My name is Yana, I’m 23. This is my wife Viktoriia, we’ve been together for 7 years. — And this is my friend Yana, we’ve known each other for more than seven years. So it turns out I’ve known her even longer. — Yes, and I’ve known her longer than I’ve known you. We knew each other separately, and then it just happened that the girls were together — and that was that. — And you were the one who suggested we be friends. — Yes, yes, yes.

How I found out

Back then we weren’t as close as we are now. I think I found out somewhere online, or through gossip. We live in a very small town, and somehow it all spread very fast.

How did I react? I think I thought it was very brave — to tell everyone. My attitude… well, I don’t really remember what it was back then, because it was many years ago, but there was nothing negative, no emotions like that.

We didn’t feel any change on your side. — Absolutely not. Not from you and not from anyone else, because I’m also in touch with her mom, and I used to work with her dad. And we never felt that anything had changed in the way we talk to each other.

An ordinary family

It’s probably important to clarify right now, in the context of this conversation, that all of our friends are heterosexual. There isn’t a single LGBTQI+ couple in our circle, absolutely all of our friends are straight. And, well, I don’t know — we haven’t stopped talking to anyone.

When I came out, only one person from my circle disappeared. Out of my whole circle that’s one percent — which is very little, I think. And everyone else was supportive. I can’t say that anyone’s opinion changed dramatically.

Our friends accept us as an ordinary family. They don’t understand why anyone would think of us as somehow not normal. And when someone says something to them, they go: “What the fuck?” Like, seriously. To them we’re completely… And the fact that they’re so normal about it normalizes the whole situation for everyone. Because we really are just an ordinary family — and we deserve exactly the same ordinary treatment.

It honestly makes me really happy when people say they look up to us, because we’re such a good family. Well, that’s what people say — and it makes me really happy.

Myths about LGBTQI+ people

Let’s take any myth about LGBTQI+ people and just laugh at it. Straight down the list — every single one. Because the overwhelming majority of these myths rest on, and come from, people who know absolutely nothing about the subject and simply invent them.

Because, well, it’s a neat trick, isn’t it — when you dislike something, and then you justify why you dislike it. So people found these excuses for themselves, and then turned them into labels and stereotypes.

Supporting publicly

Well, I think it depends on the person. For instance, I would probably want to show support publicly. I think that if a situation came up where the girls needed public support, I would do it. But it also depends on the person.

Some people are ready to speak up publicly and show support. And some are still maybe afraid of being judged — of being seen with Yana and Vika — so they support them in conversation, in everyday life and so on, but publicly, say on social media, they’re not ready to do it.

When someone from the LGBTQI+ community speaks up, it’s taken as some kind of protest: look at me, everyone. But when a straight person says it, people listen more — and then it isn’t considered propaganda. Right, then it’s not propaganda. For some reason that’s how it strangely works in society.

Be gentle with yourself

Here you just need to listen to yourself, believe in yourself, know for sure that there are people who support you. Everyone around you can’t turn away — that’s impossible. There will still be people who support you. You just have to do all of it as gently with yourself as you possibly can.

You also have to understand that we live in a country where the question of safety has to come first. So if someone is trying to decide whether to come out or not, the first thing I would advise is to ask yourself: is it safe for me to come out right now — in the situation and the life I’m in at this moment. Because maybe you don’t always need to shout it out loud; maybe you need to wait for a certain moment, when you can say it quietly, but very confidently.

We’re just like everyone else

There are still people out there who never got the news that evolution happened, that the internet appeared, that you can look things up — and who still say that being LGBTQI+ is a disease. That’s a separate category of people who need to be sent back to school so they can absorb some basic facts about how a human being, a personality, is formed. That’s my number one. The dumbest thing I hear is “a disease.”

It really hurts when LGBTQI+ people are seen as somehow abnormal, as not like everyone else. Because personally I consider myself absolutely like everyone else. I’m unique, one of a kind and all that — but I’m just the same as every other person. And my family is in no way whatsoever different from other families. Maybe it’s different in that we love each other very, very much. Maybe not everyone loves like that. We are absolutely the same. There’s no need to be afraid of us, or look down on us, or anything like that.

I believe this will reach our society, our people. It’s already reaching them, because there’s a huge difference between how I felt seven years ago in Ukraine, in society, and how I feel now.