“In Ukraine, I used to go to work wearing my mum’s dresses and a wig,” says a trans man who has found a freer life in Prague

A fairly large ‘minority within a minority’

As part of the ‘Well-being of immigrants with a minority background’ project, which was carried out with funding from the EEA and Norwegian Funds, individual in-depth interviews were conducted alongside focus groups. This enabled queer people from Ukraine to speak openly about their feelings, experiences and concerns, as well as to offer suggestions on what would make their integration into Czech society easier.

“This isn’t actually such a small group of people,” points out Blanka Maderová, who worked on the sociological study alongside Tereza Lavičková, Andrea Stašek and Anna Cherenshchyková. “If we take into account the American survey conducted by Dario Sansone amongst students, 10 per cent of students identified as non-heterosexual.”

The most vulnerable group? Trans and non-binary people

The agency that regularly conducts the US census confirms these figures; in 2021, it also added that 1–3 per cent of Americans identify as non-binary or trans. “If we were to assume that queer people generally make up around 10 per cent of the population, this would amount to almost 60,000 people amongst the Ukrainian immigrant community in the Czech Republic,” adds Blanka Maderová by way of illustration.

It is precisely open dialogues with Ukrainian queer immigrants that have shown that the most vulnerable group amongst them are non-binary and trans people – serious mental health difficulties are mainly experienced by those who live in isolation from others. Among the project’s more optimistic findings is the realisation that, for some LGBT+ individuals, their new home in the Czech Republic has brought significantly better life prospects.

To a job interview in disguise

Stepan, a 21-year-old trans man, arrived in the Czech Republic with his mother. For him, the Czech Republic was not purely an ‘emergency’ destination against the backdrop of a war; he chose our country as a more Western, more open nation where he would have a better chance of being accepted whilst in the midst of his transition. In his home country, amongst other things, he had struggled to find work due to his gender identity. As long as Stepan presented himself as a man at job interviews, he faced rejection – so he opted for a different, more successful strategy. However, this was taking a heavy psychological toll on him.

Burnout set in quickly

“I joined an even better company, but this time I wore my mum’s clothes and bought a wig,”he said of his unconventional plan. “If that character had borne any resemblance to me – something masculine – rather than being a sort of drag persona, completely different, it would have been much worse. So yes, I only did that job as a woman [...] I was earning good money, but I burnt out. I burnt out immediately, because when people perceive you in the wrong way, it drains your energy,” he described his experience of social dysphoria. Given this career history, Stepan lived in Ukraine in constant fear that his trans identity would be revealed, which is why he hid it in most situations. And how did the situation change after arriving in the Czech Republic?

At least a rainbow sticker, please

Like many other refugees, Stepan found that, after crossing the Czech border, he received only very fragmentary information from the authorities, so he had to rely largely on help from friends and family. The LGBT context of the whole situation placed him in an even more vulnerable position amidst the bureaucratic chaos – and as he himself put it, even a small gesture indicating that he was welcome in the Czech Republic as a trans man with a bisexual orientation would have helped him immensely.“It would have been enough if there had been at least a small rainbow sticker on the door. It’s such a relief when you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing you won’t be bothering anyone,” Stepan told , describing the little things that would have given him a greater sense of security.

Trans*parent to the rescue

Thanks to the fact that the young trans Ukrainian later made his way to the Prague Pride Community Centre, where he found Trans*parent leaflets, he eventually received the support he needed through this organisation – both emotional and practical (such as being accompanied to places where Stepan could find understanding ‘interpreters’, or even seemingly trivial help such as making sure he didn’t miss his train).

Zdroj: Giphy

It is precisely this support from the local trans initiative that he regards as a turning point, after which things began to take a turn for the better – and when his vision of the Czech Republic as a country offering the chance of a better life began to materialise. Stepan says, without exaggeration, that he owes everything he has today to these supportive non-profit organisations. Moreover, the Czech environment has also benefited his family relationships.

The best birthday present

“I suppose the European way of life helped my mum to feel a bit more at ease with it all,” he says, describing how his mother came to terms with the ongoing transition more easily, partly thanks to the more optimistic prospects for Stepan’s future. “In her birthday card, she wrote ‘to my darling son’. I’d long dreamed of receiving a birthday card like that one day.’ The young Ukrainian has now found work in the IT sector, but even in the Czech Republic, of course, not everything is sunshine and roses.

Fear of transphobia persists

When signing his employment contract, for example, he feared that one of his transphobic Ukrainian female colleagues might unwittingly reveal his trans identity in the context of his official name. “I usually brushed it off by saying: ‘You know, strange Ukrainian names. We’re like Orthodox Christians,’” he described his tried-and-tested cover-up tactic. “But if she’d heard my name, I wouldn’t have had a chance to talk my way out of it. That terrified me. Because then she could easily have gone to the manager with some reason why she didn’t want to work with me. Like that I’m transgender and she can’t stand me.”

Better than at home, but…

When asked whether Stepan felt that the Czechs accepted him, he replied: “Not really, but more so than in Ukraine. The fact that I have to undergo a hysterectomy to change my gender really isn’t a good thing.” Although , technically speaking, he wanted the womb to be removed from his body, he was worried about the health risks. “Because it’s a bloody major operation. [...] What if youdie because of it?I don’t want to… it’s like eugenics.” Fortunately,very soon after Stepan voiced these concerns, a law was passed in the Czech Republic abolishing the requirement for sterilisation for trans people.

Slow and steady wins the race

Although the Czech LGBT+ community was disappointed that equal marriage did not pass this year either, the new law on civil partnerships at least partially rectifies the situation, which may also benefit Czech-Ukrainian queer couples who are navigating the process of obtaining Czech citizenship for one of the partners. So whilst legislative changes are happening at a snail’s pace, they are happening nonetheless.

“Perhaps that is why most queer people from Ukraine who took part in the survey expressed a preference for the Czech Republic and wanted to stay here,” concludes Blanka Maderová. And if even a small rainbow sticker, a leaflet in a foreign language or an invitation to a queer event can make the chaotic process of finding one’s feet in a foreign country a little easier, these seemingly “minor” wishes would certainly be worth granting.