Almost half of LGBTQ+ young adults the UK are estranged from at least one relative, with many feeling their family won’t accept them if they come out, a study has revealed.
The survey of 3,695 adults, aged between 18 and 25, found that 46 per cent of them are estranged from at least one family member, while 31 per cent said they weren’t confident their parent or guardian will accept them as they are.
Further findings, according to research conducted by LGBT+ young people’s charity, Just Like Us, revealed that 14 per cent of young LGBT+ adults said they weren’t close to their immediate family members, compared with six per cent of their straight peers. That figure jumped to 19 per cent for trans respondents and 23 per cent of non-binary participants.
The survey also discovered that lesbians were the most confident (72 per cent) that their parents or carers would accept them if they came out, followed by gay men at 68 per cent, while transgender and non-binary young people were equally the least likely to feel confident.
Amy Ashenden, the interim chief executive of Just Like Us, said the findings were “heartbreaking”.
“It’s sadly a common myth that being LGBT+ is easier today, when in fact many LGBT+ young adults remain fearful of their parents not accepting them, with almost half estranged from at least one family member,” she said.
Ashenden added that the LGBTQ+ community should know “that their identities are valid and deserve to be celebrated”, and that the charity hoped more parents and teachers will show them that this is the case.
“When there is silence, there is shame, so we must talk about these topics in school and at home, to ensure LGBT+ young people no longer live in fear of rejection.”
The research was carried out independently by market researchers Cibyl in January and will form part of Just Like Us’ Positive Futures report, covering a range of experiences of young LGBT+ adults in the UK, due to be published on 1 June.
Another study, published in the Annals of Epidemiology, revealed that LGBTQ+ youth in the US are spending significantly more time on their mobile phones than straight young people.
The study’s author, Jason Nagata, suggested that this could be down to higher levels of LGBTQ+ youth being excluded from school activities by their peers.
On a riotous Instagram profile featuring pole-dancing, cross-dressing and fierce makeup, a picture of Ivan Honzyk in high heels and stockings next to an image of him in military uniform has gotten the most likes by far.
The junior sergeant’s posts are a bold statement in socially conservative Ukraine, where pride parades were often attacked before the war and swaths of the country are occupied by forces loyal to Russia, one of the world’s most conspicuously homophobic states.
But as more members of the LGTBQ community fight on the front lines, the greater visibility of gay and lesbian military personnel appears to be a catalyst for acceptance in wider society, and opinion polls show attitudes are changing.
Honzyk, 27, said his uncompromising self-expression, combined with his work in places like Bakhmut — the city in eastern Ukraine that has seen some of the bloodiest battles of the war, while serving as a potent symbol of the country’s defiance — is helping to further the cause of LGBTQ rights in the country faster than any pride marches could.
“My fellow soldiers are really impressed with what I’ve done in Bakhmut, the massive scale of work that I did there, and after that they just don’t care about who I sleep with,” Honzyk, whose medical unit evacuates wounded soldiers and provides emergency first aid, said in a hip café in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, while on leave from the front line.
Plenty of other gay and lesbian soldiers have also posted photos and videos of themselves online, some sporting unicorn insignia on their uniform, the mythical creature an ironic riposte to the idea that there are no LGBTQ people in the military.
In the U.S., lesbian, gay and bisexual people were allowed to serve openly in the military only in late 2011. Ukraine’s armed forces did not have rules preventing the LGTBQ community from serving, but homophobia was rife in the ranks, reflecting a more widespread societal attitude.
But in apparent recognition of their services, Ukrainian lawmakers recently tabled draft legislation that would recognize same-sex relationships and address the lack of inheritance, medical and other rights for the partners of LGTBQ soldiers killed or wounded fighting pro-Moscow forces.
“The parades and pride events were not enough,” said Honzyk, who has served for four years. “The better way to change attitudes is what we’re doing now. We entered the military and we’re showing that we’re worthy. We’re not hiding somewhere at the back. We’re doing real missions, dangerous missions.”
LGBTQ ‘propaganda’
Across the border, President Vladimir Putin has maintained that he launched the invasion in February 2022 to protect Russian-speaking people in Ukraine’s east, while attempting to frame what he calls the “special military operation” as a defense of morality against un-Russian liberal values promoted by the West.
