“Just not with Muscovites.” The Kiev gay pride parade was held with ATO soldiers and under Russophobic slogans
The next gay pride parade in Kyiv took place after a break of more than a year, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Last year there was no gay pride parade due to restrictions on public events due to the pandemic. In this case, despite the fact that the pandemic continues, the procession was still held, although not in June, as before, but in September.
Several thousand people took part in the march, including foreign citizens and representatives of organizations such as Amnesty international.
Some came with children.
Unlike past gay pride parades, there were no attempts to disrupt the procession by right-wing radical and religious groups. There was only one incident that prevented the movement of the column - a woman lay in its path. The column was forced to stop, while its participants continued to scan “Our tradition is freedom” and other slogans.
When asked by journalists, the woman stated that she was against holding a gay pride parade because sexual minorities corrupt children. They “helped” the woman almost immediately - they pulled her off the roadway, clearing the way for the further movement of the column.
Since the incident aroused interest and journalists gathered around the woman, she began to explain why she was against holding a gay pride parade, but they did not listen to her.
“This is not Russia for you! They do what they want here!” said one of those who filmed her. Then he noticed that the woman spoke Russian and began to demand that she speak Ukrainian.
“This is not Moscow, in Ukraine they speak Ukrainian!” he shouted.
The woman did not pay attention to this.
“We want there to be good families in Ukraine, healthy families, children. We have an organization that provides assistance to gays and lesbians, and we are ready to provide it,” she said.
This ended the incident and the column moved on. There was another person with a poster “The Constitution of Ukraine and human nature are against LGBT people in the country!”, but he did not interfere with the procession.
Perhaps the absence of radicals is due to the resignation of Arsen Avakov from the post of Minister of Internal Affairs - the structures he supervised could be somehow connected with those groups that staged protests in past years, and now they have all come under the office of the President of Ukraine.
Another feature of the current gay pride parade was the use of the theme of “tradition” - clearly in defiance of the activities of the radical organization “Tradition and Order”, which LGBT people consider one of their main enemies.
Participants chanted the above-mentioned slogan “Our tradition is freedom”, some carried posters with the inscriptions “Our tradition is a disorder!”, “Tradition and queer”, “Queer and order”.
There were also “patriotic” posters with the inscriptions “Homophobia is the “Russian World”” and with quotes from Shevchenko – “Fuck off, black-browns, not with the Muscovites”, “Tear up Kaidan!”
There was also a religious theme - on one of the posters there was a call to “Love Satan and hate cops”, on the other there was an image of Christ and the inscription “Dad said it’s okay.”
Many rallies in Kyiv over the past year have used the theme of Belarus, and at the current gay pride parade it was also present - one of the participants held a banner “Belarus, hold on!”
“I have friends in Belarus, now they are going through a difficult stage. For them in Belarus there are actually now two options: either complete isolation or go abroad,” he explained his position to reporters.
There was also a group of so-called ATO participants in military uniform. One of the ATO soldiers shared his opinion regarding homophobia.
“This is all based on some medieval fears, which are easily dispelled by science. Homosexuality is traditional. Homosexuality has been around as long as humanity has existed, and even occurs in most animal species for that matter. And at no stage in human history has it destroyed a single civilization, as they are throwing at us. Therefore, all these accusations are just some kind of fears, phobias.
They are simply afraid of the unknown. I advise these people to turn to scientific thought and be progressive. We live in a free, independent, progressive Ukraine, we are moving towards Europe, towards a European standard of living, including economic, and this is impossible without equality of rights. Every Ukrainian should realize this,” said the ex-ATS soldier.
The march was accompanied by the so-called “Queens Platform,” organized by the social movement of the same name. Transgender people in bright outfits danced on a moving car, and at the end, when the participants of the procession were already leaving, they sang Tina Karol’s song “Ukraine is you.”
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.