Being queer in Berlin and Kiev

Today’s society knows what LGBTQI+ means, but do we know how socie­ties in other count­ries deal with it? In Germany and Ukraine, the defi­ni­tions seem to be very diffe­rent, starting with the fact that in Ukraine the letters only reach to LGBT. A comment by Anastasia Kuznietsova and Daria Kisi­eieva – two Ukrai­nian young jour­na­lists – about diffe­rent notions in both count­ries.

LGBTQI+ life in Ukraine The queer commu­nity doesn’t have an easy life in Ukraine. Society does not have a high level of aware­ness. The govern­ment does not spread tole­rance, so Ukrai­nians remain in the dark­ness and believe that only tradi­tional family models are normal. That’s the reason why some pride and equa­lity marches end in physical violence. For example, just a few minutes after the start of Kiev­Pride 2019, a column of parti­ci­pants was atta­cked by oppon­ents of the march, and several people were injured. At the same time, it should be mentioned that more than 8.000 people parti­ci­pated in the 2019 Equa­lity March, which is 3.000 more than last year. The situa­tion in Germany nowa­days is very diffe­rent by compa­rison. The Berlin pride (Chris­to­pher Street Day) on July, 27th, 2019, has been held without attacks: the proces­sion held posters with the slogans like ​„No sex with Nazis“ and ​„Send the patri­archy to hell“. They threw confetti and waved rainbow flags. The cele­bra­tion ended in a huge party with people dancing and a concert at the Bran­den­burg Gate. This year’s Equa­lity March is considered to be the largest within the last four years, with the number of parti­ci­pants reaching around 150.000. Sergei from Kiev, a parti­ci­pant of the Berlin Pride, shared his impres­sions: ​„This atmo­sphere of mutual love and respect inspires you to return and fight for diverse kinds of people to be more respected in our country“. LGBTQI+ in the Ukrai­nian media Despite our indi­vi­dual point of view on this topic, media some­times tries to impose their opinion and show people what the ​„right way of thin­king“ is supposed to be. How does Ukrai­nian media write about LGBTQI+ and do they cover this topic at all? It’s safe to say that there is also a huge diffe­rence in the media coverage of both count­ries. In March 2018, the Insti­tute of Mass Media in Ukraine moni­tored eleven leading Ukrai­nian online media outlets that cover news about ​„LGBT people“. They high­lighted 105 stories on LGBT topics, 63 of which were asso­ciated with scan­dals and media stars. About 20 percent of the stories included homo­phobic expres­sions and content mani­pu­la­tions, and only 10 percent had a posi­tive back­ground. Experts conclude that Ukrai­nian media writes exclu­si­vely about one point of view: mostly the opinion of oppon­ents. Moreover, the articles are usually written with an ironic under­tone. Thus, people ridi­cule this topic instead of rethin­king it. Some examples are: ​„Trans­gender woman Daniela Vega went down in Oscar history“, and ​„A trans­gender girl defeated a man accor­ding to the rules of MMA“. It should also be taken into account that Ukrai­nian media space has parti­cu­la­rized maga­zines for LGBTQI+ people, some hubs, and some social groups, but this is not well-known, and many people wouldn’t even believe in their exis­tence. German jour­na­lists try to high­light situa­tions from diffe­rent points of view, and write about these topics more often. Germany has a few maga­zines for queer people like siegessäule.de, Straight Maga­zine, or L‑Mag. Addi­tio­nally, the Berlin daily news­paper ​„Tages­spiegel“ has a special cate­gory for queer people, called ​„Queer­spiegel.“

Why doesn’t Ukrai­nian media write about LGBTQI+? Scrol­ling through Ukrai­nian media sites makes you notice that writing about anything connected to queer­ness seems wholly avoided. Reasons for that could be that jour­na­lists don’t have the right know­ledge or wording to write about it correctly. They tend to use discri­mi­na­ting expres­sions like ​„non-natural sexual orien­ta­tion“ instead of the LGBTQI+. They are mostly not even aware of the fact that they are giving false infor­ma­tion to the reader. The media makers in Germany seem better informed. Hate speech expres­sions are not used in most natio­nally-trusted media outlets, and you can read simple but true phrases like ​„men who love men“ and ​„women who love women“ that take away the societal stig­ma­tiza­tion of LGBTQI+. Conclu­sion There seems to be far less discri­mi­na­tion throug­hout media in Germany. Media shapes a society, so the situa­tion for the queer commu­nity is gene­rally better than in Ukraine. If Ukrai­nians want to change that, they will have to change their ways of dealing with those topics in public. Jour­na­lists must be held respon­sible for the words they use when writing about the LGBTQI+ commu­nity. Mass media must create more specia­lized papers and media outlets that take the perspec­tive of the queer commu­nity. The Govern­ment must give more protec­tion at marches and prides for parti­ci­pants and acti­vists. To sum up, we express our deep hope that our gene­ra­tion will create such publi­ca­tions and talk about LGBTQI+ and other acti­vists louder and freer, espe­ci­ally in Ukraine. This is very important, if we want to live in a healthy and tole­rant society, where ever­yone feels safe.