‘How can I complain about heroes?’: A trans woman fights the Russians — and the misogyny of her Ukrainian comrades

Nine years ago, a boy from Zaporizhzhia, an eastern Ukrainian town renowned for its fearless medieval warriors, fought in one of Ukraine’s bloodiest battles since the Second World War.

Just 17 years old, the strapping teen was held back by his combat battalion from the fiercest of the fight against Russia in 2015 and 2016. But he learned to be a soldier, mastered a Kalashnikov and trained as a paramedic in trench warfare conditions.

Eventually the soldier aligned their appearance with what they always knew to be the truth.

The battles against the Russians were extreme, said Leysa Lavrenova in one of two video interviews with the Star, her blond hair cascading over her camouflage jacket.

“War is cruel.”

But Lavrenova would have to battle just as fiercely to be allowed to fight again when Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

The happily married mother of a seven-year-old stepdaughter endured painful surgeries to align her biological features with her female identity: vaginoplasty – rarely performed in Ukraine – vocal cord surgery, breast implants, hormone protocols and facial procedures. Still, when Russia invaded in February 2022, the experienced soldier rushed to defend Ukraine again.

But this time, the warrior’s fight was different.

As a trans woman who once lived as a man Lavrenova has witnessed first-hand the different experiences of women and men on Ukraine’s front line. She became a soldier fighting on two fronts — defending her country from Russian aggression and combating stigma at home.

It was a brave and tumultuous decision for Lavrenova to transition, living in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region. Ukraine’s anti-LGBTQ hate levels are some of Europe’s worst, according to international organizations. And eastern Ukraine has long been bombarded by the homophobic campaigns of its Russian neighbours.

Zaporizhzhia’s first LGBTQ parade in 2020 saw the 500 participants outnumbered two to one by Pride opponents. The parade had to be guarded from gunfire and projectiles by 670 military police, according to media reports.

“It’s better not to talk about (gender dysphoria) in Zaporizhzhia,” said Lavrenova in a Ukrainian media interview. “I was ashamed. Many friends rejected me,” she said of coming out as a woman.

Later, when she volunteered for battle in February 2022, she found being recruited to fight as a woman was harder than she expected. Brigade after brigade rejected her application.

Women are no rarity in Ukraine’s army. Ukraine granted women the right to fight in combat positions in 2016. There are about 50,000 women serving in the military — five per cent of total personnel according to official estimates.

But commanders in the conservative Zaporizhzhia region had issued separate orders in early 2022, and wouldn’t accept Lavrenova because she was a woman, she said. Lavrenova has kept her trans status mostly secret until recently.

“They urgently needed people (especially after Russia’s March 2022 advances), but they wouldn’t take me,” she told the Star.

“Please Miss, take away your application. Take it away, please and go home,” Lavrenova remembers registration officers telling her. “You have to give birth.”

A frontline battalion that had lost two thirds of its men in the early battles finally accepted the soldier — but not as a fighter, as a medic.

“The company commander … said he would take me because the company’s medical instructor was a veterinarian who was giving soldiers the wrong pills,” she said.

Lavrenova, whose call sign is ‘Doe,’ became the only tactical medic alongside 500 men.

Her brigade dug an extensive First World War-style trench system to defend Avdiivka, north of the city of Donetsk. Lavrenova remembers her commander giving orders to the men to dig trenches, carry food or monitor the enemy and asking her to make him coffee, she said grinning.

But that was before the battle turned deadly.

International media has compared Russia’s bombardment of Avdiivka during that 2022 spring to the more well-known obliteration of Mariupol.

“I had many moments when mines were falling, and I thought it was the end. My unit was heavily torn up,” said Lavrenova in a video interview just a few months after that battle.

She remembered grim weeks carrying out the wounded and the dead, touching her pale face nervously in a Zoom interview. But even as she rushed to help the wounded, some refused her help, she said. They didn’t think a woman could save them.

The war has entrenched women’s stereotypes more deeply in Ukraine, said Olena Shevchenko, a women and LGBTQ advocate, named a Time woman of the year, in a video in March.

“You need to remind people that women are not those people who need to mostly give birth to the new soldiers.”

Women’s roles and visibility have increased in the Ukrainian military but still tend to follow a gendered division of labour where female soldiers “mostly have so-called ‘feminized’ professions” such as logistics and communications,” according to a United Nations report.

“There are still many conservative men in the army,” said Lavrenova. “So, there is misogyny.”

That misogyny is a double-edged sword for Lavrenova because she cherishes the gentlemanly gestures of some fellow soldiers but abhors the harassment of others.

“The most difficult thing is when you are touched by surprise or grabbed or undressed without your permission,” said Lavrenova who did not want to talk further about her assaults. “And these are your friends or fellow soldiers.”

She complained just once and was “accused of being a whore,” she said. “How can I complain about heroes?”

Sexual harassment in Ukraine’s military is widespread and part of an inherited Soviet culture of “toxic masculinity, sex discrimination and lack of professionalism,” according to a study by Invisible Battalion, an international advocacy group.

And Ukraine’s fight against Russia appears to be putting the women’s rights fight on hold. Sexual assault by people risking their lives for Ukraine is often accepted in the army, Lavrenova said.

Defending Ukraine from tyranny is more important than defending women from injustice, she said.

“Everything else is put aside.”

“I don’t know whether I will survive or not or what will happen next.”

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