Maria: “I have the right to marry, too”
Tired of the war? We all are, nevertheless people in Ukraine have no choice but to deal with the situation. As a vulnerable group, queer people have a particularly hard time. We help with your donations! We regularly ask LGBTIQ* how they are coping with the war and ask them to tell us about their lives. This is the story of Maria, a lesbian who is campaigning for a “marriage for all”. Our columnist Iryna Hanenkova has met her.
For me, the war started back in 2014, not in 2022 like for everyone else, when the Russians bombed my home town of Mariupol. And I already realised then that I wanted to serve in the army to defend Ukraine. I volunteered on 25 March 2015. I’ve been fighting ever since (photos and videos from 2022 and 2023).
Even then, I suspected that the sexual orientation that society wanted to impose on me didn’t match my own. In other words, at the time the war broke out, I didn’t really realise that I was a lesbian. I only understood it later – after rehab.
I was wounded in the hand and leg. When I was well again, I returned to my unit and started dating a girl. I had been interested in her for a long time, but because I was afraid of being stigmatised, I couldn’t admit it to myself. I didn’t even dare approach her to talk to her.
Hidden from my comrades
The army can be very prejudiced. Women go showering with other women, for example. If one of them had realised that I might be interested in her, I could have been harassed. It’s very difficult and that’s why I didn’t even want to think about myself…
Today – after all these years – this fear no longer exists, because I now have someone I love by my side, a woman I want to marry and start a family with. I can pour my heart out to her, she supports me.
I want to have the right to marry
As a person who defends our country, as a lesbian, I want to have the same rights as everyone else to get married. I don’t want to have to go somewhere, somewhere abroad, to legalise our marriage. I know that even if we get married in another country, these documents are not valid under Ukrainian law. I want to have the right to get married legally in my country. That would be important to me! We deserve that.
This is how you can donate
INDIVIDUAL HELP Munich Kyiv Queer has its own fundraising campaign via https://www.paypal.me/ConradBreyer to support queer people in Ukraine who are in need or on the run. Why? Because not all LGBTIQ* are organised in the local LGBTIQ*-groups. This help is direct, fast and free of charge if you choose the option “For friends and family” on PayPal. If you don’t have PayPal, you can alternatively send money to the private account of Conrad Breyer, speaker of Munich Kyiv Queer, IBAN: DE427015000021121454.
All requests from the community are meticulously checked in cooperation with our partner organisations in Ukraine. If they can help themselves, they take over. If the demands for help exceed their (financial and/or material) possibilities, we will step in.
HELP FOR LGBTIQ* ORGANISATIONS To support LGBTIQ* in Ukraine we have helped set up the Alliance Queer Emergency Aid Ukraine, in which around 40 German LGBTIQ* Human Rights organisations are involved. All these groups have access to very different Human Rights organisations in Ukraine and use funds for urgently needed care or evacuation of queer people. Every donation helps and is used 100 percent to benefit queer people in Ukraine. Donate here
VULNERABLE GROUP And here you can find out why queer people in war need our support.
Questions? www.MunichKyivQueer.org/donations