The heart of Ukraine's capital, Kiev, is teeming with pro-democracy demonstrators. Five straight couples who'd met in the demonstrations married and fifteen pregnancy tests a day are given in make-shift clinics for the protesters. Where are gays in the Kiev orange revolt?

In today's Ukraine homosexuality is a taboo. "We are campaigning for an anti-discrimation law in Ukraine, but with the instability now, we need to wait", gay activist Vladislav Topchev. Vladislav hopes that the elections repeat will bring more democracy to the country. Ukraine decriminalized homosexuality just after splitting from the Soviet Union in 1991, but physical attacks are frequent. Last year gay pride in which Vladislav participated was assaulted by skinheads. The media coverage of gays is prejudiced. "Even gay-friendly or gay journalists present us as not fully human", Vladislav says.

Civil protest continues in Ukraine where democratic reforms are badly needed. Ukraine, one of Europe's biggest countries, is in economic crisis. It is also dramatically hit by HIV/AIDS.

Lesbian activist Natasha Nagorna tells me, "There is a circle of people interested in the queer tradition of culture, there are clubs." And there is banya, the traditional steam bathhouse. Even Kiev motorcycle gangs relish their banya. Bathers "flagellate" each other with birch branches. Cruising, hustling and sex is happening in the pre-modern banya. A banya is at hand near where the protesters demonstrate. There is also a modern gym around. And at home speedos and porn flicks on counterfeited DVDs are the fave turn-on of Ukrainian gays.

The orange protesters are silent about gay rights. "But privately, the opposition supports us," says Vladislav Topchev. Not that he expects being granted tolerance by a new president: Vladislav struggles for the political change, organizing the gay movement and preparing legislation.

More Interviews with Ukrainian Strikers
"On election night I went to sleep convinced that Yushchenko won," says Andriy Bondarenko, a Ukrainian graduate student. "When I woke up and learned that the supposed results say that Yushchenko lost, I felt shame." Andriy studies in Lublin, Poland. With news of the election fraud, he decided to take the all-night bus journey to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev in order to join his brother and thousands of demonstrators in Independence Square.

On the way to Kiev, Andriy was texted by his brother, already in the demonstration: "Will they shoot?"
But Andriy is not afraid: "We are on the road to freedom. I feel that open society is being created. It depends on us."
"I recently read political philosopher Alain Badiou who argues that inertia is the worst. We are active at long last." Asked about the situation of Ukrainian students, Andriy said, "In the beginning of the 1990s there was euphoria. But then the universities in the Ukraine stopped to be places of freedom and creativity. They repeated old knowledge. They became bureaucratic institutions to issue certificates. This must change." Acknowledging that economy is the greatest challenge in eastern Europe, Andriy commented that Ukrainians must not continue using 'gangster economics'.
"The political crisis now is an impulse for new thinking in the Ukraine," Andriy told me. "International support for the Ukrainian opposition matters." Andriy had watched Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 on an illegal DVD. "A pity it is Bush. But Bush is far. Yanukovich is near and is worse than Bush."
The Ukraine is split into the largely Russian-speaking and Russian Orthodox eastern Ukraine, and western Ukraine with Ukrainian Church, part of Catholicism. After Stalin's persecution of the Ukrainian Church, Pope John Paul II, whose mother was Ukrainian, revived it. The eastern is Moscow-leaning, industrial (Donetsk coal mines), Moscow-leaning, and pro-Yanukovych. Miners in the Donetsk region see Yanukovych as a "regular brick" - a regular guy, a good sort.
In the eastern Ukraine, Elena Kabashnaya believed that the ballot was rigged. Elena Kabashnaya is founder and president of a feminist organization Dana in the city of Mykolaiv, a town of sixty thousand. When I telephoned her, she immediately shouted "Yushchenko OK!" Elena told me that the situation of women is dire in the Ukraine. Since 1995 her organization has fought trafficking and violence against women.
"Yushchenko is a democrat," said Elena. "The situation of women can improve with his presidency. Now it is very, very bad. There are many cases of domestic violence, especially in small villages. In fact, there are more and more of them."
Natalia Monakhova is a doctoral candidate at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy and has published papers on the post-colonial condition of the Ukraine. I asked, "Do you think that the situation of women will improve?" After a moment of silence, Natalia replied: "No." Natasha fears the power of the neo-nationalist movement in the Ukraine.
Together with Natasha Nahorna, Natalia Monakhova presented a paper in which she argued, "Today Ukraine is engaged in a complicated process of active nation-making centered on the nineteenth-century peasant social values. As a result, a number of social groups and strata are excluded from the general national and social discourses, in particular from the political and decision-making spheres. They have found themselves marginalized within a seemingly new society."
According to Natalia Monakhova, the excluded groups are women, national and sexual minorities. As Monakhova stated, "Women are not represented by women in public discourse. When women enter the public sphere, they stop being women. There is also a poverty gap between men and women, and domestic violence is a big problem."
In our conversation Natalia Monakhova said that the LGBT movement in the Ukraine is almost invisible. There is no physical violence against it, but prejudice and "problems, many problems." A Ukrainian queer website features a photo of Independence Square in 2003 where anti-gay demonstrators screamed under the banners "Gays are the reason for AIDS," "AIDS for faggots is justice," and "Gays! Out of Ukraine!"
The LGBT movement in the Ukraine is very fragile. Under Soviet rule, homosexuality was criminalized. Gays were incarcerated in labor camps; lesbians were incarcerated in mental hospitals. State homophobia diminished after the fall of communism, but popular homophobia remains formidable in the Ukraine. Homosexuality is strongly present, although under-read and under-researched, in Ukrainian culture.
In the BBC's Internet news column of reader voices, Natasha Nahorska wrote that "People are protesting all over the country, and defending the choice they've made. It feels great to be part of it. I'm so proud of us that for the first time ever in modern Ukrainian history, awareness of a nation reached such a high level. The atmosphere on the streets in Kiev is fantastic."
I asked one demonstrator, "Is this democracy in the making or a rise of nationalism?"
DEM: "The Ukraine is in need not only of changes in civil liberties, but also of changes in attitudes towards monorities."
TK: "Is there an Orange or Pink Revolution in the Ukraine?
DEM: "Both sides, the two Victors Yushchenko and Yanukovych, champion chauvinism."
TK: "Will it be yet another anti-Semitic, anti-woman, anti-gay force?"
DEM: "The dangerous prejudices and phobias and hates concentrate the evil of today."
Andriy Bondarenko is now demonstrating in Kiev's Independence Square. When I asked him about minority rights, he said that there would be no hope for them in the closed society of Yanukovych. "Yanukovych underlined the role of customs, old folk ways, and majorities. It is sad that now no one cares for minorities in the Ukraine."

Tomek Kitlinski

Tomek Kitlinski contributed to Poland's first study of homophobia, Homofobia po polsku (Warsaw 2004, ed. by Zbyszek Sypniewski), Our Monica, Ourselves (New York University Press 2001, ed. by Lauren Berlant and Lisa Duggan) and Queer Views on Everything magazine www.thegully.com.