LGBTQ Ukrainians Prepare for Abuse Under Russian Occupation
Russia has declared war on Ukraine, and LGBTQ Ukrainians have a message for Vladimir Putin: "We will fight."
As reported by CBS News, LGBTQ rights groups in Ukraine fear that a Russia occupation will turn back LGBTQ rights progress and protections for gay Ukrainians and lead to an uptick in violence.
Now that the bombs have started to drop, LGBTQ Ukrainians have pledged to fight against oppression.
"That would mean a direct threat to me and especially, well, to me and to the person I love," Iulia, an 18-year-old law student, told CBS News.
Iulia studying to be a lawyer in Kharkiv, one of the city's directly targeted by Russia, and wants to use her training as a lawyer to help fight for LGBTQ rights in Ukraine, she told CBS.
"In Russia, LGBTQ people are persecuted," she said. "If we imagine that Russia occupies all of the Ukraine or just a big part of the country, they won't allow us to exist peacefully and to fight for our rights as we are able to do that in Ukraine right now."
Putin has made at an open secret that he will not condemn or control anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and violence directed at LGBTQ people.
He called gender fluidity monstrous and has repeatedly refused to denounce his anti-LGBTQ policies.
Russia formally and publicly banned same-sex marriage in 2021 (it never was legal) and made it illegal to compare same-sex relationships to heterosexual relationships.
Before the attack, Edward Reese, project assistant for Kyiv Pride, told CBS News that Russia and Ukraine are on two different paths as a country when it comes to progress around racism, and eliminating discrimination based on gender and sexuality.
"We see the changes in people's thoughts about human rights, LGBTQ, feminism and so on. ... So definitely we don't want anything connected to Russia ... and we won't have them," said Reese.
About a Russian occupation, Reese shared that the community has fear "but we don't panic."
"I'm sure that many of the LGBTQ people and me, myself, we won't flee the country and we will fight and destroy it," he said.