World
‘I love Ukraine’
Country’s activists remain defiant as they mark war’s first anniversary
Anna Sharyhina, co-founder of the Sphere Women’s Association, a group that promotes LGBTQ and intersex rights in Ukraine, on Sept. 25, 2022, led a Pride march in a subway station in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city that is less than 30 miles from the Russian border in eastern Ukraine.
Kharkiv Pride took place during the Ukrainian military’s counteroffensive against Russian troops in Kharkiv Oblast. Sphere Fundraising Manager Ruslana Hnatchenko on Tuesday told the Washington Blade during a Zoom interview the subway was the only safe place for the event to happen, but she said it was “very important for us to have it in Ukraine and have it in Kharkiv.”
“Kharkiv carries a significance of being at the frontline and it is so close to Russia,” said Hnatchenko. “It was great to have it there.”
Friday marks one year since Russia launched its war against Ukraine.
Dmitry Shapoval, a gay man with HIV from Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and Anastasiia Baraniuk and her partner, Yulia Mulyukina, who were living together from Dniptro, a city on the Dnieper River in central Ukraine, are among the millions of people who have left Ukraine over the last year.
Hnatchenko was in Budapest, Hungary, studying for her master’s degree when the war began, and she spoke with the Blade from there. She visited her family over the Christmas holidays, but they met in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine that is close to the country’s border with Poland, because it was safer than Kharkiv.
“It was unsafe for me to come to Kharkiv,” said Hnatchenko. “It would be better for everyone to meet in the west.”
A Russian airstrike on March 1, 2022, killed Elvira Schemur, a 21-year-old law school student who was a volunteer for Kharkiv Pride and Kyiv Pride. Schemur was volunteering inside Kharkiv’s regional administration building when she was killed.
Hnatchenko said activists in Kherson, a city that Ukrainian forces liberated last November, told her Russian soldiers “were aware of where people from vulnerable groups (LGBTQ and intersex people and Roma people) lived.” Hnatchenko told the Blade people who identified as LGBTQ, intersex or nonbinary did not go outside during the occupation because they were afraid of being forcibly conscripted, attacked or sexually assaulted.
“A lot of LGBT people just tried not to go outside … and obviously not to expose anything about their identity,” she said.
Hnatchenko also told the Blade women and girls in Kherson tried to dress in a “non-attractive way” in order “to make themselves look ugly, so the troops would take less interest in them.”
‘We help our soldiers’
Activists and advocacy groups remain defiant. They also continue to support LGBTQ and intersex Ukrainians who remain inside the country and servicemembers.
Hnatchenko said Sphere has provided humanitarian assistance and psychological support to more than 1,500 people.
Outright International, RFSL (the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights), Hivos and private donors inside Ukraine and elsewhere have donated funds that have allowed Sphere to purchase generators, clothes and blankets that it has distributed to Kharkiv’s LGBTQ and intersex residents during blackouts that Russia’s attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure have caused.
The U.S. Agency for International Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief over the last year have delivered millions of doses of antiretroviral drugs for Ukrainians with HIV/AIDS. Then-Kyiv Pride Executive Director Lenny Emson last month during a photo exhibit at Ukraine House in D.C. that highlighted Ukrainian LGBTQ and intersex servicemembers noted the organization continues to purchase basic supplies for them.
“We buy shoes. We buy underwear. We buy socks. We buy heaters,” said Emson. “We help our soldiers.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the last year has indicated his support of LGBTQ and intersex rights.
Zelenskyy last summer said he supports a civil partnerships law for same-sex couples.
Ukrainian lawmakers late last year unanimously approved a media regulation bill that will ban hate speech and incitement based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The measure passed days before Zelenskyy, a former actor and comedian, met with President Joe Biden at the White House and addressed Congress.
Zelenskyy last month made a broad reference to LGBTQ and intersex rights in a virtual Golden Globes appearance. Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova during the Jan. 26 event in D.C. applauded Kyiv Pride and other LGBTQ and intersex rights groups in her country.
“Thank you for everything you do in Kyiv, and thank you for everything that you do in order to fight the discrimination that still is somewhere in Ukraine,” said Markarova. “Not everything is perfect yet, but you know, I think we are moving in the right direction. And we together will not only fight the external enemy, but also will see equality.”
Biden on Feb. 20 met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Hnatchenko told the Blade she thinks Zelenskyy “does believe in human rights.”
“Maybe he’s not a full-blown ally, yet, but I think he believes in human rights,” she said, while noting she was sharing her personal thoughts about Zelenskyy. “He’s not only doing that because of the pressure from partners, but there’s pressure from within Ukraine to not do that.”
Hnatchenko further acknowledged conservative politicians, prominent figures within the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Churches and many Ukrainians themselves remain opposed to LGBTQ and intersex rights.
“He (Zelenskyy) is kind of between a rock and a hard place in that sense, but I believe that human rights in Ukraine will overcome, especially after our victory,” said Hnatchenko. “We will make progress.”
Helen Globa, co-founder of Tergo, a support group for parents and friends of LGBTQ and intersex Ukrainians, on March 2, 2022, left her apartment in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. She lived in New York with her son, Bogdan Globa, and his husband until she returned to Ukraine last August.