Putin has frequently espoused “traditional values” in his speeches and framed gender-transition surgery and same-sex parenting as morally degenerate Western imports. In December he signed a law expanding Russia’s restrictions on promoting what it calls “gay propaganda,” in effective outlawing any public expression of LGBTQ behavior in Russia.
Any action considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public; online; or in films, books or advertising could incur a heavy fine.
Activists like Edward Reese, 37, a nonbinary communications officer with KyivPride, said Russia’s invasion had sharpened Ukraine’s sense of its own distinct identity and caused many of his countrymen to show more empathy toward their LGBTQ compatriots.
“People see that homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism are Russian values,” he said. “People understand that they don’t want to have anything in common with Russia. So that’s why they start to rethink their own homophobia here in Ukraine.”
Reese said he had a tough upbringing and was sent for so-called conversion therapy by religious parents who followed the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The church has been outspoken against LGBTQ people, and last year its leader, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, said the “sin” of gay pride parades justified the war in Ukraine.
But his influence and that of his church has plummeted in recent years in Ukraine. In 2019 the Orthodox Church of Ukraine split from its Russian counterpart.
Kyiv has since accused Russian Orthodox priests of spying for Moscow, charges they deny.
“Ukrainian civil society is trying to kick out the Russian Orthodox Church, and they are the most anti-gay people in Ukraine,” said LGBTQ activist Maksim Mishkin, 40, speaking at KyivPride’s offices.
“Today most religious people in Ukraine are either positive or neutral towards us.”
Somebody to hate
Away from the battlefield, LGBTQ groups in Ukraine and abroad have helped evacuate and house people displaced by the fighting and raise money for the military.
Mishkin said he had held fundraisers to send care packages to serving personnel, the appreciative soldiers sending back photos of themselves brandishing coffee mugs and other items featuring LGBTQ-affiliated logos.
Such efforts may have contributed to growing acceptance in Ukraine.
A January survey by the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that works to increase the effectiveness of democratic institutions in developing countries, found that 58% of Ukrainian respondents agreed that LGBTQ “people should have the same rights as others.”
That contrasts with a 2016 survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology that showed 60.4% of respondents viewed LGBTQ people negatively. Last year a similar poll found that percentage had shrunk to 38.2%.
Ukrainian politician Inna Sovsun hopes to harness the positive momentum to pass a draft bill she introduced in parliament last month recognizing same-sex relationships.
“When a person in uniform says, ‘Look, I have a loved one. If I am killed in action protecting this country, protecting every single one of you, my partner will not be able to make decisions about where to bury me because there is no legal connection between us,’ that is something that society cannot say no to, because they are in uniform and risking their lives every single minute for us,” she said.
“Right now it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s also the politically smart thing to do, because the majority of Ukrainians actually support it,” she added.
However, she cautioned that the level of support for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine can be overstated.
Outside of the country’s main metropolitan centers, life for LGBTQ people can be difficult, she said, adding that not all LGBTQ military personnel were accepted by their peers and some had been bullied.
For Honzyk, life’s too short to worry about the haters before he heads back to the front line.
“If you accept yourself, then the world will accept you too. You need to remember a lot of people are wearing masks, but you shouldn’t do that because you have only one life, and any day a missile may kill you,” he said.
“Don’t care about what other people say, because they’ll always find somebody to hate.”
A young gay couple has been arrested with one facing deportation back to his native China after running afoul of Russia’s “gay propaganda” law signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin last December, for their videos on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.
Gela Gogishvili, 23, a Russian national and his boyfriend, Chinese national Haoyang Xu, 21, live in Kazan, the fifth largest city in Russia located on the banks of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in southwest Russia. The young couple had been documenting their everyday lives with their 740,000 followers on TikTok and 64,900 subscribers on YouTube.
The couple was arrested this past Thursday and although Gogishvili was released, Xu remains being held in a Russian detention center for migrants before being deported in seven days.
In an interview with Newsweek’s Shannon Power “We were very scared … it became a living hell because the impossible happened,” Gogishvili said.
According to Moscow-based LGBTQ group, DELO LGBT+ a local citizen tipped off police to Gogishvili and Xu’s social media content.
