During the past 3 months Ukraine was a number one story in all International news. I can say that Ukraine became an example of shadow political fights together with open confrontation on the streets. Off course many people saw a picture of what was happening on “Euromaydan”, but not many understand what is going on behind the scene. Analyzing what happened in Ukraine, I would like to start with pointing out that there were no simple questions and answers from the beginning and, unfortunately it seems there will be no afterwards. How it all started The Ukrainian protests started with peaceful protests against an “unexpected” change in geopolitical orientation from the ruling party. During last 2 years , the majority of Ukrainian people expected Euro integration to be some fast improvement of everybody’s life. I need to mention here that for the average Ukrainian citizen, it was not about human rights or some standards in this sphere, no, it was about better life in general. This concept attracted many citizens in all regions to the streets, so It wasn’t the opposition leading the protests . But then, the President unexpectedly changed our “way” with really bad argumentation about a possible economic collapse and that’s why majority of Western and Central Ukraine went to the different forms of protest. At that time, the East and South stayed calm, because for them such argumentation made sense – they don’t have any perspective now and they understand that after possible “modernization” they will lose even that “minimum”, which to them is “stability”. And off course, many people in Yanukovich’s region take all charges against him personally. Nobody talked about human rights during the protests except civil society organizations. There were many tactical mistakes by the government and by Yanukovich, because he never believed that Ukrainians would be so insistent in their will to change a system of corruption and injustice. So, a fight for Euro integration changed into a fight against corruption and injustice in general. After the first attack on November 30, this became the main idea, and then it transformed into: new elections and justice for killers. Then there were the laws of 16 January and it was a next explosion. The driving force behind the Ukrainian protests In the newspapers and on television, you would find that the protests in Ukraine are lead by opposition forces or by right-wing radicals. It is a traditional question about who “controls” the situation and gives the orders and this makes invisible others who do not affiliates themselves with majority. This approach is quite patriarchal and doesn’t give any spaces or voice to minorities. Off course, LGBT activists, feminists and some left- liberal organizations consider such way of thinking rigidly patriarchal and overbearing, because it appeals to the vertical hierarchy in decision-making , representation of the views and positions of strength and majority domination. In fact, the Ukrainian protests represented a large number of different social groups and minorities. There are a number of left-wing organizations, liberals and feminists and LGBT people participating in the protests, but they are not visible like violent radicals, due to traditional approaches to cover this story by Media. Exposing sexism, xenophobia and homophobia The media coverage is highly sexists, and represents women just as supporters of the “real heroes” (men). However, it needs to be mentioned, that the initial desire to sign the EU association does not imply commitment to ensure protection and fulfillment of human rights in Ukraine. Unfortunately, the level of human rights culture in Ukraine was and remains low and nothing has been done to systematically improve it. A culture of peaceful protests is, in principle, very connected with the ideology of non-violence and respect of human rights. So the background of everything that is happening in Ukraine is not a protection of human rights and especially minorities. People came out to protest because of corruption, violence by law enforcement and the lack of social standards of life. Everyone wants to live a better life, but nobody knows exactly what steps should be taken to do that. So the level of xenophobia, homophobia and sexism has not changed during the Ukrainian revolution. On the contrary, it has exposed the problem and showed how awful the situation is now. During the protests many minorities were beaten on “Euromaydan”: leftists , feminists and LGBT. Often LGBT themes have been used in order to discredit “Euromaydan”. We can confidently assert that the” Evromaydan” is not safe place to talk about LGBT rights and feminism. The Ukrainian ultra-rights sees this as the right moment to attack and dictate an agenda. However, this agenda has nothing to do with the protection of human rights. Ultra-rights show their agenda in: the strengthening of the power of a strong President, adoption of the National Constitution and, of course, traditionalism. In their discourse, there is no place for equality, feminism and LGBT rights in Ukraine. We documented many posters with sexist slogans, for instance “Women, if you saw garbage – clean up, revolutionary will be pleased”. Many women started to follow such propaganda, for example some started a “hug initiative” with the message – “I will hug my men-hero”, “ I will marry a policeman”. A time of challenges and opportunities Yet in my opinion, we see a very interesting situation develop here, because women stopped to be passive followers and they were so outraged by this sexism and invisibility that they started to join our initiative in really massive numbers. It’s interesting because for the majority of them “feminism” is still bad word, but they feel that they couldn’t live in such unfair situation. That’s why we think on development our initiative in “pop-feminism” now, to work broader and to educate people. That’s also why we see a quite difficult situation and we need to choose between a bad and the worst scenario. LGBT activists, feminists and some liberals decided to concentrate our effort on educational activism during “Euromaydan”. We do workshops on feminism, equality and human rights, we establish “women resistance group”, and we organize film screenings on Maydan etc. Additionally , the “right wing” already published an appeal to come back to traditional moral and family values, restriction of external influence on Ukraine etc. For us it means: prohibition of abortion, anti-LGBT laws and law on “foreign agents”. Insight is a queer feminist group formed by young lesbians, bisexual women and trans people, Insight works to support and strengthen the LBT community in Ukraine by providing social, psychological, medical, and legal services. The group also engages in direct action against censorship and for freedom of information and assembly. Source