Scotland’s gender recognition bill would have introduced gender self-identification in a similar way to that of Finland’s new law – and legislation which already exists in 18 other countries.
The new Finnish law – passed by 113 votes to 69 – removes the requirement for trans people to be sterilised and obtain a psychiatric diagnosis in order for them to get legal gender recognition.
Under Finland’s current legislation, which Amnesty International states is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, a person has to provide proof of infertility before they can be granted legal gender recognition.
Matti Pihlajamaa, Amnesty International Finland’s LGBTI rights advisor said: “By passing this act, Finland has taken a major step towards protecting trans people’s rights and improving their lives and right to self-determination.
“The vote comes as a result of more than a decade of campaigning by civil society groups and is a testament to the commitment of activists who have fought long and hard – often in the face of toxic rhetoric – to see this day.”
“While this new law will have a huge and positive impact and provide an important pillar for non-discrimination, more must still be done,” Pihlajamaa continued, “Excluding children from legal gender recognition violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“We will continue to call on the government to amend the legislation accordingly to ensure it advances the rights of children.”
In a statement, Finnish LGBTQ+ rights organisation Seta said: “Victory for human rights! #Translaki strengthens human rights in Finland. Next, the rights of children and young people must be protected!
“A huge thank you to all the organisations and partners who voted in favour of the law and made an impact!”
The bill would have made obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) easier for trans people.
However, the UK government blocked the act over concerns for “single-sex” spaces and “equal pay” protections.
On 17 January, Scotland secretary Alister Jack told the House of Commons he did not take the decision “lightly” but the insisted government believed the bill would have a “serious adverse impact among other things on the operation of the Equality Act 2010”.
LGBTQ+ activists have staged a defiant protest in Afghanistan to draw attention to the United States’ failure to offer protection from the Taliban.
At a private residence on Wednesday (1 February) in the country’s capital Kabul, around a dozen Afghan people from the Behesht Collective, an LGBTQ+ group, congregated to show the world that their lives are still in jeopardy.
Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, reports have circulated of LGBTQ+ people being beaten, raped and even murdered in Afghanistan.
It’s a dire situation, but finding a route to safety isn’t always easy – numerous western governments have introduced policies making it harder for people to claim asylum in recent years, meaning many can’t access the support they need.
While countries like Canada have offered specific schemes for LGBTQ+ Afghans, others have yet to recognise the danger queer people face under Taliban rule.
Qadam, one of the LGBTQ+ people who took part in Wednesday’s protest, is now calling on the world to sit up and pay attention to what is happening to the country’s queer community.
“This is a regime that doesn’t believe in LGBTQ+ rights, human rights and the rights of women,” Qadam, who previously worked in a senior state security role before the Taliban takeover, tells PinkNews.
“We decided to stage this protest because the USA and western countries left us alone here.”
LGBTQ+ people living in hiding in Afghanistan
Immediately after the protest in Kabul, Qadam and others involved fled to a neighbouring country to protect themselves from the Taliban – but there’s still a long path to safety.
The country they’re now residing in is a Muslim country where same-sex sexual relations are criminalised – but as Qadam says, it’s still better than Afghanistan.
“In Afghanistan, if they know that you are LGBT they punish you, they beat you, they arrest you. They even kill LGBT people… You are hiding everywhere.”
As the Taliban continues to wage war on LGBTQ+ Afghans, Qadam is pleading with governments in western countries to help them – to give them the chance to live their lives free from the threat of violence or persecution.
“My last message is that the world, the USA and western countries should help LGBT Afghans to flee because they are in a very bad situation here.”
Nemat Sadat, a gay Afghan who’s working to evacuate LGBTQ+ Afghans, says Wednesday’s private protest is signifiant because it took place “under the noses of the Taliban”.
“They are speaking for themselves and the hundreds of thousands of LGBTQI+ Afghans who have no future under Taliban-rule in Afghanistan,” Sadat tells PinkNews.
