July 1st 2023.
Edward Reese was fast asleep on the night of February 24, 2022 when the bombs started pelting his home in Kyiv, Ukraine. He was exhausted after tuning in to a speech from Russian President Vladimir Putin the night before.
When his flatmate woke him up to tell him war had started, Edward was in disbelief. He had already experienced the war firsthand when Russia first seized Crimea nine years ago, and he had volunteered in a hospital with injured soldiers.
Now, Edward was faced with the reality of war for the second time. After a year of fighting, thousands of Ukrainian civilians had lost their lives, entire cities had been destroyed, and the sky of Edward's former home was filled with smoke and debris.
Edward, the communications coordinator of the capital city’s LGBTQ+ Pride group, felt the war had become so routine he even knew not to bring his cat to the bomb shelter. He had friends fighting at the front line, many of whom were queer. He was 'pissed off' rather than scared.
The early days of the war were 'crazy and scary' as people hurried to queue in front of army sign-up sheets, volunteered to be frontline medics or raised money for supplies. Ukrainians were uniting in the face of adversity, and it was inspiring to see.
Organisers behind Kyiv Pride and Ukraine Pride have said that, one day, their country will win the war against Russia. Edward believes that the war has helped bring Ukraine’s lagging LGBTQ+ rights into focus. Putin has long positioned LGBTQ+ rights as an almost existential threat to Russia, and this has caused many Ukrainians to come together in support of queer rights.
Thanks to the efforts of Edward, Sofia Lapina (the president of UkrainePride) and other activists, there has been huge progress in LGBTQ+ rights in Ukraine. However, while trans people can freely change their legal gender, homophobia still remains rife.
The true death toll in the war can be nearly impossible to count, and Edward and Sofia are determined to ensure that the lives of those lost, particularly LGBTQ+ Ukrainians, are not forgotten. Despite the devastation, they remain hopeful and determined that, one day, their country will win the war.
Edward Reese was fast asleep when the bombs first pelted his home in Kyiv, Ukraine on February 24, 2022. But the last thing he did before going to bed was tune in to a speech from Russian President Vladimir Putin, leaving him exhausted and angry.
He was soon awoken by his flatmate, who told him the war had started - a war that Edward knew too well, having lived in Dnipro in central Ukraine when Russia first seized Crimea nine years ago.
“I actually slept through the first bombing because I was totally tired,” Edward says. “We saw the helicopters. I personally volunteered in a hospital with injured soldiers. So when the full-scale invasion started, I would say I didn’t want to believe this because it was so atrocious, it was so horrible.”
The war has been a relentless horror, where relief must be found in one another, tapping into the strength of the shared experience of survival. The true death toll in the war is nearly impossible to count, but the UN says that nearly 9,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed.
The war has also helped bring Ukraine’s lagging LGBTQ+ rights into focus. While Ukraine has made huge progress in LGBTQ+ rights, homophobia remains rife. Asked if society should “accept homosexuality”, just under seven in 10 Ukrainians polled by the Pew Research Center in 2019 said no.
Yet, according to Equaldex, the war has brought a new urgency to advancing LGBTQ+ rights. Last year, a survey by the NASH SVIT Center found that around six in 10 Ukrainians agree that LGBTQ+ people should have equal rights. For Edward and Sofia Lapina, the president of UkrainePride, this can be partly attributed to Russian president Putin, who has long positioned LGBTQ+ rights as an almost existential threat to Russia.
“We’ve worked a lot to explain that the war that is going on right now is not only ‘Russia tries to destroy Ukraine’, it’s the war between Russia and the whole democratic world,” Edward says.
Organisers behind Kyiv Pride and Ukraine Pride say that, one day, their country will win the war against Russia. Edward and Sofia are not scared, though. “Just pissed off,” Edward says. “Every step Russia does makes us more angry.”
“A lot of my friends died,” Sofia adds. “Some people are still fighting. Some volunteering. Life is totally surrounded by the war.” But, she says, “For Ukrainians, last year starts not from the new year, but from the invasion.”
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