Mykhailo Yurov on KyivPride, Wartime Ukraine, and LGBTQI+ Equality

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/03/31

Mykhailo Yurov is a Ukrainian LGBTQI+ advocate and project manager at KyivPride, the organization behind one of Ukraine’s most prominent Pride initiatives. KyivPride’s official team page lists him as Project Manager, and the group describes its work as year-round advocacy, education, community support, and human rights protection. Based on this interview, Yurov has worked with KyivPride since January 2024, helping manage budgets, documents, donor communication, and major public events, including the KyivPride Festival and March. His public-facing work sits at the intersection of queer visibility, civic organizing, and wartime resilience in a society still negotiating equality, safety, and democratic inclusion.

In this interview with Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Mykhailo Yurov discusses the uneven realities facing LGBTQI+ people in Ukraine during wartime. He argues that gay men often face sharper stigma than lesbians, while lesbian identity is frequently sexualized rather than genuinely accepted. Yurov describes discrimination in military service, workplace concealment, regional differences in attitudes, weak sex education, and the mental-health burden created by stigma, silence, and exclusion. He also reflects on older Ukrainians shaped by Soviet norms and on the painful contradiction that LGBTQI+ Ukrainians have fought and died for their country, while many still cannot live openly or safely today.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Mykhailo, do you notice any trends in the way lesbian and bisexual women live their lives in Kyiv compared with gay and bisexual men, for instance?

Mykhailo Yurov: My view is that, in Ukraine today, it is generally more difficult to be a gay man than to be a lesbian. Gay men, lesbians, bisexual people, and transgender people can all face homophobia, transphobia, harassment, and fear about showing affection in public. Public attitudes are uneven, and acceptance is often conditional rather than consistent. At the same time, lesbian identity is frequently sexualized, which can make it appear more socially tolerated in some settings, though that is not genuine acceptance. Broader public attitudes in Ukraine have improved in recent years, but discrimination and legal inequality remain.

Gay and bisexual men also face additional pressure in the context of military service during wartime. In practice, questions about whether someone has served, when they served, or whether they are serving now can become another way to stigmatize or exclude them. Harassment and discrimination in the military do exist, although experiences vary widely depending on the unit and its command structure.

In some cases, soldiers become more accepted by fellow service members after enduring combat together. In other cases, LGBTQI+ personnel face ridicule, ostracism, blocked transfers, or professional penalties. Reports and public accounts show that treatment can differ sharply from one brigade or commander to another.

The contradiction is stark: LGBTQI+ Ukrainians have served, fought, and died in defence of the country, yet many still cannot live openly or safely. That tension has become especially visible through public exhibitions and memorial efforts highlighting LGBTQI+ service members and volunteers during the war.

They served and died for the country. Many of them did not have equal rights and could not come out publicly. Even when they were known within LGBTQI+ military communities—through private chats or networks—they still could not live openly.

Jacobsen: Do Ukrainians broadly have a cultural self-understanding of what it means to be Ukrainian that might exclude certain individuals?

Yurov: It depends on whom you speak with. After 2014, following the annexation of Crimea and Ukraine’s stronger orientation toward European integration, many people began to argue that Ukraine should adopt European values. That included greater acceptance of different sexual orientations and gender identities, as well as stronger support for women’s rights. For some people, that became an argument for greater acceptance of LGBTQI+ individuals.

Others think differently. They emphasize the idea of a “traditional family,” meaning a man and a woman with children. They describe this as a model rooted in long-standing religious or cultural traditions. Some people refer to church teachings when discussing these views. So public opinion varies.

Ukraine is a large country with regional differences. Its population is similar in size to Canada’s, although geographically it is also one of the largest countries in Europe. Attitudes often depend on where someone lives. In central areas such as Kyiv, religious influence tends to be weaker, and social attitudes can be somewhat more liberal. In parts of western Ukraine, religious institutions are more prominent, and traditional narratives about family and sexuality are more common.

Jacobsen: Ukraine declared independence in 1991. The referendum on December 1, 1991, produced about 92 percent support for independence, and recognition from other countries followed soon afterward. Many people who are alive today grew up under the Soviet Union. For individuals who are now roughly 35 or older—especially those educated during the Soviet period—what was it like when LGBTQ topics were discussed, if they were discussed at all?

Yurov: I can only share one example because I am not representative of that generation. I am 24 years old. The current mobilization system applies more broadly, starting at age 25, so I have not yet been drafted.

