When Ukrainian mother Olena Globa discovered her teenage son’s love poems about a man, she confronted him and demanded, “Are you a faggot?” When her son Bogdan responded that he was gay, she felt her “ideal family turned into a nightmare.” In a short documentary produced by Thomson Reuters Foundation, Globa said that initially she was not able to understand and accept her son, but “couldn’t explain how loving parents could turn into not loving ones.” After she distanced herself from her son emotionally, he began to feel unsafe at home and in society and moved to the U.S., seeking asylum from anti-LGBTQ persecution. He is still waiting to see if that asylum will be granted.