BackInTex wrote: ↑Wed Mar 16, 2022 8:59 pm
thanks for being such a good Exhibit I for the thread.
You bring up Russia’s lack of complete dominance because…. they don’t have transgenders in their military and The Ukraine does? Is that your point? If so, please provide evidence The Ukraine has been recruiting transgenders. If not, your post makes as much sense as having a transgender person in a scientific leadership position.
To be honest, I wasn't trying to compare the Russian military to the Ukrainian military in terms of recruitment of gays and transgenders because I didn't know what the Ukrainian policy was. I did point out that Russia is excluding a sizable number of potentially good soldiers because of their prejudices and stereotypes. 21st century warfare is a high tech venture and countries that have high-end weapons systems and support and intelligence capabilities (like Russia and the US) need the best people for job. Excluding substantial segments of the population because of anti-gay and anti-trans hysteria defeats that purpose.
You also seem to believe that there is something inherently wrong with having a transgender person in a "scientific leadership position." If Admiral Levine is the best person for the job, then I don't see what the problem is. On the other hand, if Admiral Levine had been held back or discharged because of being transgender, then we would have a less qualified person in that position simply because of unfounded anti-trans hysteria.
But I did look up gays and trans in the military in Ukraine, and the answers were not surprising. First, there is a substantial anti-gay/anti-trans sentiment in Ukraine. Second, after the 2014 conflict with Russia revealed how badly prepared the Ukrainian military was, they took major steps to upgrade their recruiting. This involved welcoming gays and trans individuals in along with everyone else who was willing and qualified. Third, the military is changing a lot of people's minds about the status of gays. And that was before the current fighting. I'm sure that when word gets out about exactly who did what during this war, you'll find that the trans soldiers were fighting right alongside the cis soldiers.
From a 2017 article:
NBC News 10/28/17 wrote:The Ukrainian military is not known to be particularly welcoming to LGBTQ people, but it needed bodies in early 2014 to confront Russian forces that had entered Ukrainian territory on their way to annexing Crimea. That Ukraine was woefully unprepared for battle was obvious in several ways: outdated equipment; approximately 130,000 poorly trained troops (compared with 845,000 experienced Russian soldiers); an organizational structure widely accused of corruption; and the brutal hazing of new recruits and volunteers.
Many of those military newcomers have been gay and transgender soldiers who ignored prejudice and harassment to defend their country against invasion. The Ukrainian military’s poor reputation started to turn with the rise in volunteer battalions, which flooded the front line — and included nontraditional troops, like openly LGBTQ people and women — and fought alongside Ukrainian soldiers against the Russian intervention. While broader Ukrainian society has its share of overt homophobic threats — like members of the ultranationalist Right Sector group threatening that this year's March for Equality, an LGBTQ event in Kiev, would end in a "bloodbath" — [one gay Ukrainian soldier] said threats like these do not exist in the army.
“The most horrible thing that can happen is a light joke that comes from elderly Soviet people,” he said, recalling experiences of the openly gay soldiers that he knows and his own personal encounter delivering supplies to the front line. “On the street during the [Euromaidan] Revolution everyone was the same,” he said, referring to the uprisings in February 2014 that led to the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych as president. “Old, young, gay, straight, whatever. All social borders were broken.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out ... ts-n822291
From a 2021 article:
LGBTQ troops and vets go to war with homophobia in Ukraine
The silence inside a makeshift cinema in the heart of Kyiv was shattered with the crash of a windowpane. Fireworks flashed. Homophobic attackers were attempting to besiege the screening of a film about the lives of LGBTQ people. The assailants threw tear gas and pyrotechnics. A member of the audience jumped up onto the windowsill and began throwing the projectiles back onto the street — shocking the men outside, who quickly ran away.
That man was Viktor Pylypenko, a former member of the Ukrainian army's anti-terror detail in Donbass and the founder of a federation for equal rights for LGBTQ communities. Now a trim 34-year-old sporting a hoodie and earrings like a proper big-city hipster, Pylypenko was a volunteer in the Donbass Battalion during intense fighting against separatists in eastern Ukraine from 2014 to 2016. On the front, comrades called him the "Frenchman," on account of his work as a trained translator of English and French. In the summer of 2018, Pylypenko became the first Ukrainian soldier to publicly declare his homosexuality. "It was scary of course, like stepping into the unknown," he said. Pylypenko had kept the fact that he liked men to himself, not telling the soldiers with whom he shared the trenches.
After coming out, Pylypenko felt empowered to approach dozens of gay, lesbian and transgender active-duty soldiers and veterans. In 2019, about 30 of them formed an advocacy group for LGBTQ service people and participated in Kyiv's March for Equality for the first time. Today, the group has more than 100 members — and it's growing. "In some units, they may talk about LGBTQ rights in the military on their smoke break," Pylypenko said. "Afterwards, somebody will Google our group and get in touch." Pylypenko said the ways in which comrades might react to a soldier's coming out depend a lot on the unit and its commander. When he came out, he said, he was subjected to verbal abuse on social media. Most of his colleagues, however, voiced support: "especially those with whom I fought against the enemy, with those I saved the wounded with."
The most powerful weapon LGTBQ soldiers have in their arsenal is public relations. Like other advocacy groups, they are fighting for civil partnerships, the same-sex marriage alternative found in many countries but still illegal in Ukraine. Advocates for LGBTQ communities say the soldiers' work has begun to shift views in society. Ukrainians see the military and veterans as defenders of their homeland, and the army enjoys more public trust than any other institution in the country.
"One of our aims is to expose the lies of Russian propaganda myths that claim Ukraine is being ruled by a 'neo-Nazi junta,'" Pylypenko said. "How could there be talk of neo-Nazis in an army that has gay-friendly units, and in which gay and lesbian active-duty and veteran service members can come out without fear?" "Why should we look to Russia?" Pylypenko said. "We were part of that empire. Why should we have to listen to them trash the Ukrainian military and the LGBTQ community? We must look to the free world, to Europe. We must aspire to democratic values."
https://www.dw.com/en/lgbtq-troops-and- ... a-58059054