— I’m a transgender queer person, a transgender man. Nikita.
— Natalia. God, were we supposed to prepare for this? Well, I’ll pass as a heterosexual person, to make this all simpler, but honestly I’m not a big fan of that self-definition. It’s hard for me.
— We’re best friends. It’s called “besties.”

How we met

We’ve known each other since roughly the start of the full-scale invasion — plus a tiny bit. It was the forming of a new circle after February 24, when the old circle broke apart into atoms and then something beautiful and new took shape.

It was simply an unfortunate coincidence that we hadn’t met before that, because our circles overlap so much that for some reason we never crossed paths.

I don’t remember when I found out about it. Most likely it came in little pieces, in episodes: like, well, Nikita — okay, some other guy — okay. Are they a couple or aren’t they a couple? Nobody really told us, and asking felt kind of lame.

I just feel like I’m always upfront right away — if I don’t say it directly, then you can always tell by looking at me. I walk in like: right, I’m queer. And I don’t see it. That filter doesn’t switch on for me: I don’t register that anything is off here, at all, basically. So you weren’t hiding it, I simply wasn’t paying attention. It slotted right in as normal.

It’s such a twisted idea

This whole discourse about queer people somehow undermining the strength of society, or safety, or traditional values — it’s such a twisted idea. It’s so dumb that I don’t even know how to argue with it, how to comment on it.

But we still have to deal with it anyway, because it has consequences. People believe it, and then all of it lands on vulnerable groups of people.

A friendship where you don’t have to explain anything

I know for certain that Natalia goes to every Pride, to every demonstration there’s been. And that isn’t something that has to be discussed separately at all — that I need some kind of special support. Natalia simply supports human rights, and she does it for herself too.

It’s the kind of friendship where I don’t have to teach the other person anything or explain things about myself. She knows it all already: how human rights work, how minorities work, how discrimination works. So we simply don’t have to talk it through separately. And as for the support that’s there — there’s an endless amount of it.

What I do is the gentle, tender education and awareness-raising of cisgender heterosexual people. Little by little I introduce them to Nikita and explain some basic things — that’s probably about the level of it. I understand that the specific people around you need a bit of a nudge. They might ask some dumb questions, but let them ask me those dumb questions — I’ll enlighten them.

We take this patch of ground and make it decent here

I ended up here because I never got what the deal with homophobia even was. When I heard all of it, I was like: well, this is roughly the same as horoscopes. Someone said that Aries are bad-bad-bad, and we all believe it. Seriously? Where is the logic in that? Where’s the scientific basis? People, what are you even talking about?

For me it was never anything substantial. Well, there’s this superstition. And then a crowd simply appeared, and with the crowd came the marches, and with the marches came more crowd. And that’s it, you’re just there.

It matters to me to pull the environment around me up a little, so that it’s more comfortable to exist in that environment afterward. Simply so that this ignorance doesn’t grate on my ears. And it’s probably an age-related change, when you stop chasing after the whole world and think: okay, long story short, we take this patch of ground and here we make it decent.

Human rights are shared by everyone

It seems that it’s dangerous, but you have to think very carefully about whether it’s really dangerous to say: “I support this.” Because most likely it won’t affect your career, and nothing terrible will happen to you because of it. There are very few people who could be harmed by saying: “I don’t support homophobia.”

Human rights are shared by everyone. The fact that you were born and ended up outside this group is pure chance. You could just as easily have ended up inside it. And when you work on human rights in any part of them, you level them up for everyone — and they get leveled up for you too. So believe me, it’s in your interest.

Community is the most important thing we can give one another

We have to create the space, the environment around us that would undermine these outdated dogmas. And when we’re lonely, when we don’t know who to turn to, there is, first of all, the community. And second, there are more and more people who are becoming friendly toward the community, because this is about universal human values.

If we discriminate against someone today, that doesn’t mean you won’t become the discriminated group tomorrow. You could be singled out by some trait that turns out to be unpopular or new, or that frightens society. Society changes, but discrimination repeats itself.

Right now, in the conditions we’re living in, community — human community in general — is the most important thing we can give one another. Because some kind of faith in humanity rests on it.

A person can find themselves only next to another person, when they have a witness. I have a witness to the fact that I exist, to who I am. And developmentally, that’s what gives us a chance at some kind of personal wholeness.

We have to keep doing this in adult life: building communities, strengthening them, making them safe and making them the kind where we can be sure that there is definitely someone who will lend a shoulder in a difficult moment.

When you’re lonely, go to people

I can transcribe it in one sentence for anyone who finds this too complicated: it’s fine, everything’s great, everything’s really great.

And what do you do when you’re lonely? Go to people. I mean, like, when we’re lonely we go to people, when we’re tired we rest. The logic there is fairly simple, but sometimes we forget it.

Why are people separated out into some category at all? Well, except for human rights work — okay, no questions there. But in general, when they’re considered not like everyone else… They’re exactly the same as everyone. Don’t make things up.