Trans refugee speaks about fleeing brutal anti-LGBTQ+ persecution in Russia-occupied territories

Six months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Lilia Khvylka had a decision to make.

The transgender Ukrainian, who grew up on the Crimean Peninsula, was already living under Russian occupation; Vladimir Putin invaded and annexed that Ukrainian territory in 2014.

Now Khvylka was under house arrest for posting pro-Ukrainian messages on social media, she told Mezha, an independent Ukrainian news outlet.

“They opened a case against me under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation – discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. This is a very serious crime, which they classify as terrorism. They were going to set a preventive measure for me literally in the coming days.”

Khvylka had already been outfitted with an ankle bracelet to monitor her movements.

She recalled taking part in the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and restored the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine.

The same year, Putin invaded Crimea.

“When the Russian authorities arrived, freedom of speech completely disappeared. Ukrainian activists and journalists immediately began leaving or disappearing,” Khvylka said.

At the same time, Khvylka was navigating her transition.

“At 16, I already knew I would undertake a transgender transition, because I am a girl. But I was very afraid to go to doctors in Russia or talk to anyone about it.”

In Crimea, she was forced to hide her identity; there, she was known as Illya Gantsevskyi.

Facing the prospect of 15 years in prison for her posts and terrified her true identity would come to light, Khvylka fled. The so-called head of the Republic of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, had already declared war on LGBTQ+ people.

“I cut off my bracelet and ran away,” she said.

Khvylka left the peninsula through Russia and Belarus, holding only a Ukrainian birth certificate. Volunteers, whom she found online through an underground network of supporters, helped in her getaway.

With her flight to freedom, Khvylka avoided a fate that other LGBTQ+ Ukrainians have been unable to escape.

“This included torture, torment, public humiliation, bodily injuries, and sexual violence,” said human rights lawyer Karolina Palaychuk.

Documented testimonies from people in the Kherson region, occupied by Russia for nine months at the start of the war, confirm the terror inflicted on LGBTQ+ people in the Russian-occupied territory.

“One of the people who gave these testimonies said that he was stopped at a checkpoint, his phone was checked, they saw the relevant content, and they immediately threw him into a basement,” said Iryna Yuzyk, manager for the Center for Human Rights, ZMINA. “There, they beat him, forced him to wear a red dress, took him to interrogations in a red dress, naked, they tormented him. He was lucky to survive.”

Another captive was Diana, a 24-year-old lesbian.

“She used to work as a shop assistant. She had colorful hair; they drew attention to her. They came with searches to her home, found a rainbow flag, and also threw her into the basement, where there were another 15 people. Then they lined them up and shot them at random. Only four survived.”

Human rights advocates are advising all LGBTQ+ Ukrainians — in particular activists who have a history of advocacy in conflict with Russia’s 2023 Supreme Court ruling declaring the LGBTQ+ community a “terrorist organization” — to leave the occupied territories, where protection under Ukrainian law no longer applies.

According to NGO Prozhektor, at least 50 people who’ve left the occupied territories have endured torture and violence due to their LGBTQ+ identity.

Seven victims have filed statements; thirteen are witnesses to other crimes.

September 12, 2025 0

Supreme Court allows trans kids in South Carolina to use the right bathrooms in school

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Wednesday that South Carolina cannot enforce its anti-trans bathroom ban against one transgender student while his challenge to the law moves through the courts.

The law, which went into effect in 2024, requires students in South Carolina public schools to use bathrooms that align with their “biological sex … as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth.”

Last year, a 13-year-old transgender boy identified in court documents as John Doe was suspended for using the boys’ restroom at his Berkeley County school. Despite none of his peers objecting to his use of the boys’ restroom, when Doe returned from suspension, school staff were instructed to police his bathroom use, and teachers began dividing students into “boys” and “girls” lines before restroom breaks to enforce the policy.

Faced with constant harassment by teachers and the threat of another suspension, Doe’s parents withdrew him from the school and enrolled him in an online program.