Helen Globa, like Hnatchenko, acknowledged many Ukrainians remain opposed to LGBTQ and intersex rights, but she said Zelenskyy’s support of civil unions for same-sex couples and LGBTQ and intersex Ukrainians in the country’s armed forces are two tangible results of activists’ work in the country. Helen Globa also said one of the reasons she decided to return to Ukraine was to continue her support of these efforts.
“I love Ukraine and my life, my activities,” she told the Blade on Wednesday. “I do believe in our victory and further opportunities to finish my LGBTQ human rights activities by pushing our government to adopt same-sex partnership and marriages.”
Sarah Ashton-Cirillo, a transgender woman from Las Vegas who enlisted in the Ukrainian military after she covered the war, echoed Helen Globa.
“This act of war by Putin has set in motion a timely and irreversible civil rights movement in Ukraine, one that has been extraordinarily beneficial to the LGBTQ community,” Ashton-Cirillo told the Blade on Tuesday from the frontlines where she is fighting with the 209th Battalion of the 113th Brigade in the Donbas. “From hundreds of openly queer men and women serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine to President Zelenskyy’s positive statement about civil partnerships and human rights as applied to the community, what Putin has done has allowed freedom to bloom in Ukraine.”
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are expected to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that open on Friday.
Outsports.com notes eight Americans — including speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy and figure skater Amber Glenn — are among the 44 openly LGBTQ athletes who will compete in the games. The LGBTQ sports website also reports Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics.
“I’ve always been physically capable. That was never a question,” Glenn told Outsports.com. “It was always a mental and competence problem. It was internal battles for so long: when to lean into my strengths and when to work on my weaknesses, when to finally let myself portray the way I am off the ice on the ice. That really started when I came out publicly.”
McDermott-Mostowy is among the six athletes who have benefitted from the Out Athlete Fund, a group that has paid for their Olympics-related training and travel. The other beneficiaries are freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, speed skater Brittany Bowe, snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, and Paralympic Nordic skier Jake Adicoff.
Out Athlete Fund and Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood on Friday will host a free watch party for the opening ceremony.
“When athletes feel seen and accepted, they’re free to focus on their performance, not on hiding who they are,” Haley Caruso, vice president of the Out Athlete Fund’s board of directors, told the Los Angeles Blade.
Four Italian LGBTQ advocacy groups — Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano — have organized the games’ Pride House that will be located at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan.
Pride House on its website notes it will “host a diverse calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organizations that share the values of Pride” during the games. These include an opening ceremony party at which Checcoro, Milan’s first LGBTQ chorus, will perform.
ILGA World, which is partnering with Pride House, is the co-sponsor of a Feb. 21 event that will focus on LGBTQ-inclusion in sports. Valentina Petrillo, a trans Paralympian, is among those will participate in a discussion that Simone Alliva, a journalist who writes for the Italian newspaper Domani, will moderate.
“The event explores inclusivity in sport — including amateur levels — with a focus on transgender people, highlighting the role of civil society, lived experiences, and the voices of athletes,” says Milano Pride on its website.
The games will take place against the backdrop of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.
President Donald Trump last February issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S. A group of Republican lawmakers in response to the directive demanded the International Olympics Committee ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
The IOC in 2021 adopted its “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” that includes the following provisions:
• 3.1 Eligibility criteria should be established and implemented fairly and in a manner that does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.
• 3.2 Provided they meet eligibility criteria that are consistent with principle 4 (“Fairness”, athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.
• 3.3 Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.
The 2034 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City. The 2028 Summer Olympics will occur in Los Angeles.
China
Two Chinese men detained over AI-generated picture of pandas engaging in same-sex behavior
Arrests part of increased online surveillance, LGBTQ rights crackdown
Chinese authorities have detained two men after they shared an artificially altered image that linked queer identity with a specific city.
The Washington Post on Jan. 21 reported the men — who are 29 and 33 — circulated an AI-generated picture depicting pandas engaging in same-sex behavior in Chengdu, a major city in southwestern China often referred to as the “panda capital” due to its association with giant panda conservation. Local officials described the sharing of the image as “malicious,” and police in Chengdu took the men into custody.
Authorities also suspended the two men’s social media accounts, accusing them of spreading misinformation presented as legitimate news. According to the Post, the artificially generated image was posted alongside a fabricated headline, giving the appearance of an authentic news report. The image depicted two male pandas mating.
According to an official police report, police said the fabricated image was presented in the format of a legitimate news article and accompanied by a false headline. The caption read, “Chengdu: Two male Sichuan giant pandas successfully mate for the first time without human intervention,” authorities said.
Chinese regulators have in recent years tightened oversight of AI and online content.
Under the Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services, issued in 2023, providers and users of generative AI systems are required to comply with existing laws, adhere to social and ethical standards, and refrain from producing or disseminating false or misleading information. Additional rules that took effect on Sept. 1, 2025, require online platforms to clearly label AI-generated content, a measure authorities have said is intended to curb misinformation and maintain order in digital spaces.
