progress of attaining equality.

I used to live in Russia, which is often compared to Ukraine in terms of the scope of its homophobia. But when I returned to Ukraine I noticed how much society had changed. I started thinking that in Ukraine, in contrast to Russia, equality and the empowerment of the civil rights of the LGBT community were a potential victory. Achieving these goals here would be much easier than in other countries of the region and if we were to achieve them we could make progress for the whole region, not only for Ukraine.

Recent polls show that more than 70% of Ukrainians think gay people are sick. This discussion is still stuck in the past. One can surely understand people who say that in times of conflict the time is not right to discuss important yet controversial issues, such as trying to change the course of history or stereotypes about minorities. Not only about the LGBT community but also about gender rights, religious expression or the concerns of other minority groups. But when they tell me: “Why don’t you wait 20-30 years until the big problems are solved and then we can get back to your problems?” I always answer that the war in Ukraine is not only military and economic, but also civil and cultural. Building a society that is dramatically different from Russia and from the post-Soviet values that we are still trying to get rid of would be a very important victory in this war. A victory for everyone, not only for the minorities, but also for the whole country. This won’t be achieved by solving only military and economic problems. Ultimately, strong and protected minorities are not a threat to a healthy and successful country.

But one year after the revolution and in the midst of the war the situation in the country has worsened. The problem is not only a change in the social attitude towards LGBT issues because you can often see a completely different trend. People want to know more, they understand the necessity to protect minorities… Yet from another perspective, I see the current situation as an attempt to highjack the conversation about LGBT issues, to instil fear in people and to manipulate them through this fear.

I wouldn’t only blame the nationalists or other marginal groups for this. Our own community is also to blame. In a country of 45 million people there are practically no LGBT people who are out. There are only a handful of them and they are mostly involved in the field of activism. Ordinary Ukrainian citizens don’t know what LGBT means and they don’t know any LGBT people. In a country that keeps its LGBT life in the closet, the community itself should be the first to address this issue.

When it comes to gay rights, gay Ukrainians don’t differ from other Ukrainians who want to have more rights. This goes back to a culture of fear common to Soviet times. Constant paranoia and fear of being punished for having a different opinion created a culture of fear that still persists. When you speak with LGBT people of an older generation, generally they don’t participate in any events or speak openly about their sexuality, even with their families, which might be more important than coming out publicly.

My whole life could be described as an escape: An escape that started at school when I was trying to avoid being bullied and to get away from people who tried to humiliate me. Later on, the escape becomes larger as you want to escape your city since you don’t feel safe and you are trying to find a new and more tolerant society. Later you want to leave the country. I went to places where I thought I would feel more comfortable but I realized that this fear stays inside you everywhere you go. It is impossible to escape until you turn back, stop, and start hitting back. Where you live is not so important, you first have to solve the problem of self-respect. Hating something inside you, something you can’t overcome, something passed on to to you at birth, is toxic and destructive.

Honesty is one the things that attracted me to journalism. It was important for me not only professionally, but personally as well. If I had become honest with myself and with those people whom I tell my story, I realized that I could do things differently in my job. I have idealistic and romantic journalistic standards and I realized that it is impossible to tell people stories without talking about my personal background… If I tell a story about LGBT people, I have to say that I am also gay.

If there are so many LGBT people in the Ukrainian media, why is the media’s coverage of LGBT issues so unprofessional? I wouldn’t only blame journalists for this but also LGBT activists themselves. Due to the activists’ previous negative experiences with the media they prefer to take some distance and agree only to minimal cooperation. Both sides need a fresh start; we need to work together in order to understand why the coverage is so unprofessional and often homophobic.

I don’t think we have to reinvent the wheel. But we have to pay attention to history and to the experience of other countries where this issue has resolved successfully. We need to try to learn something elsewhere and to test it here to see whether it works. We need to constantly search for new ways to achieve progress. Ultimately, despite history and everyone’s different backgrounds it comes down to one simple task: Accepting the choices of another human being.