Like many LGBTQ+ Afghans, Sadat has been left disappointed by the response from the United States. He says the government hasn’t done enough to protect vulnerable people put in harm’s way by the Taliban takeover.
“The facts are as clear as day: the US did nothing for LGBTQI+ Afghans during the 20 years of US occupation in Afghanistan and continues to turn a blind eye to the savagery committed by the Taliban.
“Unless the US reverses course and proactively works with the Behesht Collective and Roshaniya, we will witness the total annihilation of the LGBTQI+ community in Afghanistan.”
The Rainbow Festival — an annual international theatre festival held in St. Petersburg, Russia — has changed its name to “The International Theater Festival” in order to avoid violating Russia’s recently-expanded law banning LGBTQ+ propaganda.
The festival, held in May at the St. Petersburg Bryantsev Theatre for Young Spectators, has run since 2000 and has hosted young performance groups from the U.S. and Europe.
Explaining the festival’s name change, the theater’s director, Svetlana Lavretsova, said, “When the law passed banning LGBT propaganda, we immediately started thinking, ‘We don’t want to look like we’re making LGBT propaganda.’ So we gathered our team to decide whether to change the name ahead of time or temporarily drop it. On the one hand, we’re aware of the insanity this all leads to in the surrounding reality. On the other hand, it’s our brand.”
Despite this, the festival’s URL still contains the word “rainbowfest,” and its website has rainbow colors on it.
State Duma deputy Alexander Khinshtein responded to the festival’s renaming, writing via Telegram, “No one put forward such demands to the festival… I want to reassure dear Svetlana Vasilievna. Our laws in no way prohibit or abolish the rainbow on one condition: if it is the classic 7-color rainbow that is depicted, and not the ‘castrated’ LGBT symbol, where there is no blue color.”
It’s unclear what Khinshtein’s talking about as most rainbow Pride flags have a blue stripe. He also said that other companies and products that have “rainbow” in their names won’t need to change their names.
Noting Vasilievna’s use of the word “insanity,” Khinshtein wrote, “Failure to implement our laws comes ‘to insanity.’” He also said that the renaming of the theatre festival was also a form of “insanity.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin first signed a law banning so-called “gay propaganda” in Russia in June 2013. The law ostensibly sought to “protect children” from any “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships,” as stated in the law’s text. The new law extends the restrictions to not just children but Russians of all ages.
The law has mostly been used to silence LGBTQ+ activist organizations, events, websites, and media, as well as to break up families and harass teachers. It has also been roundly condemned by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as civil rights activists around the world.
The newly signed law effectively outlaws any public expression of LGBTQ+ life in Russia by banning “any action or the spreading of any information that is considered an attempt to promote homosexuality in public, online, or in films, books or advertising,” Reuters reported.
Critics say the updated law will further endanger the lives of Russia’s LGBTQ+ population, which has already suffered increased harassment, violence, and hostility in recent years.
Anti-LGBTQ+ religious leaders and right-wing political figures in the U.S. have praised Putin for his law. Indeed, Republican legislators, so-called “parents’ rights groups,” and right-wing pundits have increasingly moved to ban kids from accessing any LGBTQ+ content, gender-affirming healthcare, or drag shows over misleading claims that these “sexualize” and “groom” children.
In 2013, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) President Austin Ruse said Russia’s anti-LGBTQ+ laws were a “good thing” that “most of the people in the United States” would support. In 2014, anti-LGBTQ+ evangelical leader Franklin Graham also defended the law.
A conversative Chilean newspaper’s article on Sunday that said the Women and Gender Equity Ministry was preparing to introduce a bill that would create an LGBTQ and intersex rights undersecretariat prompted mixed reactions across the country.
The ministry in 2022 launched its first “LGBTIQA+ Roundtable” that includes representatives of different public institutions, organizations and Chilean LGBTQ and intersex activists who are working to improve the quality of life for the country’s queer community that over the last year has seen an increase in attacks and hate crimes.
LGBTQ and intersex rights in Chile have gained ground over the last decade.