“The ‘gay propaganda’ law falls under the Administrative Code, but the Kazan police’s criminal investigation department has been looking for these guys … and they are treated like they are dangerous criminal offenders,” Vladimir Komov, senior partner and a spokesperson for the organization said.
In a court hearing Friday, Xu who had moved to Russia to study Russian at university, was found guilty of violating the enhanced “gay propaganda” law and sentenced to a week in the detention center for migrants before being deported. The couple’s attorneys are appealing that decision.
According to Newsweek: Police stopped the couple in the street after they had attended a museum with friends and demanded Xu present his papers, such as passport and student visa, but he couldn’t because he did not carry them on him. The officers then escorted them to get his documentation and took them in a police car to the Yapeyeva police station.
But once they got there, police informed the men they were being charged under Article 6.21 of Russia’s Administrative Offenses Code, otherwise known as the “gay propaganda” law.
“The policeman told us that it’s not that Haoyang didn’t have his papers on him but we will be prosecuted for ‘gay propaganda’ and … Haoyang could be deported,” Gogishvili said.
DELO LGBT+‘s Komov said that he could not understand why the couple had been arrested because they were “quite popular” on their social media platforms and their content was “not erotic” by any standard.
“They do TikToks about their everyday life as a gay couple, how they do chores, how they wash the dishes, how they communicate and only share a few romantic moments such as kissing … and some cuddling,” Komov said.
“How did the police informer and the Kazan police deem there was LGBT+ ‘propaganda’ on their social media? These guys just posted videos in which they kiss, hug and show their favorite sleeping poses.
“All this was considered an inappropriate demonstration of ‘homosexual intimacy’.”
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin issued a decree last December that directs the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as Roskomnadzor, to ban any websites that contain information about LGBTQ identities without a court order.
As a part of the stepped up enhancements of the law, “Information propagating non-traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences” now serves as grounds for blacklisting any website in Russia and more recently used as a tool by Russian police and prosecutors against those posting prohibited material on their personal social media platforms.
A politician in France has become the first female minister to come out as gay in the country after revealing her sexuality in an interview.
Democratic Movement politician and youngest serving minister Sarah El Haïry revealed that she is queer and is currently dating someone.
The 33-year-old state secretary for youth at the Ministry of National Education casually mentioned her partner while discussing whether she uses Twitter.
In the interview with Forbes, she responded to the question by saying that she only ever reads Twitter when it affects her family or her girlfriend.
The casual mention of her partner cemented El Haïry in the history books, becoming the first female minister in France to identify as queer.
Since being appointed youth secretary of state, the country’s youngest government minister has been outspoken regarding both women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.
She has previously called out discrimination against LGBTQ+ groups in France, saying that promoting LGBTQ+ rights is a “daily fight”.
El Haïry’s announcement, which Forbes described as “discreet”, came shortly after a similar reveal from former National Assembly of France member Olivier Dussopt.
In an interview with French magazine Têtu on 24 March, Dussopt said that his sexuality was “neither a secret, nor a subject” while condemning homophobic attacks in France.
“Being homosexual is never neutral,” he said during the interview. “But one has the right to defend causes, to militate, to participate in the debate without making one’s personal situation a political element in itself.”
He added that, while this was his first time coming out, he has been outspoken for same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ autonomy in the past.
Despite the country’s current government being supportive of LGBTQ+ rights, the rise of the far-right in France following 2022’s presidential election has caused concern.
Emmanual Macron defeated far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential race, gaining a slim 58 per cent of the vote compared to Le Pen’s 41.46 per cent.
The win saw LGBTQ+ people in France spared from what would have been a dire scenariofor queer rights.
Despite this, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is still an issue in Macron’s France, with homophobic attacks still worryingly prevalent and Le Monde reporting a 27.6 per cent increase in reports of offences committed ‘because of sexual orientation or gender identity’ in 2021, compared to 2020.
Germany and France are joining the EU Commission’s infringement proceedings against Hungary over its anti-LGBTQ law, a German government spokesperson said Thursday.
The European Commission referred Hungary to the Court of Justice of the EU in mid-2022 over the law banning the use of materials seen as promoting homosexuality and transgender identities in schools. The commission has said the law violates the EU’s internal market rules, the fundamental rights of individuals and EU values.