When I recall my childhood and the problems I faced then: being humiliated at school by other boys who wanted to disgrace me by locking me up in the public toilet, I understand that I am more successful now than they are and that I feel better than they do. I don’t need special rights, additional rights or special privileges. I just need just equality, a right that is given at birth and is guaranteed not only by law but simply by the right to life. Equality shouldn’t require any additional expenses or the efforts of lawmakers. One shouldn’t have to vote or organize elections in favor of equality. Equality is something you have at birth. It is a right to be proud of who you are and not to be afraid to say it to others. It is something given to all humans at birth. This is the idea with which absolutely all Ukrainians can agree on after the Maidan revolution.

My name is Nina Verbitska. I am an independent consultant who works with several organizations. The ongoing project that currently occupies most of my time is lecturing at the police academy on the topics of LGBT rights, tolerance and non-discrimination.

I am very surprised by the interest the new police force has towards the discussion of LGBT issues. Every topic intersects with an LGBT issue. We talk about gender equality in the police academy. We talk about hate crimes and watch videos from the Equality March. I am impressed by how eagerly people ask questions if they don’t understand something. There is even a question in the final exam regarding how they would behave if they had to guard the Equality March. I am surprised by how well they understand that their job has to do with their own personal attitude. That it is impossible to do their job disregarding their beliefs. They understand that their way of thinking should be changed, that they should read, study and understand every topic concerning discrimination in general, not only LGBT issues. We also talk about ethnic profiling, the discrimination of women and other issues.

The police force is completely new. They have never worked in this system. There is a limited age for admission between 21-35, so they are young and they have different views. This training was specifically created for them based on the model of the Georgian police. Eka Zguladze and her team came to us to create new subjects together with Ukrainian experts. Some subjects are simply aimed at informing students while others require exams. The specialists have created the program and teachers lecture according to it while also proposing changes in case they consider something is not working. Some things are clear, while others have to be either simplified or made more complicated. This is the result of collective work of reformers, teachers and the new administrative police.

The first topic for tolerance and non-discrimination is “The Principles of Non-Discrimination in the Work of Patrols.” This is a training form of education. We don’t work with ready-made materials. We organize discussions. We work with interactive technologies, watch videos, and collect and analyze information of real events. The materials are specifically combined with different target groups in mind. When I ask what discrimination is. We first try to define the term “discrimination.” Then I ask them: In your opinion, what groups face discrimination in Ukraine? And of course LGBT is named among those groups. This is when the most interesting part begins. Many myths and stereotypes surface concerning the attitudes of the State and Church towards LGBT people, as well as what discrimination involves. I answer absolutely all questions, give them examples, and then we can discuss calmly.

The second topic deals with gender issues. I ask the new police officers how they would behave if they met a masculine-looking man with a female identity passport and what that would mean. The majority of police officers say that the passport must have been stolen. I say this is incorrect. I teach them about transgender people and that a person can be in a state of transition from one gender to another. That it is not necessary to drive the person to the police station to figure out if the passport belongs to them. That it would be enough to ask if the person is transgender. I tell students what it all means and I refer them to Act #60 of the Ministry of Health. They often hear about this Act on the methods of gender change in Ukraine for the first time in our class. If they are interested in learning more we also talk after class, during the break more informally. We also discuss how they should behave: Whether or not they should address the person according to the information in their passports or by their chosen name? Whether or not it is necessary to conduct a body search and who should do it? I ask them to consider what one should take as a basis: sex or gender? This is how they begin to understand tolerance, not only as something theoretical but also as a something practical. Little by little the current reform of the new police patrol will inevitably involve their families and their friends because the officers will bring the information home.

We also need reforms in medicine, in health care and in education. And a social reform is needed as well. Many social aid centers for families, children and young people in Ukraine have never faced with these questions before. From another perspective, if anti-discrimination legislation and the Constitution were changed in order to implement LGBT rights, it would perfectly show that nothing would be drastically transformed in society. Nothing would change in the private lives of the majority of people. If they don’t want to enter same-sex partnerships, they don’t need those changes. And those who didn’t have these rights before would not actually receive any advantages, only the rights that heterosexual people already had. Many people understand this incorrectly, thinking that when LGBT people get equal rights in Ukraine, something will be stolen from one part of our society and given to another. We have to explain to people that nothing will change for them personally. That the general perception of tolerance and acceptance will change, not only for LGBT people but also for all minorities.

