Some LGBT+ people serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Some of them were in the army already, while others joined the territorial defense or directly the Armed Forces after the full-scale invasion of Russian troops on February 24. In terms of social factors, the military environment in Ukraine remains quite homophobic in general, so people often avoid revealing their sexual orientation at the place of service, or do so only to close acquaintances. There are some exceptions mainly among public gays and lesbians. With this, according to some evidence, the attitude toward homosexual women is more often calm than toward men. At the same time, women face sexism and sexual harassment more often.

Closeness, in turn, contributes to the spread of myths about the seeming absence of LGBT+ people in the army. Meanwhile, the “Ukrainian LGBT Soldiers and our Allies” community has existed on the network for several years, took part in the Equality March in Kyiv as a separate column, and at the time of writing has more than 2,000 members. On its basis, an organization was created with the aim of uniting LGBT+ military persons and, in general, obtaining equal rights for LGBT+ people. One of its goals is to make army regulations, rules, and statutes LGBT+ inclusive.

We send medicines and other necessary items for LGBT+ military persons and units where women serve

The institutional problem of the lack of marriage equality raises for LGBT+ military persons as perhaps even more important than for other groups. At the frontline, people are constantly at risk of being wounded or killed. Therefore, the rights provided by marriage are especially urgent for them, such as visiting at the hospital, making decisions about artificial life support, inheritance, etc. After all, without a registered relationship, the partner of a military LGBT+ person is not legally bound to them in any way, and priority in these matters is given to close relatives – who may have a negative attitude towards them because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, which brings additional acuteness to the issue.

It is worth mentioning that soon after the beginning of the full-scale stage of the war, the government allowed remote marriages for the military and several other categories of citizens exactly to ensure their rights in the conditions of war. However, as long as marriage remains a heterosexual institution by definition in Ukraine, it does not apply to people of other sexual orientations, and they are discriminated against in this regard.

For trans people in the army, the issue of access to hormonal drugs remains important. There is no possibility to go and buy them at a pharmacy on the frontline, while there are no state-level mechanisms for providing such drugs, and people could rely only on volunteers. Likewise, there is no regulation of the use of common, in particular, gendered spaces, which would take into account the peculiarities of trans people who have not obtained legal gender recognition.

At the same time, the level of awareness about trans issues in the army is even less compared to the issues of sexual orientation – in particular, the misperception of it as a mental disorder is widespread. This pushes trans people serving in the Armed Forces to even more closeness. If they have not changed their documents, this means acting out the image according to the gender they were assigned at birth. In one particular case, when a trans woman was outed against her will in the place of service, she became the target of regular verbal manifestations of transphobia, as well as sexualization, harassment, and violence.

On the territory of Ukraine that is not in the immediate vicinity of the places of hostilities, certain trends can also be noted since the beginning of the great war.

In particular, the level of organized homophobia became significantly lower, as those persons who built their socio-political capital on it mostly reoriented to war-related topics or disappeared from the public sphere at all. Far right-wing organizations, whose activities were based on the opposition to LGBT+ movements, have also practically disappeared from the information space. This may be a consequence of the fact that such activity has become “not on time”, no funding is provided for it, as well as the fact that LGBT+ organizations, in turn, currently are not able to hold public events.

At the same time, manifestations of homophobia and transphobia persist at the social level. Thus, Insight received requests for help from LGBT+ people in cases of attack, rape, and harassment by former partners, as well as illegal actions by representatives of the police, military registration offices, and unidentified persons in military uniform, in some cases – with violence and even torture just because of the homosexual orientation of the injured persons. Discrimination in employment also persists – in particular, when trans persons who have not yet received legal gender recognition are refused to be hired.

As already mentioned, there was a large flow of requests for evacuation during the spring, which began to decrease closer to the summer. At the same time, there has been an increase in requests for help of a regular nature, which had almost stopped in the first months of the full-scale war, i.e., from trans people regarding the transition procedure. This can be interpreted as the adaptation of a large part of LGBT+ people to the conditions of a long-term war and planning their further life in these conditions.

In the first months, trans people almost all over Ukraine also faced the problem of the unavailability of hormonal drugs. It had complex reasons: first of all, the fact that many pharmacies stopped working, as well as the limited operation of public transport, complicated communication between regions, and outdated information in online pharmacy networks. Later, this problem has gone with the restoration of life activities in many regions, but it remains in areas where hostilities are ongoing or infrastructure was destroyed due to them.

Access to doctors is also problematic. There is still a shortage of qualified and trans-friendly doctors in Ukraine, and some of them evacuated or became unable to continue their usual appointments with the beginning of the full-scale invasion. This created difficulties in requests ranging from the need to consult a family doctor to undergoing diagnostics or correcting the course of hormone therapy in the process of transition. Again, the situation has improved in most of the territory of Ukraine over time, and some (but not all) issues can be resolved by online consultations.

The war also affected public LGBT+ organizations and initiatives. Some of them have practically ceased operations because most of their members and employees were forced to evacuate. This especially applies to organizations that were based in territories now occupied, like Insha from Kherson.

Mass events are prohibited during martial law, which made it impossible this year to hold marches that became regular, such as the Women’s March, the Equality March, the Trans-March in Kyiv, as well as similar actions in other cities. However, under these conditions, such events would hardly be appropriate in their usual format. At the same time, the KyivPride organization agreed with the organizers of the Warsaw Pride to hold a march there focused specifically on supporting Ukraine. Also in September in Kharkiv, KharkivPride held several events, including a march that took place in the subway for security reasons.

The holding of not only mass but also any other events has almost come to naught. This is due to several factors: the already mentioned evacuation of part of the employees as well as the active community, the technical complexity of the conducting (in particular, in the conditions of unpredictable air alarms), and a change in priorities and requests of the community. Some exceptions are the western regions, less affected by the war directly, where regular community events are still held.

In general, organizations that continue to operate have focused more on providing targeted support to LGBT+ people. The usual types of support, such as psychological and legal, were supplemented by evacuation assistance and humanitarian aid. The latter is primarily targeted at regions where hostilities are taking place, and usually includes food kits and medicines, including hormonal drugs for trans people. Unlike in peacetime, there are more options for providing aid in crisis mode, that is, as quickly as possible. Usually, organizations are not limited to helping only LGBT+ people, but combine it with help to other social categories in need, military persons, etc., and also cooperate in this with other volunteer movements.

Even though the situation is not favorable for public activism, there are signs that public opinion about LGBT+ in Ukraine is changing for the better. In particular, a sociological survey conducted in May showed a significant improvement in the attitude towards LGBT people in society compared to 2016. This includes that almost two-thirds believe that LGBT people should have the same rights as other citizens of Ukraine. Another evidence of the same is a petition on the president’s website for the legalization of same-sex marriages, which quickly reached the number of signatures necessary for consideration. The president’s reply, although contained a formal refusal, referring to the impossibility of changing the constitution during martial law, at the same time did not deny the very idea of ​​marriage equality, and also noted that the introduction of civil partnerships is already being considered by the authorities.

It is also worth mentioning that Ukraine received the status of a candidate country to the EU. This has already contributed to the ratification of the Istanbul Convention by our country, which had not been possible to achieve for several years before. Ukraine’s movement from candidacy to full membership must be accompanied by reforms, including in the field of human rights – which, albeit indirectly, involves improvement of the protection of the rights of LGBT+ people too. In fact, the road map of such reforms has already been developed. The further task is its detailing and gradual implementation. Which, however, Ukrainian civil society should not rely only on help “from Europe”, nor should it wait for victory to come, but should already start working on it. Because human rights are always on time.