Police under Chinese law are permitted to impose administrative detention of up to 15 days for offenses deemed to disrupt public order, a category that includes the fabrication or dissemination of false information online. Such cases are handled outside the criminal court system and do not require formal prosecution.
According to a statement the Chengdu Public Security Bureau’s Chenghua branch released, police opened an investigation after receiving public reports that online accounts were spreading false information about the city. Authorities said officers collected evidence shortly afterward and placed the two individuals under administrative detention.
The detentions are not an isolated case.
The Washington Blade in July 2025 reported a Chinese female writer was arrested and subjected to a strip search after publishing gay erotic fiction online. At least 30 other writers — most of them women in their 20s — in the months that followed publicly described similar encounters with law enforcement, including home raids and questioning related to their online writing.
ShanghaiPRIDE, a Chinese LGBTQ advocacy group that organized annual Pride events in the city, has remained indefinitely suspended since 2021. In the same period, dozens of LGBTQ-focused accounts have been removed from WeChat, China’s largest social media platform, as authorities intensified oversight of online content related to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Authorities in 2021 detained the founder of LGBT Rights Advocacy China. They later released them on the condition that he shut down the organization, which ceased operations shortly afterward.
China decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 when it removed consensual same-sex sexual relations from the country’s criminal code. The Chinese Society of Psychiatry in 2001 formally removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Despite those changes, same-sex relationships remain unrecognized under Chinese law, and there are no legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Public advocacy for LGBTQ rights remains tightly restricted, with authorities continuing to limit community organizing, public events and online expression related to sexual minority issues.
Within China’s LGBTQ community, transgender and gender non-conforming people remain among the most vulnerable. Under current regulations, access to gender-affirming surgery is subject to strict requirements, including being at least 18 years old, unmarried, obtaining parental consent and having no criminal record — procedures that are required in order to legally change one’s gender on official documents.
China’s system of online governance places responsibility on both users and platforms to prevent the spread of prohibited content. Social media companies are required to conduct real-name verification, monitor user activity and remove posts that violate regulations, while individuals can be punished for content authorities determine to have caused public misunderstanding or social disruption.
“Actually, at least three similar incidents have occurred in Chengdu recently, all involving netizens posting on social media linking Chengdu with homosexuality, resulting in legal repercussions. This isn’t just about giant pandas. I think the local police’s reaction was somewhat excessive,” said Renn Hao, a Chinese queer activist. “The content was actually praising Chengdu’s inclusivity, and there was no need to punish them with regulations like ‘maliciously spreading false information.’”
“This situation reflects the strict censorship of LGBT related content in the area,” they added. “This censorship makes LGBT-related content increasingly invisible, and people are even more afraid to post or mention it. This not only impacts the LGBTQ+ community in China but also hinders public understanding and awareness of this group.”
Advocacy groups are demanding the Trump-Vance administration not to deport two gay men to Iran.
MS Now on Jan. 23 reported the two men are among the 40 Iranian nationals who the White House plans to deport.
Iran is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
The Washington Blade earlier this month reported LGBTQ Iranians have joined anti-government protests that broke out across the country on Dec. 28. Human rights groups say the Iranian government has killed thousands of people since the demonstrations began.
Rebekah Wolf of the American Immigration Council, which represents the two men, told MS Now her clients were scheduled to be on a deportation flight on Jan. 25. A Human Rights Campaign spokesperson on Tuesday told the Blade that one of the men “was able to obtain a temporary stay of removal from the” 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the other “is facing delayed deportation as the result of a measles outbreak at the facility where they’re being held.”
“My (organization, the American Immigration Council) represents those two gay men,” said American Immigration Council Senior Fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick in a Jan. 23 post on his Bluesky account. “They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump (administration) denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.”
“They are terrified,” added Reichlin-Melnick.
My org @immcouncil.org represents those two gay men. They had been arrested on charges of sodomy by Iranian moral police, and fled the country seeking asylum. They face the death penalty if returned, yet the Trump admin denied their asylum claims in a kangaroo court process.
They are terrified.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:26 AM
Reichlin-Melnick in a second Bluesky post said “deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act.”
“That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights,” he added.
Deporting people to Iran right now, as body bags line the street, is an immoral, inhumane, and unjust act. That ICE is still considering carrying out the flight this weekend is a sign of an agency and an administration totally divorced from basic human rights. www.ms.now/news/trump-d…
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) January 23, 2026 at 8:27 AM
HRC Vice President of Government Affairs David Stacy in a statement to the Blade noted Iran “is one of 12 nations that still execute queer people, and we continue to fear for their safety.” Stacy also referenced Renee Good, a 37-year-old lesbian woman who a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, and Andry Hernández Romero, a gay Venezuelan asylum seeker who the Trump-Vance administration “forcibly disappeared” to El Salvador last year.
“This out-of-control administration continues to target immigrants and terrorize our communities,” said Stacy. “That same cruelty murdered Renee Nicole Good and imprisoned Andry Hernández Romero. We stand with the American Immigration Council and demand that these men receive the due process they deserve. Congress must refuse to fund this outrage and stand against the administration’s shameless dismissal of our constitutional rights.”
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