Words make a difference when people hear them from someone they know. It is hard to understand what it feels like to be an LGBT person in Ukraine. If one has never faced discrimination and intolerance before, it is hard to explain. The fact that my partner works in a big company and has the medical insurance that her heterosexual colleagues can use with their spouses really bothers me. We don’t have this right. According to the law I am nobody to her. When we sign the rent agreement, only one of us signs.

My parents, for instance, think that I live with a friend. My parents don’t want to face the fact that we are a family. It is very important to me that my parents accept me. My mother once said she would never tell anyone that I am a lesbian. That it would be our secret. I smiled and said: “Mom, I’m out, I’m on TV, I’m in the front line at the Equality March and I’m not ashamed of it. But if you want this to be a secret, let it be so.”

Every year I take part in trainings for parents. This is an incredible process, which, unfortunately, I don’t get to experience with my own parents. I work with the parents of other people instead. The fact that they visibly change after every meeting is a great pleasure. I have had something to do with their transformed attitudes towards their children. I am always embarrassed when I receive letters in which children thank me for how their relations with parents have improved.

My name is Yuri Frank. I am the coordinator of transgender programs at the NGO Insight. I work with the trans community and with the public authorities on issues of discrimination, the procedures for sex change and the change of documents Ukraine.

The situation of transgender people in Ukraine is quite complicated for several reasons. First, there is a high level of homophobia and transphobia in our society. People are quite xenophobic. Transgender people face discrimination when they deal with the public authorities and they face violence, rudeness, and lack of understanding from their relatives and friends.

The second reason is the fact that the condition of transgenderism or transexualism, as it is indicated in the medical records, is still considered to be a mental illness. This is documented at the international level in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). This causes stigma, because in our society people with any psychiatric conditions are considered dysfunctional and are treated with distrust.

The third issue is the state-approved procedure, which allows trans people to gain access to medical treatment and to change their name and gender identity in their documents. According to the current process, if a transgender person wants to have surgery and change their documents they must take a series of steps that often last for years. The first stage is going to a psychiatrist, getting registered as a patient and being sent for examination at a psychiatric hospital for one month. Supposedly, this is done to establish the diagnosis of “transexualism.” In my opinion this is a political diagnosis. It is exactly the same kind of diagnosis that “homosexuality” used to be when it was also considered a mental illness.

The psychiatrists are often older people formed during the Soviet years and have very stereotypical ideas concerning gender roles. Transgender people often have to lie. They have to come up with a highly stereotypical story in order to appear as masculine as possible if they are transgender men and as feminine as possible if they are transgender women.

According to the law after these 30 to 45 days, if everything goes well, the doctors decide whether or not to give a diagnosis. After getting a decision the person has to go to Kiev from wherever they live and pass a special commission. This multidisciplinary commission consists of 12 people that include psychiatrists, endocrinologists, psychologists and surgeons. If they are satisfied with everything, they issue a certificate approving hormone treatment and surgery. But there is a misconception that all transgender people want to undergo operations and to make their bodies look as much as possible as the bodies of the opposite sex. But in fact, the situation is different. There are people who are comfortable if they just take hormones for example.

I come from a provincial town where it seemed as if you had no choices in life. Everything seemed to have already been decided for you: If you were a girl, you would get married and have children. I was married for 7 years. My husband was not a bad person. I cannot say he was violent to me, but for me our marriage was an escape from my mother. To some extent it was also an escape from the past, because in my youth I experienced many unpleasant moments. I survived rape and an abusive partnership with a man who beat me.

