Name: Bogdan Globa
Age: 28
Education: Master’s degree in finance, Poltava Economy and Trade University
Profession: LGBT activist, head of Tochka Opory, Kyiv-based LGBT foundation
Did you know? Globa’s hobby is selective breeding of tulips.
Bogdan Globa would never refer to his 16th year as being “sweet.”
That’s when, in 2004, Globa’s parents found out that he was gay. They were conservative college professors living in Poltava, a city of 300,000 people some 300 kilometers east of Kyiv. They didn’t accept it and tried to put him in a mental hospital for “conversion therapy.” The hospital refused, saying homosexuality isn’t a mental illness.
But he could no longer stay at home. Globa moved out and got a construction job to support himself. But he left when other workers started teasing him for his “unmanly” behavior. Years later, Globa recalled his painful adolescence when speaking at the Verkhovna Rada as the first openly gay person to speak in the Ukrainian parliament.
Back then, in November 2013, the Rada was considering a law that prohibited discrimination in the workplace. “Having been openly gay since the age of 16, I, personally, was discriminated against. I was bullied, and I was beaten,” he said, his voice trembling, but his tone resolute. The law was passed two years later, in November 2015. The ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was included – the biggest victory of Ukraine’s gay community in many years.
Globa has come a long way since his parents tried to lock him up in an asylum. At 18, he left Poltava and moved to Kyiv, where he didn’t have to hide his sexual orientation. “In Poltava, the gay community lives in fear, in hiding,” he says. “I didn’t want.”
In Kyiv, he worked as a financial director at a clothing retailer before starting Tochka Opory in 2009 with Zoryan Kis, another prominent member of the gay community in Kyiv. Today, Tochka Opory is Ukraine’s biggest LGBT organization, having partnered with legendary singer Elton John, among others.
Under Globa’s leadership, Tochka Opory carries out a number of projects such as Friendly Doctor – a chain of gay-friendly medical offices – and Corporate Equality Index – a yearly evaluation that encourages businesses to fight discrimination in the workplace.
Globa has also won a personal victory: He made peace with his divorced mother, who has accepted his sexuality. Today she is head of Tergo, an organization that supports parents of homosexual children.
Globa is now working towards his next big goal, lobbying to introduce civil unions in Ukraine, for same-sex couples to have a legal form of partnership. He is not expecting quick passage in parliament.
Ukraine would take a huge leap if it recognized LGBT civil unions. As recently as 1991, sexual relations between men was a criminal offense. If equal rights come, Globa will be among those activists who deserve the most credit.