I once spoke with a gay man in his fifties or sixties who regularly visited the Kharkiv Pride Hub. He told people that if he had been younger, he might have been beaten for being gay. He said that he felt he had not lived his own life. Instead, he felt he had lived the life expected of him.

He married a woman and had been married for more than twenty years. They had children. He said he could not come out now because it would disrupt the life he had built. He told us that he respected his wife deeply and cared about her as a person, but he was not living authentically.

Jacobsen: I am simply gay. He came to that conclusion after he had already been married and tried to build that life. For the record, there are many cases like that. There is a well-known example involving one of the leading pseudoscientific conversion therapy organizations in the United States. The president and founder later came out as gay and expressed regret about promoting conversion therapy. People can build very complex lives around social expectations. Some homosexual men marry heterosexual women, have children, and form families largely to fit into social norms. The pressure to conform in many traditional societies can be extremely strong. That is about as far as I can comment without speculating.

Are lesbian women subject to harassment as well?

Yurov: Yes. I have many friends who are lesbians, and harassment does happen. In extreme cases, in some parts of the world, there have been incidents known as “corrective rape,” where people claim that sexual violence will somehow change a woman’s sexual orientation. That is a documented phenomenon in some countries. In Ukraine, it is not a widespread or normalized practice, but there have been disturbing individual cases.

For example, a woman in her forties once shared her story at the Kharkiv Pride Hub, which is a space where people can meet, talk, and share experiences. She described coming home and discovering that her mother had arranged for a man to assault her, believing that it would somehow “fix” her and make her interested in men. It was an extremely traumatic experience.

Discrimination still exists in Ukraine. I know many people who support LGBTQ rights, and some of them are gay themselves, but they cannot attend events such as Kyiv Pride because doing so would effectively force them to come out. It becomes discrimination through assumption.

If someone asks, “Why were you there?” people immediately conclude. As a result, many supporters avoid public events. I know individuals who work in the military or in heavily male-dominated construction companies. When colleagues invite employees to social events—such as an annual retreat outside the city or a community day where families are invited—they cannot bring their partners openly.

There have also been information campaigns about workplace discrimination. For many people, life becomes a constant negotiation. They spend years hiding important parts of themselves, unsure whether honesty would lead to acceptance or ostracism. In that situation, many people decide it is easier to continue concealing the truth.

I also know someone whose coworker became romantically interested in him. He did not know how to say that he was gay. He was afraid to come out and did not know how to explain it clearly, so he said that they should remain friends.

Jacobsen: There was a recent global survey or study on mental health. I would also argue that even I sometimes assume a person is heterosexual when I first meet them. Many people do that automatically, especially those who are unfamiliar with LGBTQIA identities.

There was also a recent global survey examining the mental health of teenagers and young adults. It found that rates of self-harm, anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts were higher among young people who are coming to understand their sexual orientation or gender identity. Is the situation generally similar here?

Yurov: Yes, broadly speaking. One reason is that sex education in Ukraine is weak. In my own school experience, we had no sex education at all, not even basic information about contraception or sexual health. Most people end up learning on their own, often through the internet. Things are improving slowly, but even in schools that provide sex education, LGBTQI people are usually not included in the curriculum. Gay or lesbian relationships are rarely discussed.

In some schools, teachers are discouraged or even prohibited from discussing sexual topics with students because it is considered inappropriate. As a result, many young people grow up without reliable information about sexuality or relationships.

At the same time, some groups actively spread hostility. At one point, in a coffee shop connected with the community, a group of masked right-wing extremists came in and distributed pamphlets claiming that LGBTQI people are more likely to die by suicide. They used those statistics as an argument against LGBTQI people, rather than asking why those mental health disparities exist.

Jacobsen: I have seen a similar argument from some conservative commentators. They point to higher rates of mental health problems among sexual and gender minorities and claim that this shows something is inherently wrong with those identities. That argument assumes the outcomes occur naturally, as if they appear out of nowhere. In reality, many researchers point to social factors such as stigma, bullying, rejection, and lack of support as major contributors to those mental health outcomes.

I am not aware of strong evidence showing that poorer mental health outcomes are inherent to being a sexual or gender minority. Studying this is difficult because social environments vary widely. Without equal rights and lower levels of discrimination, it is hard to separate the effects of identity from the effects of harassment or exclusion.

Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Mykhailo. 

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