If we think that here in the US LGBT rights are under attack note that queer refugees fleeing Ukraine fight to find allies for housing, medical care.
For example, Edward Reese, a queer activist who works with Kyiv Pride, decided to flee Ukraine on March 8, he knew it was going to be a long journey.
He walked for an hour in the freezing cold to the nearest subway station, spending “one hell of a night” there. Then a day-long bus ride to Lviv, and then Reese was finally able to set foot in a small Polish border town.
Reese slept for an hour or two in the morning in a big hall with tons of other people on these makeshift beds.
The good news: he took a bus to Warsaw, where a local LGBTQ advocacy group connected him with queer-friendly hosts who could temporarily house him.
Although Poland has limited the rights of LGBTQ people in recent years, Reese, who is non-binary and uses he/him pronouns, said he feels safe in the country.
But that’s largely because he was quickly welcomed and aided by Poland’s LGBTQ community.
“Poland is not necessarily the best country for LGBTQ people to live, but activists created a database of people that they know that are part of the community so they can match them with people that are in need of safe shelter.”
European organizations like Warsaw Pride, like Budapest Pride, have reached out to us like in the first day of the war, offering their help, shelter, and transportation from the border.
Some of the neighboring countries refugees have to pass through have become hostile to LGBTQ people in recent years.
In Hungary, in 2020, lawmakers amended the constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual union and allow only married couples to adopt.
In Poland, same-sex marriage is not legally recognized and adoption by same-sex couples is illegal.
So the difficulty is not just making it to the border checkpoints but to be able to get safe haven once they do cross the border to a neighboring country. Poland’s racist and ultra nationalists target LGBT people
Another problem is that transgender women who trying to leave the country is that their government ID still identifies them as male, meaning they are subject to the law barring males between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country.
Trans women whose gender marker is not matching their real gender or gender non-conforming people with a gender marker in their passport, they all are affected by this situation and they all are in danger when crossing the border.
On a related topic Black Ukraine refugees allege discrimination while trying to escape Russian invasion. This has put a spotlight on alleged racism. The concern: immigrants from Africa and other people of color who call Ukraine home.
In the United States, the issue has gotten the attention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League, which signed a letter to the president of the European Union calling for fair and humane treatment for all.
One student from Ghana described what she saw and experienced. “Mostly they would, they would consider White people first, then Indian people, hen Arabic people before Black people,” said Ethel Otto.
Another student, from Morocco, said: “We went to the train station and they will not let us in.”
Thankfully Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted in early March saying an emergency hotline had been established specifically for African, Asian and other students wishing to leave Ukraine.
If you are a person of color and you work in Eastern Europe, racism isn’t new, I mean, racial discrimination is not new, but to see it on display and being exacerbated by war, it was just really heart-wrenching.
While social media has helped expose racial discrimination, it has also been used by Russia to spread disinformation.
Several black students who made it to Hungary are now considered third-country nationals and have been told they must move to another country or go back home within 30 days.
So if we think here in the US is bad for homophobia and racism be aware that these characteristics are made extreme by war. We should always support victims of war including queer people and people of color.