The following November, Doe’s family, along with LGBTQ+ advocacy group Alliance for Full Acceptance, filed a class action suit challenging the South Carolina law. As MSNBC notes, a district court judge in the state halted the case in July after the Supreme Court announced it would hear two cases related to transgender women’s participation in sports. Doe appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which issued an injunction in the boy’s favor in August, preventing the state, the school district, and other defendants from enforcing the law against him while the appeal proceeds through the courts.

According to MSNBC, the three-judge panel cited the court’s 2020 ruling in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board that trans students are entitled to use restrooms aligned with their gender identity. However, George W. Bush-appointee Steven Agee stipulated that the Grimm decision was the only reason he sided with Doe and expressed hope that the Supreme Court would overturn that case, which he described as having been decided wrongly.

That same month, South Carolina asked the Supreme Court to lift the Fourth Circuit’s injunction, arguing in its emergency relief application that Grimm was wrongly decided and that the Fourth Circuit should have considered the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld Tennessee’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for trans youth. The state argued that it, the school district, and students were “suffering actual, ongoing, material harms” due to Doe being allowed to use the boys’ restroom at school.

On Wednesday, a six-justice majority denied South Carolina’s request, with Republican appointees Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch saying they would have sided with the state, according to HuffPost.

In its order, the Court wrote that its denial of South Carolina’s application was “not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation.” Rather, the justices wrote, “it is based on the standards applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court.”

September 11, 2025 0

LGBTQ Russians flee Putin’s crackdown to build new lives in Spain

Legal crackdown in Russia

In 2013, Russian lawmakers passed a government-sponsored ban on distributing “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships” among minors.

In December 2022, after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Putin signed an amendment to the law, extending the prohibition to all age groups.

The crackdown has led to the arrest of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists, with many others leaving the country.

Andreev, who worked as a TV journalist in the city of Kazan in southwestern Russia, said he had to hide his identity after he was accused of spreading “LGBTQ+ propaganda.”

“When I once wore earrings on air, I was called in by the news director and the executive program producer. She told me they had received many calls complaining about so-called gay propaganda because of the earrings,” he said.

He decided to come to Spain in 2023 on the recommendation of a friend, who had also moved.

Diana said she was fired after her boss saw her kiss her partner. She did not want to give details of her job or where she lived for fear of retribution.

While on holiday in Georgia in 2022, her home in Russia was visited by authorities because of her volunteer work with Ukrainians in Russian-occupied areas, and she decided she could not return. Growing anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in Georgia pushed her to move to Spain two years later.

Red tape and barriers

Andreev and Diana both applied for asylum and are still waiting for a ruling.

The legally mandated six-month process often stretches much longer, even up to two years. After six months, asylum seekers are allowed to seek work.

But it can take months to get an initial appointment with immigration authorities, and without this, asylum applicants cannot access state aid or support from organizations like CEAR.

Delays are also driving an illegal black market.

According to NGOs, Spanish police and officials, criminals collect immigration appointments using bots and then sell these so-called “mafia de citas,” or mafia appointments, for hundreds of euros on WhatsApp or Telegram to desperate asylum seekers.

And now things are getting for Russians hoping to submit asylum claims in Spain.

From July 12, Spain requires Russian citizens to obtain transit visas to pass through the country.

In the past, Russians would buy a ticket with a layover in Spain and then seek asylum during their stopover.

“It makes it difficult to reach safe territory, in this case Spain, because they no longer have a legal and safe route,” said Munoz, adding that reforms were needed to make the system more efficient.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is responsible for visa policy, did not respond to requests for comment.

While they await their asylum decisions, Diana and Andreev are rebuilding their lives.

Andreev, who volunteers in an LGBTQ rights group, has found a home in a small town near Madrid and is working on his Spanish — he hopes to return to journalism one day. But he has struggled to build new relationships.

The stress of job hunting and trying to get all the documents he needs, plus the time it takes up make it hard to focus on building connections, he said.

Diana now has stable online work and says she has found her chosen family in Madrid, mainly thanks to online networks of LGBTQ+ Russians who offer each other support.

