Life for LGBTQ people in Ukraine has slowly been improving. Now, with tens of thousands of Russian troops encircling major Ukrainian cities, gay, lesbian and transgender people are worried about what a Russian takeover might mean for them.
created by Russian forces of Ukrainians “to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation.”
The war’s high stakes have led some LGBTQ Ukrainians to try to flee, while others have stayed and joined the resistance.“If we were under Russian rule, we’d have to shut our mouths, we wouldn’t be able to dress how we want, we would never have gay pride,” said Yura Dvizhon, 29, a well-known Ukrainian director. “I don’t want to live that life. That’s why I have to fight.”
Gay marriage is illegal in Ukraine, LGBTQ people are not protected by anti-discrimination laws, and the influential Christian Orthodox Church views homosexuality as a sin. One prominent church leader has called the COVID-19 pandemic “punishment” for the expansion of same-sex marriage across the world.group pushing for LGBTQ rights, is still afraid to hold his boyfriend’s hand in public. But he says things are slowly getting better.
While there are still concrete laws — an anti-discrimination bill foremost among them — that the nation’s LGBTQ community is waiting for, everybody knows that the situation for gay people in Russia is “much, much, much worse,” said Natsya Kosach, a lesbian DJ in Kyiv., part of an exodus of 1 million people in just the last week alone, Kosach decided to stay.
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