Touted as protecting children by the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who presents himself as a defender of traditional family Catholic values, the law was criticized by human rights groups and international watchdogs as discriminating against LGBTQ people and labeled a “disgrace” by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
According to the German government, 14 EU member states have now joined the proceedings: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Malta, Austria, Sweden, Slovenia, Finland and now France and Germany.
In what would be a massive victory for trans rights, a gender identity law could be included in Vietnam’s parliamentary agenda next year.
On Monday (10 April), lawmaker Nguyễn Anh Trí put forward a proposal to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to create the new law.
Trí said the law would show that Vietnam values protecting vulnerable communities and “leaving no one behind in its policies”, Việt Nam News reported.
Currently, there are no legal documents regulating gender identity in the southeast Asian country, and although there are no laws prohibiting same-sex relationships or same-sex sexual acts, being queer remains a controversial topic.
The proposed law would allow people the right to change gender identity, request a different gender identity to the one assigned at birth and the right to choose a medical intervention method for gender-reaffirming surgery.
In a feedback document the day before presenting the proposal, Trí said the government had outlined its support for the proposed legislation.
Overlaps with Gender Affirmation Law
The chairman of the national assembly’s legal committee, Hoàng Thanh Tùng, said that the country’s legislative body appreciated the efforts of deputies in preparing the proposal.
Tùng added that the national assembly recognises the necessity of promulgating the law, but said that his committee required more clarity on the real-life basis for the creation and enactment of the legislation.
Some scope of the law overlaps with the 2015 Gender Affirmation Law that the government is continuing to study, with Tùng asking lawmakers to continue to look at the issue.
“[Society] is relatively open towards the issue already. If we don’t soon build a legal corridor, there will be a lot of issues in both institutional and practical dimensions,” national assembly secretary general, Bùi Văn Cường, said.
Vietnam works towards becoming more trans and LGBTQ+ friendly
In 2015, Vietnam’s legislature passed the Law on Marriage and Family which removed a ban on same-sex marriage.
That same year, the country passed a proposed law enshrining rights for trans people, by allowing those who have had reaffirming surgery to register under their new gender.
However, in order for the Gender Affirmation Law to be enforced, the bill needed to be discussed by the national assembly, meaning it hasn’t come into effect, so the trans community has no protection from discrimination.
But LGBTQ+ rights are slowly being advanced and, in August, the country’s health ministry declared in an official document, that being LGBTQ+ is “entirely not an illness” and “cannot be ‘cured’, nor need[s] to be ‘cured’ and cannot be converted in any way”.
As the International Group of Seven (G7) prepares for its May summit in Japan, peer nations are encouraging Tokyo to enact non-discrimination protections for sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics. Ambassadors from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union issued an official letter to Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio calling on him to take action.
“Japan can match its international advocacy for human rights with a domestic agenda that includes steps to protect its own LGBTQI+ communities, including enacting legal protections for its LGBTQI+ citizens,” the letter read.
In February, Fumio dismissed one of his aides for making disparaging remarks about same-sex relationships. The prime minister apologized, saying, “The remarks are totally inconsistent with government policy.”
The Japanese government is not hostile to the rights of LGBT people and has supported LGBT rights internationally. But the federal government falls short on ensuring LGBT people enjoy equal protection under Japanese law.
Japan offers no legal recognition of same-sex couples at a national level. Around 260 municipalities and 11 prefectures however have established a “partnership oath system,” or unofficial recognition for these couples, demonstrating widespread support for marriage equality across the country.
Japan lacks nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people, despite strong support for a national “Equality Act”. Japan also forces trans people who want to legally change their gender to appeal to a family court, undergo a psychiatric evaluation, and be surgically sterilized.
In November 2020, a nationwide public opinion survey found 88 percent of those polled “agree or somewhat agree” with the LGBT non-discrimination laws.
Hosting the G7 is an opportunity for Japan to live up to its pledges at the United Nations Human Rights Council and its ambitions to join the Council. In the 2022 joint communiqué by G7 leaders, including Japan, the governments pledged: “We reaffirm our full commitment to a sustained focus on realizing equality between women and men as well as transgender and non-binary people and to ensuring that everyone—independent of their gender identity or expression or sexual orientation—has the same opportunities and is protected against discrimination and violence.”
Prime Minister Fumio holds the keys to living up to these promises.
