The Ministry of Defense opposes her bill. In a public written response, it noted that it had no data about the number of same-sex couples serving in the military and repeated that the constitution could not be changed. Sovsun dismissed the statement, speculating that a “homophobic bureaucrat” had put it at Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov’s desk as one of hundreds of papers to sign. She is hopeful that the ministry will come around; she notes that the Defense Ministry is, perhaps unsurprisingly, “busy” with other matters and that Zelenskiy himself is silent on the bill. (The presidential administration didn’t immediately return a request for comment.)
Meanwhile, Ukrainians are growing more tolerant. In a 2016 poll conducted by the Ukrainian LGBTQ organization “Nash Svit” and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 60 percent of Ukrainians had negative attitudes toward LGBTQ people. In 2022, the number was down to 38 percent. In the 2022 poll, almost 64 percent believed that LGBTQ people should have equal rights; even 42 percent who viewed LGBTQ people negatively were for equal rights. The war is making LGBTQ soldiers more visible in Ukraine; social media has played a big role. An NGO called “LGBTIQ Military”—with a big Instagram presence—says that it has over 300 members.
The war was making Dmytro, 24, and Mykola, 32, more visible. They were photographed as a couple for a recent KyivPride event supporting the civil partnerships bill. Mykola was back from a deployment in Eastern Ukraine, while Dmytro had served in the army and was now a volunteer for the military in Odesa. Mykola had lost an ex-boyfriend in the war; he and Dmytro had been together for about a year. Mykola told me that he wasn’t open with his unit about his orientation because of its “far-right” politics. Still, soldiers didn’t think about sexuality often “because they don’t have time for thinking.” He added, “It’s very important you can trust a person who is near you, but not about whether they are gay or straight; it’s important what their values and character are.”