Civil unions, marriage equality, transgender rights and an anti-discrimination law are some of the successes that took time to take effect. There is, however, no state institution or public policy that works to ensure historically discriminated LGBTQ and intersex Chileans are included. This is why activists feel the “LGBTIQA+ Roundtable” that President Gabriel Boric’s government is promoting is an unprecedented opportunity.
Forty-two organizations from across Chile participated in the roundtable during its first year, which culminated on Jan. 6 with the signing of an agreement between the Women and Gender Equity Ministry’s Women and Gender Equality Undersecretariat and the Interior and Public Safety Ministry’s Crime Prevention Undersecretariat to assist people across the country who are victims of anti-LGBTQ attacks. The roundtable at the same time also announced it will send a bill to Congress later in 2023 that would expand the ministry’s mandate to ensure “the LGBTIQA+ community is included.”
There has yet to be an announcement on the creation of an LGBTQ and intersex undersecretariat.
Most Chilean media outlets covered this report after El Mercurio published it on Sunday. José Antonio Kast, an extreme right-wing politician who is a former presidential candidate, on his Twitter account criticized what turned out to be inaccurate.
“Chile is poorer, more violent and insecure than a year ago and the inept government is dedicated to enlarge the State to deepen its ideological agenda, instead of solving social urgencies,” wrote the Republican Party leader.
The ministry told the Washington Blade that “the roundtable with organizations from the LGBTIQA+ community has just been finalized.”
“One of the demands is to have an institutionality,” said the ministry. “During 2023 it will be defined which is the progressive path, while the anti-discrimination law is improved at the same time.”
Women and Gender Equity Undersecretary Luz Vidal Huiriqueo on her social media networks said “we met with LGBTQ+ organizations for seven months” and the ministry made “security, employment and health priorities.”
“On the 1st we advanced in an agreement with (the Crime Prevention Undersecretariat) to properly address and for the long challenges we committed to propose an institutional mechanism,” said Vidal.
Vidal said in an exclusive interview with the Blade before El Mercurio published its inaccurate report that “finding and giving answers to the demands of the LGBTIQA+ population in Chile is a commitment for President Gabriel Boric’s government that will not be put aside for anything.”
“We at the (Women and Gender Equality Ministry) have embraced the day-to-day needs that this community, in many cases, has to survive,” said Vidal from her office. “That is why, from our ministry, we have created this intergovernmental roundtable to have a fluid and permanent communication with LGBTIQA+ organizations.
Vidal added Boric “instructed us to move from discourse to action.”
“We have to get to work. We have to implement the agreements,” said Vidal. “We can’t just make pretty announcements and that is our commitment. The commitment we have today is to work for women, for gender equity, for and with the entire population, in favor of all citizens and of those who lack the presence of the State.”
The undersecretary told the Blade the need to incorporate the queer community into the ministry’s work is important because “the State, as of today, has no powers to specifically address the LGBTQ+ population.”
“We need to create a progressive path that, whether an institutional or other figure, allows us to implement public policies,” she said.
That supposed institutionality was the one that sparked controversy last Sunday and it will not be an easy path, regardless of the mechanism that Boric’s government ultimately chooses to implement.
“I think it is not going to be an easy process,” said Vidal. “It is not going to be a project that we can say, we are going to take them out at the end of the year, that is clear to us. Even today it is difficult to move forward with projects or the work that the ministry is doing because we currently have a Congress with political forces that are against inclusion and respect for diversity. This is present in our Congress, and it is also present in several Latin American countries.”
Emilia Schneider, Chile’s first trans congresswoman, on the other hand told the Blade that “it seems to me that the announcement of an institutional framework for the LGBTI community within the Women’s Ministry, and also in what has been working with the Justice Ministry to advance in an institutional framework against discrimination, regarding the reform of the Anti-Discrimination Law are two fundamental steps to advance in dignity and rights for sexual diversities and dissidences.”