I knew little about feminism or social causes behind those stereotypes. I learned about that much later. But even when I learned these things, I still felt uncomfortable in my body because society considered me a woman and treated me respectively. I started using masculine nouns and identifying myself that way online. I also wrote fan fiction and signed it with a man’s name. At one point it simply became clear to me that I was not living or controlling my life. By that time, my husband and I were already living together only as friends and we could separate. I wanted to start my own life.

In my opinion, the current conflict in Eastern Ukraine is caused by Russia’s aggression and by Russia’s manipulation of the pro-Russian sentiment common to that region. These events have made the situation even more difficult for trans people. A man who could not leave the area because he is trans contacted us. He had been taking hormones for a long time and it was hard to imagine that he had once been a woman. He had a passport with a woman’s name, which he could not change because of the procedure, so he could not leave. We only managed to help him after an intervention of the UN mission. After almost three months. We got in touch with them and they transported him to the border where he met our volunteers.

Recently, right wing and nationalist groups have become more active and they a very bad attitude towards LGBT people. They actually demonstrate physical violence towards LGBT people and this could be observed during the pride march this year. This can also be seen in our daily life: Just two days ago, I received a call from a trans woman asking me how to write a statement to the police because she had been kicked in the Maidan Square by people wearing swastika tattoos. To our new police’s credit, they treated her politely, drove her home and took her statement. She is hoping that her case will be investigated. We often encounter the problem that hate crimes are not investigated. We a very have poor legislation and such cases are seen as hooliganism.

To the people who live in this city and in this country: I wish them to be kinder and not to follow the first stereotypical idea that comes into their heads. Not everything that seems obvious is really so obvious. Those people we are used to labeling are in reality just like you. They have their own problems and circumstances. Anyone could find themselves in a position where they represent a minority or an oppressed group. I would like as few people as possible to ever find themselves in situations of oppression and discrimination. But I would like more people to understand what that feels like and to try to take a stand against it with the knowledge that this could also happen to them.

My name is Olena Shevchenko and I represent the NGO Insight. Ours is a feminist organization and we also deal with queer issues. The concept of ‘queer’ is more or less new to post-Soviet countries. We see ourselves as a feminist initiative. We are trying to work on making the position of the different groups that constitute the LGBTI community equal. This means that in Ukraine, the most dominant discourse is the gay discourse, so we are trying to work with lesbians and with bisexual women on issues which include feminism. We also work with transgender people. And last year, we started working with intersex people.

We have adopted the following approach: We are aware, we understand and we try to explain to people that you cannot only work with one discriminated minority. Because issues of discrimination and harassment directed at different minority groups are actually intersectional. They are interrelated. They cannot be addressed separately. The biggest task is to help people become aware of this. Because even in the LGBTI community we encounter racism or intolerance towards other minorities who also face discrimination. These issues are very important when we see them in the light of creating a unified human rights movement in order to stand and fight together.

I have been actively involved in sports since my school years. I was a professional athlete engaged in wrestling, a purely “male” sport. At first it was judo and sambo and then it was freestyle wrestling. In a sport where there are virtually no girls, discrimination and disrespect are almost everywhere. This helped me to become aware of myself as a feminist and as a person who is fighting for equality between men and women. You have to work two or three times harder just to prove to other people, to men, to “guys,” that you have the right to engage in the sport along with them. This is absurd, in my view, because a person is always unique, and in principle, anyone should be allowed to develop according to his or her interests. Labeling people, making everyone fit the same standard of “women” or “men” is not worth doing.

This binary characterization presumes that masculinity is a purely male feature and femininity in contrast to masculinity is a purely female trait. Masculinity means activity and force. Femininity means weakness and flexibility. If you do not fit in, neither as a man nor a woman, there will be sanctions. Sanctions in the form of violence, hostility, hatred and condemnation.
It is useful to understand why these things matter so much for traditional society. There is a huge prejudice against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. However, most often when we hear about LGBTI people, we hear about gay men. Why is that? Because men constitute the most important category in life. In traditional societies they are more valuable than women. If a man is gay, in the eyes of heterosexual males, he has betrayed everything masculine. He is a traitor and descends to the level of a woman. He becomes an object instead of a subject.
All women are objects in traditional cultures. A woman can be owned, forced to do something, humiliated and raped. The fight against different kinds of stereotyping and prejudice is basically a fight that does not have an end. If you make it a long-term goal to achieve full equality in society and to overcome every prejudice in, say, twenty five years; it will never happen. But the process is very important, because every day when you change attitudes, voice opinions, give information and see changes at least in one person: This gives meaning to your life.

