European Union
Gay Ukrainian man struggles to rebuild life in Berlin
Dmytro Shapoval arrived in Germany in March 2022
Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Berlin from April 12-15.
BERLIN — A gay Ukrainian man with HIV who fled his war-torn country more than two years ago remains in Berlin.
Dmytro Shapoval first spoke with the Washington Blade in July 2022.
He was working at an IT company’s call center and studying web and UX design in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, when Russia launched its war against his country on Feb. 24, 2022. Shapoval less than a month later swam across a river with his cat Peach and entered Poland.
He arrived in the German capital on March 19, 2022.
“I feel very secure here,” said Shapoval when he first spoke with the Blade on July 22, 2022, during a reception that took place at the end of a two-day meeting with European activists the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration organized.
Shapoval again spoke with the Blade on April 15 while he was at ORAM’s offices near Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz.
He said he was sleeping on a mattress on the kitchen floor of a Ukrainian friend’s apartment in Berlin’s Wedding neighborhood, while looking for a more permanent place to live.
Shapoval had just finished an IT course at a private university, but told the Blade he “was not in that headspace to study” because of the depression from which he said he suffers. Shapoval also told the Blade the German government has postponed his residency permit for a year.
“It’s challenging,” he said.
Germany has granted temporary protection to nearly 1 million Ukrainians
The German government has granted temporary protection to more than 900,000 Ukrainians since the war began. (The U.N. Refugee Agency says there are 2.2 million refugees in Germany.)
Ukrainians are able to enter Germany without a visa.
The German government offers those who have registered for residency a “basic income” that helps them pay for housing, food and other basic needs. Ukrainian refugees can also access health care, language classes, job training programs and childcare.
Shapoval and other single Ukrainian refugees receive €563 ($609.30) a month through the program.
Shapoval told the Blade it is difficult for him to find a job because his legal status remains uncertain. He also complained about German bureaucracy, which he described as “such a hell here.”
Shapoval’s mother remains in Dnipro, a city on the Dnipro River that is roughly 300 miles southeast of Kyiv.
He said the first year of the war was “pretty quiet” in Dnipro because it is not as big as Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and other Ukrainian cities. Shapoval said the situation in Dnipro changed last fall.
Shapoval told the Blade a Russian missile hit a nine-story civilian building in the city.
“I had the worst day of my life because I knew that my mom was going to Dnipro,” he said.
Shapoval said the building the missile hit struck was close to his grandmother’s home.
“I was so horrified,” he told the Blade. “I was trying to call her to get in touch. She was not answering at all.”
Shapoval said his grandmother called him several hours after the attack. She told him the missile strike damaged the city’s communications infrastructure.
“It’s pretty horrible,” said Shapoval.
Shapoval spoke with the Blade hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a controversial conscription law that seeks to replenish the country’s military. Zelensky last month also enacted a statute that lowers the minimum draft age from 27 to 25.
Shapoval said he does not want to go into the military, and has thoughts that he would die in the war. Shapoval also told the Blade he does not watch news reports about Ukraine because they exacerbate his depression.
“Just seeing these buildings destroyed and sometimes (at night when) people are sleeping there, or also (seeing) news about kids being stolen into Russia and then brainwashed there in these camps … is really bad,” he said.
‘You’re a white refugee, so everything’s fine’
Shapoval noted support for Ukrainian refugees in Germany has begun to wane.
He recalled a conversation he had at a queer bookstore in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood during which someone who he described as German asked him what its like to be a refugee.
“Without even letting me answer without any space, he’s like, ‘Oh, but you’re a white refugee, so everything’s fine,'” recalled Shapoval.
Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, launched a surprise attack against Israel.
Shapoval said the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip has pushed the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the plight of Ukrainian refugees out of the headlines. He also recalled an exchange he had with a Syrian woman with whom he had become friends in Berlin after Oct. 7.
Shapoval said she wrote in an Instagram post that “one or two years of war in Ukraine, this amount of kids died and two months of war in Palestine, this amount of kids died.”
“I’m like, what the fuck is that?” he recalled. “It’s not a competition of dead babies.”
“The fact you put two in comparison already makes one side less valuable and one side more valuable, but it’s also different pain,” added Shapoval. “I know that it is also horrible there … it seems like people are not understanding that.”
Shapoval said he reached out to her and tried to explain his perspective.
“It’s a bit hard right now,” he told the Blade.
European Union
European Commission says all EU countries should ban conversion therapy
Recommendation ‘an important step forward for LGBTI rights across Europe’
The European Commission on Wednesday said all European Union countries should ban so-called conversion therapy.
The recommendation comes weeks after the European Parliament voted in favor of prohibiting the widely discredited practice across the EU. More than 1.2 million people signed a campaign in support of the ban that ACT (Against Conversion Therapy) LGBT launched in 2024 through the EU’s European Citizens Initiative framework.