Schneider said it is important “to make a permanent change in the State, which recognizes the importance of having a space that responds to the needs of the queer population and takes charge of combating inequality, discrimination and violence to which our community is exposed.”
“It seems to me that this is one of the most important commitments, which if realized would be a fundamental legacy of this government in matters of sexual diversity and dissidence,” she said.
Ignacia Oyarzun, coordinator of public policies for Asociación OTD Chile, the country’s most important trans rights organization, said the implementation of an institutional framework to advance LGBTQ and intersex rights “is an advance that goes in the direction of establishing what will be a trans labor quota to achieve a greater integration of the community in society.”
Oyarzun noted employers do not hire people who are trans, or fire them without reason. This lack of employment opportunities, according to Asociación OTD Chile, makes trans people more vulnerable to violence.
Jorge Muñoz of Movimiento Organizado de Gays, Lesbianas, Trans y Heterosexuales (MOGALETH) in Puerto Montt, a city that is roughly 640 miles south of the capital of Santiago, also participated in the roundtable. Muñoz told the Blade that “any approach from the central power to civil society, and especially to the regions, is positive.”
“In this context, we consider it an advance in terms of the demands of the collective in the struggle for the recognition of the historical violation of our rights,” said Muñoz. “The State’s recognition of mistreatment and hate speech towards dissidents has historically been centralized. The regions where we also suffer harassment, mistreatment, difficulties in access to health, education and work have been relegated throughout history. In this sense, what we value most is the recognition of our demands in the territorial context.”
The German parliament for the first time on Friday focused its annual Holocaust memorial commemorations on people persecuted and killed over their sexual or gender identity during World War II.
Campaigners in Germany have worked for decades to establish an official ceremony to commemorate the LGBTQ victims persecuted under the Nazi regime.
“Today’s hour of remembrances focuses on a group of victims which had to fight for a long time to achieve recognition: people who were persecuted by the National Socialists because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity,” Baerbel Bas, president of the Bundestag lower house, said while opening a ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation.
Section 175 of the German penal code had made sexual intercourse between men punishable by imprisonment. The section was dropped from the penal code in East Germany in 1968, whereas in West Germany it reverted to the pre-Nazi era version in 1969 and was only fully abolished in 1994.
“Kisses, touching – even glances became punishable by law. Tens of thousands were accused of homosexuality. This alone was often enough to ruin their social life and existence,” Bass said during the sombre commemoration.
“More than half of these men were convicted, usually to serve long prison sentences or forced labor. In some cases, men were forced to undergo sterilization. Many were driven to suicide,” she added.
The Bundestag president said that while mostly gay men were affected, “lesbian women were by no means safe from persecution. Neither were people who could not or did not want to live as the gender society demanded of them.”
“Those who did not conform to National Socialist norms, lived in fear and mistrust. The hardest hit were the many thousands of men and women who were deported to concentration camps because of their sexuality – usually under a pretext. Many were abused for medical experiments, most perished after only a short time or they were murdered,” she added.
‘Symbol of recognition’
Germany’s Lesbian and Gay Association rights group welcomed Friday’s ceremony, calling it an “important symbol of recognition” of “the suffering and the dignity of the imprisoned, tortured and murdered victims.”
Some members of Germany’s LGBTQ community attended the event in parliament.
Analysis by refugee charity Care4Calais found that of 213 asylum seekers who have received Rwanda Notices of Intent from the Home Office since August 2022, three identified as LGBTQ+ and 13 were women.
In 2022, the UK announced a scheme that would see refugees who arrived in Britain via small boats and lorries deported to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed there.
Care4Calais found that nearly half (38.5 per cent) of its Rwanda clients are married, and around 20 per cent of them have children.
66 per cent of those in the sample reported indicators of modern slavery or torture, with several reporting to the charity that they had been tortured at home or on their journey to the UK.
“People who have suffered the horrors of war, torture and human rights abuses should not be faced with the immense trauma of deportation to a future where we cannot guarantee their safety,” the charity said in a statement.