Changing society is difficult and I think in a way that idea is formless. “What are you doing? We are changing society!” Nobody knows what that means. It means daily work, which consists in communicating and investing in people. Only through dialogue are people willing to change. If you talk to them from the position of power, it is a monologue, and people are not psychologically ready to accept things; it is as if something is being imposed on them. When you talk as an equal, you can influence each other in dialogue. Mutual understanding begins with dialogue.

At the moment we are engaged in investment and propaganda. I specifically use the word “propaganda” because it immediately causes resistance; the word is rather controversial. It is associated with violent methods although the word “propaganda” has several meanings, including advertising and addressing the public. Articulating your messages. Addressing the audience and saying, “I am here, and I am the same as you. I just differ from you.” This does not mean that I violate anyone’s rights, as the people in Russia who passed laws banning the “propaganda” of homosexuality believe. The very idea that sexual orientation or anything else can be forcibly imposed is fundamentally untrue. But it is an interesting method and a rhetorical device too. It can be seen when the arguments you use are more or less logical, but the hypothesis you offer is fundamentally flawed and incorrect.

I hear from different people with different educational backgrounds: “Your rights as a representative of a minority violate my rights as a representative of the majority.” What does this mean? People give strange examples. I find understanding that logic difficult, but it sounds like this: “I am a heterosexual white male and I do not want to see you in the street and know that you’re a lesbian.” Attention please, if my existence and my being visible violates someone’s rights as a heterosexual, a homophobe, I can offer them this answer: You can avoid seeing me, which means not going to a place where I am going today. You have that right. You have the right to close your eyes and you have the right to protest and go to another place or the same place without violating my rights or being violent to me.

It is very difficult to talk about the history of the feminist movement in Ukraine, because I cannot quite confirm that it exists. There have been attempts to create something. There were and there are now different organizations and informal initiatives. However, we cannot expect the feminist movement in Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries to follow the development it had in America or Europe. The movement here evolved in vastly different ways. We have different backgrounds. Our society does not have a history of fighting for rights, including the rights of women. In Soviet times women were given the right to vote and to work. This does not mean that we had equal rights in the Soviet era. No, it means that the state did not have enough economic power and enough manpower, so everyone was welcome: Women, children, come help the industry! Women worked both at home, doing housework, which was never paid for and never considered a job, and also worked in the factories. They carried a double burden. There was, basically, no feminism during the Soviet era. It was a form of dissidence. People who engaged in the protection of human rights, women’s rights, in feminism, were usually persecuted, because these ideas were harmful for the state where everyone was “equal.” Therefore, we see a very difficult process in Ukraine today, because in Soviet times there was this leveling when women in the workplace were treated like men, but at home like women, like staff.

A glass ceiling still exists in Ukraine. You will not shoulder your way into male communities in our society simply because they will not let you in. You are not an equal, you work for a lower salary, you most often do “female” work. Sexism is mistakenly perceived as a struggle for women’s rights. Similarly to the situation with the fight for the rights of LGBT people where it is believed that this is a struggle for some special rights. And it is the same with the struggle for women’s rights. Why is this happening? Most heterosexuals, and the part that consists of men, feel privileged, they do not face the problems women face. They find it difficult to understand this concept because they are already in a privileged position.

It is necessary to try and be honest with ourselves. It is very easy to shout that these people do not want to give up their privileges. In fact, becoming aware of one’s privileges is a very difficult task because they are not always visible. You simply use them since birth, you do not notice them precisely because you have them. They get noticed by those people who do not have them. I believe that becoming aware of these privileges and trying to give them up requires great inner strength and efforts. It would be absurd to ask everyone to become aware of them. All of us have some privileges: someone is white, someone is heterosexual, someone was born into a family with a large income. Have you seen a lot of people who give these things up? I have not.