“We warmly welcome today’s commitment from the European Commission to a recommendation on ending conversion practices, an important step forward for LGBTI rights across Europe,” said ILGA Europe in a statement.
Seven EU countries — Belgium, Cyprus, France, Malta, Norway, Portugal, and Spain — have banned conversion therapy outright.
Greece in 2022 banned the practice for minors. German lawmakers in 2020 passed a law that prohibits conversion therapy for minors and for adults who have not consented to undergoing the widely discredited practice.
ILGA Europe said the European Commission’s recommendation “highlights how much work remains to be done.”
“Ending conversion practices cannot stop at symbolic commitments or fragmented national approaches,” stressed the advocacy group. “We need coordinated EU action, proper training for professionals, and survivor-centered support systems that recognize the serious harm these practices cause.”
“More than one million people supported the European Citizens’ Initiative calling for change,” added ILGA Europe. “The message is clear: conversion practices are not therapy or belief, they are a form of violence that Europe can and should end.”
European Union
European Parliament backs EU-wide conversion therapy ban
More than 1.2 million people backed campaign
The European Parliament on Wednesday voted in favor of banning so-called conversion therapy across the European Union.
ACT (Against Conversion Therapy) LGBT in 2024 launched a campaign in support of the ban through the EU’s European Citizens Initiative framework. More than 1.2 million people ultimately signed it.
The proposed ban had the support of 405 MEPs. The European Commission is expected to formally respond to it by May 18.
Seven EU countries — Belgium, Cyprus, France, Malta, Norway, Portugal, and Spain — have banned conversion therapy outright.
Greece in 2022 banned the practice for minors. German lawmakers in 2020 passed a law that prohibits conversion therapy for minors and for adults who have not consented to undergoing the widely discredited practice.
European Union
Top EU court strikes down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law
Ruling issued days after voters outed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán
The European Union’s top court on Tuesday struck down Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law.
Hungarian MPs in 2021 approved Act LXXIX of 2021.
“It shall be forbidden to make accessible to persons who have not attained the age of 18 years advertisement that depicts sexuality in a gratuitous manner or that propagates or portrays divergence from self-identity corresponding to sex at birth, sex change or homosexuality,” it reads.
The European Commission in 2022 challenged the law. Sixteen EU countries — Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden — joined the lawsuit. The European Parliament also supported it. Outgoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, for his part, said his government would defend the law.
The EU Court of Justice heard the case in 2024.
A press release that announced the ruling on Tuesday said Hungary “acted in breach of EU law.”
“The court finds, for the first time, a separate infringement of Article 2 TEU (Treaty on European Union), which lists the values on which the (European) Union is founded and which are common to all the Member States,” it reads. “The aspects of the amending law targeting content which portrays or promotes deviation from the self-identity corresponding to the sex assigned at birth, gender reassignment, or homosexuality constitute a coordinated series of discriminatory measures which are in breach, in a way that is both manifest and particularly serious, of the rights of non-cisgender persons — including transgender persons — or non-heterosexual persons, as well as the values of respect for human dignity, equality and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”
“Consequently, that law is contrary to the very identity of the (European) Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails,” notes the press release. “Hungary cannot validly rely on its national identity as justification for adopting a law which is in breach of the values referred to above.”
The Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ rights group, said the ruling “is a milestone for the protection of human rights in the European Union, and it is also a historic victory for LGBTQI people in Hungary.”
The court issued its ruling nine days after Péter Magyar ousted Orbán in Hungary’s elections.
Orbán took office in 2010.
He and his government faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown that included laws that banned Pride events and other public LGBTQ events. (Upwards of 100,000 people last June denied the prohibition and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.)
“Those amendments constitute a particularly serious interference with several fundamental rights protected by the (EU) Charter (of Fundamental Rights), namely the prohibition on discrimination based on sex,” notes the court’s press release.
The EU since Orbán took office has withheld upwards of €35 billion ($41.2 billion) in funds to Hungary in response to concerns over corruption, rule of law, and other issues. Magyar has said he will work with Brussels to unfreeze the money.
ILGA-Europe Deputy Director Katrin Hugendubel urged Maygar’s government to repeal the law.
“With this ruling, the CJEU (The EU Court of Justice) is confirming what we have been saying for six years,” said Hugendubel. “There is now no excuse for the Commission not to require Hungary to quickly withdraw the law. Hungary cannot enter a post-Orbán era without repealing this legislation, including the Pride ban.”
“If Péter Magyar truly aims to be pro-EU, he must place this at the top of his agenda for his first 100 days in office, as an essential part of his EU facing reforms,” added Hugendubel.
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