“The evidence we have collected shows that the Rwanda policy is targeting victims of some of the worst things imaginable, who are very likely to have viable asylum claims here in the UK.”
‘They’re human beings. They have a story’
The Rwanda policy has faced immense backlash and legal challenges since being announced, with campaigners warning it could result in the deaths of LGBTQ+ refugees.
Over 170 organisations including Stonewall, Rainbow Migration, Micro Rainbow and Greenpeace UK called on the government in April 2022 to scrap the “cruel” and “immoral” policy.
“It’s definitely not a safe environment,” Innocent told PinkNews. “They are not going to be protected, and they’re going to face discrimination. Some of them have already faced discrimination their entire lives and they went to the UK hoping that was going to change.”
He added: “We’re not talking about material that we can just ship to another place – they’re human beings. They have a story. They’re coming to the UK because they’ve already faced discrimination and injustice in their lives.
“So let’s create an environment and try to understand them.”
A spokesperson for the Home Office told PinkNews: “Everyone in scope for relocation to Rwanda will be individually assessed, and no one will be relocated if it is unsafe or inappropriate for them.
“If an individual’s circumstances change after receipt of a Notice of Intent, this should be communicated to us at the earliest opportunity and their case will be reviewed.”
The European Court of Human Rights on Monday ruled Lithuania’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law violates the European Convention on Human Rights.
Author Neringa Dangvydė Macatė in 2019 filed a lawsuit against the law after Lithuanian authorities censured her children’s book that featured two same-sex couples.
The law specifically bans the distribution of information to minors that “expresses contempt for family values, encourages the concept of entry into a marriage and creation of a family other than stipulated in the Constitution of the republic of Lithuania and the Civil Code of the republic of Lithuania.” The court in April 2022 heard Macatė’s case.
Openly gay U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania Bob Gilchrist is among those who have publicly criticized the law. Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, an openly gay Lithuanian MP who is running for mayor of Vlinius, the country’s capital, told the Washington Blade the ruling will bolster efforts to repeal the propaganda law.
January 24 is the International Day of Education, which celebrates the key role that education plays in ensuring peace, development, gender equality, and human rights. For this year’s celebration, however, there is a dark stain on Peru’s education record: Law No. 31498, which purports to “promote the quality of educational materials and resources.”
Congress passed this law in May 2022 effectively giving publicly registered parental organizations supervisory and veto powers over the Education Ministry’s learning materials for early childhood, primary, and secondary schools. These organizations can provide input about, for example, whether the materials respect “the religious liberty and moral convictions” of students and parents, or whether the materials promote “practices that can constitute ‘moral crimes.’” “Moral crimes” is a nebulous term that appears to be a reference to issues of sexual and reproductive rights. Public servants can face disciplinary sanctions, including suspension without pay or dismissal, for failure to comply with the obligation, established by the law, to consult parents.
It is important to involve parents in their children’s education and there is already a framework that promotes this participation. But the level of control that this law gives parental organizations is unprecedented and poses a risk to independent education and the quality of educational materials by ignoring the experience and pedagogical expertise that creating learning materials requires. It also calls into question the Education Ministry’s essential role in implementing the National Curriculum of Basic Education, which is grounded in the respect for human rights. Parents committed to quality education for their children should be worried.
The lawmaker who initially proposed the law was a prominent figure in a conservative parental group that opposes discussing gender in class, and rejects comprehensive sexuality education. Another parental group has in recent years appealed to the Supreme Court to block age-appropriate gender and sexuality material in schools. Education Without Backsliding, a coalition of human rights organizations, told Human Rights Watch that they see the law as an attempt by conservative groups to censor age-appropriate information about gender and sexuality in schools, a key element of human rights-centered education. The coalition has filed suit to halt the implementation of the law. The Peruvian Human Rights Ombudsperson has also has also spoken out publicly against the law.