In journalism, words matter. They can heal, hurt or excite. Journalists report stories with facts and context that carries emotions and truth about an event.
The world is changing, and inclusion matters in the changing world. But what if, in the changing world, the journalists who report stories that shape our perspective about LGBTQ people do not use the appropriate terminology.
Three India-based news outlets, the News Minute, and partner organizations Queer Chennai Chronicles and queerbeat have started a new initiative to help Indian news media become more inclusive while covering LGBTQ stories.
The project will publish a guide, glossaries, workshops and fellowships for Indian journalists. The Google News Initiative is supporting the project in the country. According to the press release, the project will rollout in a phased manner, starting with the translation of the existing glossary of LGBTQ terms into local languages.
Mainstream newsrooms in India often misidentify LGBTQ people and use incorrect pronouns to describe them. They sometimes use inappropriate words to define an event that does not appropriately capture the emotions and events.
“It’s not just about covering pride or violence, but across beats,” Ragamalika Karthikeyan, editor of special projects and experiments at the News Minute, said at the virtual press conference while launching the project on Feb. 24. “How do we write about LGBTQIA+ with dignity and respect, how do we make sure that a person’s personhood is maintained, how do we make sure that a community is not disrespected in the course of our journalism? How do we make sure that stories that are disrespectful and dehumanizing queer persons don’t keep happening?”
In the next phase, the project will launch an LGBTQ media guide in six languages: English, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi and Marathi. The reference guide’s goal is to help journalists use more appropriate words to more deeply and accurately cover stories about the LGBTQ community.
“I am yet to come across a journalist or a reporter who has had an issue with anyone being gay. I think the sensitivity comes in where it becomes a question of how to ask a question, so as not to offend,” said Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a prominent and openly gay Indian defense and foreign analyst who also writes for Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi newspaper, and is a member of a political think tank. “Even in Hindi newspapers, because I write for Dainik Bhaskar I have not come across a lack of sensitivity. I describe it more as disinterest in LGBTQ issues, and that suits me perfectly fine. I do not want more people to be aware of it. It is much easier to fight when people are not aware of things and have not made up their minds about it.”
The project also aims to start workshops for journalists in the country to sensitize and train them for covering LGBTQ issues more accurately and deeply. There are some fellowships also involved in the project for reporters interested in learning how to write LGBTQ stories sensitively.
“I think it is an applaudable initiative. We need to acknowledge the fact that vocabulary plays an important role in every news report, it is perhaps why time and again we have improvised. For example, in 2016, the Associated Press revised its style guide suggesting journalists to use ‘crash, collision, or other terms’ besides ‘accident’ in auto crash reporting (at least until culpability is proven),” said Heena Khandelwal, a journalist who is based in Mumbai. “Similarly, the initiative takes a step in ensuring that we use the terms/words/language that does not offend the community as well as empowers the vernacular reporters by looking for their alternatives in regional languages. The decision to turn it into a handbook will make it accessible to the journalist community at large.”
Khandelwal, while talking to the Washington Blade, said that she believes that there is also a need for more LGBTQ journalists in the newsroom.
“We cannot ask a man to not write about women’s issues, can we? Similarly, we cannot and must not ask heterosexual journalists to report about the LGBTQIA+ community and support the initiative by Newsminute so that it is done correctly. At the same time, we must include journalists from the LGBTQIA+ community to make our coverage more inclusive,” said Khandelwal. “There are so many aspects to their daily lives, struggles as well as achievements that heterosexual journalists would have a limited understanding of and by covering them, they would be widening the horizon of us writers as well as readers. Their inclusion would also make newsrooms more vibrant and a publication’s voice, not only when publishing a LGBTQIA+ story but otherwise as well, more inclusive.”
Khandelwal has covered LGBTQ-specific stories for Daily News and Analysis (DNA), the fastest-growing English newspaper in Mumbai.
Ankush Kumar is a freelance reporter who has covered many stories for Washington and Los Angeles Blades from Iran, India and Singapore. He recently reported for the Daily Beast. He can be reached at mohitk@opiniondaily.news. He is on Twitter at @mohitkopinion.
US Vice President Kamala Harris has spoken out in support of LGBTQ+ people in Africa, following the introduction of a devastating new law in Uganda that bans queer identities entirely.
