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March for Equality or #kyivpride2017 have been organized in Kyiv on June 18. I haven’t participated in it, but before the event I’ve talked with BBC Ukrainian journalist who wanted to write a report about issues that LGBTQI in Ukraine are facing daily. The article contains several stories besides mine - and here’s mine for you.

A person who doesn’t fit into any of the 2 current gender roles and doesn’t want to or can’t exist in social position of a man or woman in fact begins facing problems when first contacts any other people. Especially it’s visible at state facilities - nursery school, high school, university. At least there are offensive nicknames from adults and peers, who are taught to be cys and grow in the terms "girlish" and "boyish". If you don’t look and behave strictly according to the framework, it means you are sick, ugly, threatening. Moreover, the factory district and math oriented school in which I was a child, not much differed from a more creative students society where I hoped to find understanding and support.

It seemed to me that people come to university for a broader view, and teachers there behave accordingly. But I haven’t met a community so limited-minded, brutal, intolerant with even more sophisticated contempt and undercover intrigues as in our pseudo-creative and higher education areas. Of course, today I’ve managed to find some good people, friends, associates with modern views in Dnipro, a city which was very disappointing for me before. And I am grateful for what I had to live through because now I know from personal experience what we have to fight and how we do it, what is the kind of people that we can’t by all means let teach or educate children.

With my gender identity it was impossible for me to get a job. I had to work remotely, posing myself as a man or a woman from time to time, so that employers don’t quibble and refuse me just because I'm too weird for them. Well, working as a model with such views in Dnipro... Androgynous fashion here is still mostly alien and unneeded, our trends drag behind not only the progressive world, but even the capital of Ukraine. Most of the proposals from agencies that I received were related to advertising and demonstration of women's underwear or sexualized clothing. Here people are annoyed and irritated by persons who have feminine attributes in appearance but identify as males, as well as the contrary. It is still shameful for us in many communities not to have children, to have same-sex relationships without seeking re-education and creating a "normal family". I saw it everywhere throughout all my life, especially when I had to contact state facilities or to religious/Soviet adherents.

Twice I was attacked by strangers on the street because they thought it was necessary to teach a homosexual couple to behave. In one of these cases I was still a minor. I even have a scar on my leg left from that story. Besides that, indecent questions from passers-by, peers, classmates, their obsessive desire to talk, re-educate, persuade, assault were my constant issues from childhood till now. Just imagine - at school or nursery you can be bullied or even beaten just for accent, clothing of another style or color, different interests or musical tastes after all, what to say about sexuality, androgynous appearance or life goals. Just the fact that you choose not to harm the environment or feed on animals pushes others to condemn, criticise and mock you. This system breaks people, cripples their souls.

And how many creative partners turned away from me being scared by my identity and unwillingness to correspond to the image that they wanted to see! They thought it was a whim, a game, that I "just need to find a good male", that if I was born with a certain set of sexual features I should dress and call myself accordingly, otherwise... they felt uncomfortable, weird, even afraid to be near me. How do I know this? Some of them after a certain time admitted this and even asked for forgiveness. Like “I'm sorry, I betrayed you then, but I just didn’t understand, and now I see you haven’t stepped back, you stand for your rights, good job”.

Among all the people in the BBC Ukraine article I was the only one who revealed full name and face. In our current reality it’s not surprising - LGBTQI people face discrimination, harassment and misunderstanding at work, in communication, just on the street. I support KyivPride and activities of Ukrainian human rights organizations. But, in my opinion, the situation can be radically changed only by rejection of gender concept which puts us at different sides of the barricades. Humanity no longer needs this social construct, we need to recognize each other not by sexual or any external physiological characteristics, as it was at the earliest steps of civilization, but by achievements, ideas, views and intellectual values.

I believe that society would function much more efficiently if we abandoned the gender notion. We are hindered not only by the binary system, but also by the general emphasis on sexual identity, sexuality and physiology. Defining ourselves as persons with unique preferences we won’t be fixed on our sexuality, he will not need to put ourselves in one of the gender camps and adapt to it. And in the absence of such parameters no one will judge surrounding people and their loved ones that way. I believe that in this way it is possible to create a society in which people will choose partners not according to physiology, to which modern system (and not only in intimate relations) inclines us, but by personal qualities.

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