Under international law, children have a right to comprehensive sexuality education. At its core, it consists of age-appropriate, affirming, and scientifically accurate learning materials that can help foster safe and informed practices to help prevent gender-based violence, gender inequity, sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancies. It can equip young people with the skills to develop a positive view of diverse sexualities, both their own and their peers’. Peru’s Supreme Court held in 2019 that learning material on gender and sexuality is essential to promote equality and human rights.
Peruvian children critically need this information. The United Nations found that in 2018, 38 percent of Peruvian girls and women ages 15 to 49 reported suffering physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, and in 2022 it reiterated its concern for these high levels of violence. In 2020, the government hotline for domestic and sexual violence received almost twice as many reports as in 2019.
A 2019 government survey showed that Peruvians perceive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people as being the most discriminated against in the country, which the Inter-American Court of Human Rights highlighted when it found in Azul Rojas Marín v. Peru in 2020 that these populations face high levels of structural and institutional discrimination.
But Law No. 31498’s insidious effects could extend beyond information on gender and sexuality. The law states that parental organizations can effectively veto learning materials related to “personal development, citizenship and civic education, social sciences, world discovery, and science and technology.” In Peru’s politically polarized context, parents could use the law to restrict information on any other number of controversial human rights issues in the country, such as accountability for past abuses, rule of law, and freedom of expression. In this sense, it threatens the development of critical and reflective thinking of the students, so essential to consolidate a more democratic society.
Law No. 31498 undermines the vital role that education plays in shaping informed, critical, and inquiring minds. Lawmakers should uphold international human rights law and adhere to past Supreme Court jurisprudence that upheld the need to provide information on gender and sexuality. Only when lawmakers reject elevating parental rights over sound educational practice and revoke the law, can Peru fully celebrate the values of International Day of Education.
The Upper House of the States General of the Netherlands, the supreme bicameral legislature of the kingdom, on Wednesday voted to amend Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution, expanding it to prohibit discrimination against someone because of a disability or sexual orientation.
In a 56–15 vote in the Dutch Senate, the proposal for amendment passed and is now headed to King Willem-Alexander for his royal assent and the Dutch government. Once approved it will be published in the Staatscourant, the official government publication that formally announces new laws in the kingdom.
LGBTQ advocacy groups and activists celebrated the vote.
Enshrining the rights of LGBTI people in the constitution is a “historic victory for the rainbow community,” said advocacy group COC Nederland. The Dutch LGBTQ rights group was founded in 1946 and is considered the oldest existing LGBTQ organization in the world.
Dutch media outlet NL Times noted that Article 1 states that everyone in the Netherlands “shall be treated equally in equal circumstances.” The following sentence goes on to explicitly mention several examples, including “religion, belief, political opinion, race or sex.” That list will now be expanded.
The procedure for such an adjustment takes years because it has to be voted on several times. With the Senate’s vote, that process has now been completed.
The change was the result of an initiative from coalition party D66 and left-wing opposition parties PvdA and GroenLinks that has developed over the course of 12 years. “You can rightly call this day historic!” said D66 MP Alexander Hammelburg, who helped defend the law in the Senate.
“A disability, or who you fall in love with, should never be a reason to be excluded,” said PvdA MP Habtamu de Hoop.
NL Times also reported that since 2004, COC Nederlands has advocated anchoring the rights of gay men, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in the Constitution. This has already happened in countries such as Sweden, Portugal, Malta, Mexico and South Africa.
An association representing people with physical and mental disabilities, or chronic illnesses, also called it a “historic” day.
“The government is given an additional task to permanently improve and strengthen the position of people with a disability. Not only in legislation, but also in practice,” Soffer continued.
A coalition of activists is launching a new initiative to recruit and support Canadian hosts for LGBTQ+ Ukrainian refugees.
Since fleeing their homes, many queer Ukrainian refugees have not felt safe owing to endemic anti-LGBTQ+ prejudices in Eastern Europe. While Ukraine itself has pro-LGBTQ+ laws, its neighbors maintain legal systems that enable, if not actively support, homophobic and transphobic discrimination.