The 49th vice president of the US made her stance clear on Monday (27 March) during a press conference in Ghana.
Standing alongside Ghana’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, Harris said she felt “very strongly” about supporting the development of LGBTQ+ rights in Africa.
“I will also say that this is an issue that we consider and I consider to be a human rights issue and that will not change,” she continued.
On 21 March, the East African nation of Uganda passed a draconian bill criminalising people who publicly identifying as LGBTQ+ after a short-lived debate by lawmakers.
Crowds of homophobic politicians applauded the passing of the law, which could see LGBTQ+ people face up to 20 years in jail. Furthermore, if they are found guilty of “aggravated homosexuality”, the death penalty could be invoked.
“A great deal of work in my career has been to human rights issues and equality issues across the board including, as it relates, to the LGBTQ+ community,” Harris added.
Elsewhere in the press session, President Akufo-Addo mentioned that a proposed anti-LGBTQ+ bill was currently making its way through the Ghanaian parliament, but that it “hasn’t been passed”.
“The attorney general has found it necessary to speak to the committee about it regarding the constitutionality or otherwise several of its provisions,” he said.
“At the end of the process, I will come in, but in the meantime, the parliament is dealing with it.”
Currently, provisions in Ghana’s criminal code consider “unnatural carnal knowledge” to be a misdemeanour, punishable by up to three years in prison.
Vice-President Harris began her seven-day tour in the West African nation, saying that she aims to strengthen partnerships across the continent.
During the conference, she also announced a $100 million fund aiming to tackle extremism in Ghana, Benin, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo.
A queer Ukrainian solider has called for same-sex marriage to be legalised in the country as LGBTQ+ soldiers “could die tomorrow” and their partners would have no legal rights in an “unfair” system.
Anna “Kajhan” Zyablikova, who is serving in the 47th Brigade of Ukraine’s armed forces, said same-sex marriage should be legalised to allow LGBTQ+ couples the same legal rights heterosexual couples are afforded.
This would include the right to make the decision of whether to keep their partner on life support.
The 30-year-old told the i paper: “We have no legal rights to do that and in the case of war, the inability to do this is a huge psychological issue.”
Following the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, many Ukrainians married to ensure their partners would be protected in a time of huge uncertainty.
In November last year, Kyiv resident Leda Kosmachevskaya said she planned to marry her gay soldier friend so someone can “claim him if he dies” while fighting in the war.
‘Taking this opportunity from us is unfair’
Zyablikova added: “I feel like something is taken from me every time I see one of our soldiers is getting married, as I think of the fact that I can’t do it if I want to do it with a woman.”
“We can die any day, so everyone is trying to make all the decisions that are about relationships and communication.”
“People want to be able to support one another because we are so vulnerable now and we just want to have this back up plan and we’d be happy to do it for the people we love and care about.”
A petition was launched in 2022 which called for marriage equality to be introduced in Ukraine.
In August, President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the petition, which was signed by thousands of people, and said he would work with the government to ensure “all people are free and equal in their dignity and rights” – but not until after the war with Russia ends.
Zyablikova, whose ex-girlfriend left her when Russia invaded Ukraine, said marriage is “a way of making your connection stronger”.
“Any person in Ukraine could die any night because those rockets are coming. When you feel like you’re not doing enough for the person you love, it’s suboptimal,” she said.
Joining the armed forces as an LGBTQ+ person has been harrowing for Zyablikova, who said Vladimir Putin had tried to portray queer people as “non-soldiers” fighting against “pure” Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine.
“That’s their main fairy tale, which is unfortunately working, it is really exploiting the homophobic narrative.”
The conflict has increased LGBTQ+ acceptance in Ukraine
Homosexuality has been legal in Ukraine since 1991 – the year the nation declared independence from the Soviet Union – but same-sex marriage and civil partnerships are currently not recognised.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun put forward a bill calling for same-sex partnerships to be legally recognised in the war-torn country.
Sharing the news that she had submitted the draft bill in a thread of tweets on 7 March, the MP cited the figure that “56 per cent of Ukrainians” support same-sex partnerships.
The proposed legislation was announced just two days after two KyivPride staffers told PA news agency that the conflict had unexpectedly resulted in more acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in Ukraine.