A conflict with Russia is unfolding and escalating in Ukraine. We have the occupied territory of Crimea, we have a conflict, and the escalation of violence in two eastern regions. I do not think that our task, as human rights activists, is to assess what is happening now. Our task is to try and help people whose lives have been affected by this war, and our task is to try and understand the causes of the war. If the state does not help its citizens to develop, if it neither support the development of their critical thinking nor invests into their education nor provide decent means of subsistence, I believe that such a state cannot ask for anything in return.

We need to look a little deeper inside ourselves and find out what exactly we are, what our identities are, what we choose, what we feel, and what has been imposed on us for a long time, since childhood. What is the way other people want to see me and what is it that I am? One’s identity is one’s choice, and we should not be afraid of declaring openly what we choose. We do not need to act along the lines of, “Oh please pity on me, I was born that way.” We must join together in order to defend the concept of personal choice, because this is what freedom is based on.

Timur: My name is Timur. I work for the LGBT organization Fulcrum and for the national LGBT portal.

Zoryan: My name is Zoryan. I am a human rights activist and work for the organization Freedom House.

T: After the Soviet Union collapsed Ukraine became the first ex-Soviet republic to remove the article criminalizing homosexuality from its Criminal Code. After that the efforts to protect human rights seemed unnecessary since LGBT people in this country are not formally prosecuted.

Z: But society exerts a huge amount of pressure on those people. Society wants us to keep quiet, to refrain from demonstrating or “propagandizing,” which is what they accuse us of. So people have very limited choices: Either be themselves, which means putting up a daily fight, leaving the country, or be totally closeted and hide their lives from society.

Ordinary people who have little information about LGBT issues continue to ask us: “Who is oppressing you? Who is persecuting you? You haven’t lost your job because of that, have you?” We try to explain that we are talking about everyday situations where our rights are restricted. For example, if, God forbid, I end up in the hospital unconscious, Timur, who is the person closest to me, won’t be allowed to visit me or make any decisions about my treatment, because legally he has no relation to me.

Z: LGBT activism has become more crucial since EuroMaidan when Ukraine made its “civilizational choice.” We are moving in the direction of Europe. But this shouldn’t mean imposing some other values on Ukrainians. It means that all people can be equal and be themselves. This also includes equality for LGBT people.

T: This year we tried an experiment walking around Kiev. I expected to encounter more homophobia in the street than we did. In fact, we encountered its absence. In the end we were beaten a bit, but it is worth noting that we were not beaten by the majority, but by a very small minority of people. I am not even sure that this minority is greater than the number of LGBT people in Ukraine.

Z: We spent over an hour holding hands around the city. We noticed that most people didn’t react. It was as if we were aliens. Or maybe they thought we were foreigners who don’t know what is not acceptable here. But most people chose not to show any reaction. At the end we encountered a lot of aggression from an organized group of young people who were wandering around looking for a target. They began talking to us so the police who were standing nearby would go away and they could start beating us. At first the conversation was actually interesting. They asked us if we were patriots. We said yes we are patriots and we love our country. They asked whether we would like our nation to be better and stand above the rest. I replied that we have different understandings of patriotism. We told them the Maidan revolution was the essence of the Ukrainian nation. We were there too. There were people there who consider themselves Ukrainians. People who speak Ukrainian or Russian. People with different sexual orientations, with various professions… This is a new Ukrainian nation that is fighting for its self-determination. They replied that we are not patriots because we are breaking the laws of nature and shaming the white race.

Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began the influence of Russian propaganda in Ukraine has significantly decreased. Russian propaganda was the main source of these myths about “Gayropa” and about LGBT culture being a Western trend aimed at destroying civilization and what they call the “Russian World.”  Ukrainian nationalist far-right forces have taken up the messages delivered to Ukrainians through Russian propaganda. They say that LGBT people are a foreign element that has to be eliminated or otherwise our nation will perish. The most common accusation that far-right movements throw at the LGBT community is that we did not create our own LGBT battalion to fight in Eastern Ukraine. But gays and lesbians are everywhere. We also volunteer in the in the armed forces.