Due to these dangers, over 100 LGBTQ+ refugees have asked KyivPride, one of Ukraine’s leading LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, for help with relocation to Canada.
With a dire need for hosts, KyivPride launched The Friendly Homes Project (TFHP) earlier this month. The project seeks out LGBTQ+ Canadians, or pro-LGBTQ+ allies, who can provide refugees with a minimum of four weeks of temporary accommodations. Hosts are also asked to help refugees integrate into Canadian society – i.e., helping secure employment and fostering social connections.
The project is being organized in partnership with KyivPride Canada, a sister organization launched in 2014 to foster greater Ukrainian-Canadian unity, as well as the We Support LGBTQ Ukraine Fund, which was created and is managed by Ukrainian-Canadian activist Andrew Kushnir.
KyivPride executive director Lenny Emson says that hosts interested in supporting LGBTQ+ refugees should work with queer Ukrainian organizations rather than establishing arrangements independently.
KyivPride can help refugees travel to the nearest embassy to secure a visa, which sometimes involves travel to another country. Canadian hosts will also receive an orientation session and counseling support. Finally, the organization’s community expertise ensures that refugees who are most vulnerable, such as those who fled from Russian-occupied territories and have little chance of returning home soon, are prioritized.
Emson says that refugees can feel isolated in new countries, which “compounds the traumas of this war,” but the volunteer network that KyivPride is putting together mitigates this.
Hosts participating in TFHP are not expected to provide financial aid. Every adult Ukrainian refugee arriving in Canada receives a one-time payment of $3,000, plus $1,500 for every minor accompanying them, through the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program.
The We Support LGBTQ Ukraine Fund has raised $117,000 since last April, but lacks the capacity to meaningfully finance refugee integration in addition to its existing commitments.
However, the fund, which focuses on helping on-the-ground NGOs, recently made sizeable donations for the purchase of generators and power banks, which, amid Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, are essential for keeping Ukrainian LGBTQ+ organizations operational this winter.
According to Kushnir, over 100 hosts representing 40 communities across Canada have signed up for TFHP so far using the organization’s online signup sheet.
While there is an evident need for LGBTQ+-specific refugee support, the exact conditions faced by queer Ukrainian refugees in Eastern Europe are complicated and sensitive.
Poland, which currently hosts 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees, is governed by a socially conservative government whose ministers have often verbally attacked sexual and gender minorities. Over the past several years, over 100 Polish towns and regions have passed resolutions declaring themselves free of “LGBTQ ideology.”
While Warsaw is a cultural bubble where LGBTQ+ people are relatively accepted, the capital can only absorb a fraction of the total refugee population.
Moldova and Romania, which collectively shelter 200,000 refugees, are also hostile to LGBTQ+ people. A 2022 poll found that 64 percent of Moldovans would “exclude” LGBTQ+ people from the country. Meanwhile, last year, the Romanian government passed bills banning “gay propaganda” in schools and public spaces.
In 2022, ILGA-Europe ranked Poland and Romania last and second-last, respectively, for LGBTQ+ rights among EU member states.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly affirmed his support for the LGBTQ+ community and has committed to exploring the legalization of marriage equality after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is repelled.
For youth and white-collar Ukrainians living in major cities, being homosexual or bisexual is generally not a problem. However, many LGBTQ+ Ukrainians remain discreet about their identities, and tolerance doesn’t extend to smaller cities and towns, where it is unsafe to be openly queer. The trans community also remains highly stigmatized everywhere.
LGBTQ+ activists remain vulnerable to violent harassment from far-right fringe groups and must keep the locations of their offices a secret. When KyivPride opened a refugee shelterlast spring, journalists were not permitted to produce films or photographs that showed any outdoor elements that could betray the shelter’s location.
In previous interviews, KyivPride has repeatedly stressed that these far-right groups are a small minority that receives financing from Russia and does not represent Ukrainian society. The organization’s comments are consistent with voting data which shows that Ukraine’s far-right parties have never secured more than 5% of the national vote since 2014.