Resilience and Resistance – the LGBTIQ+ Community of Ukraine

Panel discussion
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Event will be held in English,

Europe has been deeply marked in the last year by a new war. And as always, the most vulnerable social groups again face intersectional oppression and violence. The panel will explore the ways of resistance, resilience and survival strategies through the perspectives of LGBTIQ+ activists and artists of Ukraine. We are interested in the support the international LGBTIQ+ community can offer to them. Last year, Warsaw hosted the Kyiv Pride Parade as a sign of solidarity due to the war in Ukraine. Activists, including the LGBTIQ+ community in Slovenia, have mobilized in various ways and tried to help. After a year and a half there is still no peace. What happened during this time, what were the most successful support actions and how can we continue to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian LGBTIQ+ community?

Guests:

• Maryna Shevtsova, executive director at Equal Opportunities Platform, Ukraine;
• Ksenia Termasina; social media manager at Kyiv Pride, Ukraine;
• Seymour Nezoriy, visual artist and writer, Ukraine;
• Mitja Blažič, volunteer, coordinator of fundraising initiative for LGBT-shelters in Ukraine and Slovakia, Slovenia.

Moderation: Julia Scharinger, senior consultant – gender, peace and conflict transformation, trans:verse, Austria.

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Maryna Shevtsova
Visiting Professor and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Sociology, University of Ljubljana Executive director at NGO Equal Opportunities Platform, Dnipro, Ukraine Maryna’s research interests include LGBTQ activism in Central and Eastern Europe, queer migration, and anti-gender movements. She is the author of the book “LGBTI Politics and Value Change in Ukraine and Turkey. Exporting Europe?” (Routledge 2021) and currently works on the project “Untold Stories. Experiences and narratives of Ukrainian LGBTQ refugees in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine.” In 2022, she received the Emma Goldman Award for her engagement with feminist scholarship and human rights activism. 

Ksenia Termasina, social media manager specialist at KyivPride. Ksenia has 8 years of experience in LGBTIQ activism in Ukraine. She started as a grassroots activist, but now she works with  NGOs. At KyivPride, she is  responsible for writing texts for various infomercials and working with social networks. She also takes part in the media visibility and representation work.

Seymour Nezoriy is an artist, illustrator, printmaker, and writer. Lives and works in Kyiv, Ukraine. Nezoriy creates digital art when he has an image in his head that just needs to be brought to life, paints when there are no words for what he’s feeling, and does linocuts when he’s adventurous. His work focuses on queer history (or, maybe, historical queerness) and experiences of borderline identities. Born and raised in Zaporizhzhia, both a heart of Ukrainian cossack freedom-seeking history and an industrial city, suffering heavily from russian colonisation, Nezoriy explores through his art what and how it means to be queer, trans, leftist, and Ukrainian.
Having obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Nezoriy got a nice long depression and existential crisis. For better or worse, he realised that the childhood hobby of drawing was actually the only thing that still brought him joy – and that it’s what he wanted to do. Seymour got some academic drawing, illustration, and design classes under his belt, as well as two years of studying at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv. To this experience, he mostly owes his love for linocuts and his dislike for academic art.
Nezorij has participated in student exhibitions and has presented his work at several art events and public squares in Kyiv: I sobi i lyudiam (Strichkotkatska Fabryka, 2022), Na chasi, (Strichkotkatska Fabryka, 2022), Svyato Kohannia, (Re:Place, 2022), Drujniy Prostir (KyivPride community centre, 2023). In 2021 he also wrote, illustrated and designed a queer fantasy picture book for young adults, The Lawyer for the Fairy Folk.

Mitja Blažič is a veteran in the field of activism for LGBT human rights. He was strongly involved in the movement for equal rights for LGBT-persons and their families from 2000 on. He is a co-funder of the Association DIH, worked as a program manager of Human Rights Education and of the LGBT-Youth Centre at the Non-Governmental Organization Informational Centre Legebitra and was coordinating  For all families! campaign during referendums 2012 and 2015. He graduated in Journalism at the Faculty of social science and was working as a journalist from 1994 till 2010 at the public Radio Slovenia. Currently he works as an Adviser to the Advocate for Monitoring at the Advocate of the principle of equality since 2020.