She feels free, even if she still fears Russian retaliation.

“If I want, I can date women, I can date men, I can date whoever. I’m not in a hurry. Why would you be in a hurry? The Spanish lifestyle relaxes you a little bit.”

September 9, 2025 0

The president was sued for deleting “radical” LGBTQ+ webpages. He just lost.

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

As part of a legal settlement with medical associations and advocacy groups, the current presidential administration has agreed to restore more than 100 websites and online resources related to gender identity and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

“I am extremely proud of the health care community in Washington state and our partners in this case for pushing back on this egregious example of government overreach” said Dr. John Bramhall, president of the Washington State Medical Association (WSMA), the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “This was not a partisan issue-open data benefits everyone and ensuring its availability should be a bipartisan priority.”

In January, the president issued an executive order directing federal agencies to eliminate references to “gender” and “gender identity” from federal policies, documents, and public-facing materials. In response, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) removed public health data from federal websites, including information on pregnancy risks, painkiller addiction, and the AIDS crisis. Hundreds of webpages addressing health concerns relevant to the LGBTQ+ community, including the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) HIV risk-reduction tool, were removed.

“This action proves the … administration’s goal of making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ Americans to find federal resources or otherwise see ourselves reflected under his presidency,” GLAAD’s President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in January.

Physicians, scientists, and other medical professionals who relied on these resources were left scrambling. The Washington State Medical Association (WSMA) and other groups filed suit, arguing that the removals were “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasoned,” and violated federal transparency laws.

“This was trusted health information that vanished in a blink of an eye-resources that, among other things, physicians rely on to manage patients’ health conditions and overall care,” said Dr. Bramhall. “Not only was our ability to provide care to our patients compromised, but our trust in our federal health institutions has also been badly shaken.”

As part of the agreed settlement finalized earlier this month, the government must restore these webpages and cease deleting other resources. Graham Short, a spokesperson for WSMA, told the Associated Press that the organization expects the websites to be fully restored in the coming weeks.

Despite the settlement, HHS stated that it “remains committed to its mission of removing radical gender and DEI ideology from federal programs, subject to applicable law, to ensure taxpayer dollars deliver meaningful results for the American people.”

Separately, in July, a judge overseeing a similar lawsuit brought by Doctors for America ordered the government to restore additional websites that were removed. The Associated Press reported that 167 of those sites had been reinstated, while 33 were still under review.

September 9, 2025 0

Creator of the trans flag is fleeing U.S. due to LGBTQ+ persecution

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Nation of Burkina Faso will start throwing gay people in jail

Read more at LGBTQ Nation.

The West African nation of Burkina Faso’s ruling junta unanimously passed a law banning homosexuality yesterday.

“The law provides for a prison sentence of between two and five years as well as fines,” said Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala. “If a person is a perpetrator of homosexual or similar practices, all the bizarre behavior, they will go before the judge.”

He said that foreigners will be deported under the law.

Burkina Faso has been under the rule of a military junta since September 2022, when former Interim President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba – who himself came to power in a coup d’état several months earlier – was removed from his office. The civil unrest is a result of the government’s inability to contain an Islamist insurgency.

The Muslim-majority nation had been among the 22 out of 54 African states where same-sex relations were not criminalized. The one-time French colony didn’t inherit anti-homosexuality laws found in many former British colonies.

But the bill to ban homosexuality was supported by 71 unelected members of the transitional parliament yesterday as part of a wider set of family and citizenship law reforms “popularized through an awareness campaign,” officials said. The bill was initially approved by the military government’s leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, last year. Traoré has been shifting the country’s focus away from its close relationship with France and toward Russia.

The law goes into effect immediately.

Human rights groups have accused the government of cracking down on human rights with mass arrests and conscripting critics into the military.

In late 2024, neighboring Mali also banned homosexuality. Two other African nations – Ghana and Uganda – increased the punishments for homosexuality in recent years.

September 2, 2025 0

“Bathroom bill” aimed at trans people approved by Texas House after decade of failed attempts