Resisting “liberal values”: the intersection of gender, religion, and sexuality in Ukrainian heteroactivism

The present paper focuses on the gendered nature of such opposition broadly defined as the “Ukrainian heteroactivist movement” and on the role women activists play within it. It argues that the presence of women in the Ukrainian heteroactivist movement gave local resistances against sexual and gender equality additional legitimization related to the centrality of motherhood, religion, and protection of minors in their claims. In contrast, they portray feminism and LGBTI rights as a threat to minors, a Ukrainian nuclear heterosexual family, and, consequently, to the nation’s security and survival. Unpacking the frames Ukrainian women-heteroactivists actively use, this work adds to our understanding and invites us to go further in studying commonalities and differences between spatial, cultural, and geographic specificities of ongoing ideological processes evolving against the background of emerging nationalisms and nation-state building on the post-soviet space. While there is already a substantial body of literature dealing with various resistances against gender and sexual equalities in Western countries (Paternotte and Kuhar 2018; Kuhar and Paternotte, 2017), little is known about such developments in the broader Europe. Therefore, the present article uses heteroactivism as a theoretical framework aiming to enrich it with new cases while testing against the cultural and historical context of Ukraine. This study focuses on several groups that can be defined as heteroactivists and have been active for the last several years (2015-2021), resisting LGBT rights and gender equality in Ukraine. It examines frames these groups use in their mobilization campaigns, defining the issues of motherhood, “complete” traditional family, and Christianity central to the well-being of Ukrainians (in particular, minors). This paper uses specific examples of visual, oral, and textual narratives to articulate the gendered nature of Ukrainian nationalist projects. Finally, it answers what kind of femininity within the heteroactivist movement is currently being presented as “normal” and a “part of the national identity” of Ukrainians and which ones are marginalized and excluded.