T: The conflict is an important reason why we need to talk about human rights and about protecting people from discrimination. Discrimination in Ukraine concerns not only LGBT people but also a wide range of groups. For example, people displaced from the conflict zone suffer discrimination as well. But each time that MPs draft a nice bill on “Protecting people from discrimination,” sexual orientation always ends up disappearing from the bill.

The same thing is happening with the adoption of changes to the Ukrainian Constitution. The first version of the amendments included the “Prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” But the Church Council protested so they won’t include it.

Z: We know that religious organizations are very influential. This is one of Ukraine’s most serious problems. Very few people understand that Church and State are separate and that we live in a secular state. The Church cannot deny the rights of certain people. Today we see more violence against LGBT people. This year we saw several homophobic murders, we saw the attack on the Equality March and we saw on video how we were beaten because we were “violating the laws of nature.” Violence against LGBT people continues to grow and we have to decide how to respond to this violence.

The Ukrainian LGBT movement could respond to this violence like they did in the USA. During Stonewall the LGBT community physically responded to police aggression and originated the US LGBT movement. But we can choose a different path and talk about how there is already too much violence in Ukraine. Violence is undesirable under any circumstances. We will not respond in the same way, we will talk about our rights.

We are seeing the discussion about LGBT issues shift from traditional values to the political sphere. And we saw that two MPs participated in the Equality March for the first time this year. Although most politicians still view talking about LGBT rights as political suicide, this is a chance for Ukraine to become a more progressive country and to become a regional leader in human rights and LGBT issues.

We have a very difficult situation with the HIV epidemic. Ukraine is one of the few countries in the world where the epidemic continues to grow. Earlier, it was an epidemic that mostly involved injection drug users and sex workers. Now its main mode of transmission is sexual and most of the contacts that lead to infection are heterosexual, not homosexual. But that is only what official statistics tell us because HIV-positive gays don’t necessarily reveal that they are gay when they go to AIDS centers. HIV-positive gays face double discrimination in our society.

In October last year we witnessed a very sad event when the Zhovten cinema was burned down during the screening of an LGBT-themed film. Two young people, who later were recognized as being tied to far-right organizations, brought two explosive packages to the screening and set the theater on fire. The investigation concluded that the boys simply wanted to interrupt the screening. And the fact that the cinema nearly burned down was unrelated to their actions. Now they are considering their behavior as hooliganism, though it was clearly, as it is called in civilized countries, a hate crime. Honestly, legislation itself doesn’t change the views of society. But the lack of legislation is the first obstacle to start changing these views. Legislation has to be passed to allow for changes in society. Along with legislation we have to transform our society.

We are trying to do this by being as open as possible in our social circles. The more LGBT people in Ukraine are open, the more Ukrainians will personally know one of them. When someone knows a person who is gay or lesbian who is a friend, a colleague, a relative or an acquaintance, then this person will no longer stick to stupid stereotypes such as that LGBT people are aliens or an error of nature. We are ready to defend people we know personally even if they differ from us.

T: I think that in a society where everyone can themselves our life could be much happier. People won’t bother you or me for having certain convictions. Maybe this would eliminate certain conflicts.

Z: I assure you that among your relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and fellow citizens, there are gays and lesbians, even if you don’t know it. Perhaps they don’t tell you because they are afraid that you will stop talking to them or working with them. Or that you will cross the street to the other side or disrespect them in some other way. Maybe this comes from their own fear, but maybe you said something once that convinced them of this. Maybe it is more important for you to be ready to support them when they have problems in order not to lose them as friends, neighbors or colleagues. It is important for these people to be able to turn to you and tell you that their love has left them, or that they have been fired, or something else happened just because they are different. In most cases these people don’t have friends with whom they can share these things. It is important for you to support them. They are certainly amongst the people you know.