Name: Sofiia Lapina
Age: 28
Education: Sociology, Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University
Profession: organizing committee member for KyivPride, human rights expert at LGBT Human Rights Center Nash Svit
Did you know? During the 2013-2014 Euromaidan Revolution, she was the assistant of the camp commandant heading the self-organized defense forces.
Sofiia Lapina used to have homophobic views before she turned 20 and realized she was gay.
Back then, in 2010, Lapina lived in Chernivtsi, a city of 262,000 people located 535 kilometers southwest of Kyiv near the Romanian border. She remembers having a discussion with her friend one day and telling her she would never date a woman. The day after that Lapina met the woman whom she would date and live with for the next three years.
After Lapina joined the local LGBT community, she started attending educational lectures about human rights run by the European Union’s Erasmus+ program. There, Lapina learned about LGBT rights initiatives around the world, but she also realized she didn’t know much about the situation in Ukraine. She decided to find out more.
In 2016, Lapina went to the All-Ukrainian National LGBT Conference, where she met Ukrainian-Canadian director Marusya Bociurkiw. The filmmaker had come to Ukraine to present her documentary about the LGBT community in Ukraine, so Lapina volunteered to help her organize a screening in Chernivtsi. But in this conservative and religious city, where Lapina was one of only four openly gay people, the screening wasn’t welcomed, and was sabotaged.
For Lapina it was a turning point.
“I didn’t like it that someone could come and stop me from doing something I have a right to do,” she said. Determined to act, Lapina organized a roundtable with local authorities, police officers and activists to discuss the incident.
After that, Lapina joined the LGBT Human Rights Center Nash Svit (“Our World”) and since then has organized 10 more roundtables.
Also in 2016, Lapina attended her first March of Equality, a pride rally in support of equal rights. “I was inspired because there were so many people united by one goal.”
In 2017, Lapina moved to Kyiv and joined the KyivPride NGO, which organizes the March of Equality and other events. Today the activist continues working for Nash Svit, and she is also responsible for public relations and information campaigns at KyivPride. Lapina curated the organization’s joint project with Ukrainian singer Iryna Bilyk. Her music video for the song “Ne Hovai Ochei (Don’t Hide Your Eyes),” which features LGBT people, premiered on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia.
Lapina plans to continue her advocacy for her own good and that of others too. “It’s about my rights, and about helping others who still don’t dare to come out.”
