I was shocked when I learned of LGBTQ Nation reporter Sarah Ashton-Cirillo – the only openly transgender war correspondent working in Ukraine. It was May, and I was in Kharkiv, a large Ukrainian city by the Russian border, which, at this point, was being shelled every day. Distant explosions often reverberated through the sky like thunder. I came across Ashton-Cirillo’s Twitter one night when trying to verify rumors of an impending airstrike.
She was also reporting in Kharkiv but, unlike myself, had been there since the outset of the war, staying even in the worst periods when almost every foreigner had fled. Her apartment wasn’t nestled in the relative safety of downtown but rather was out in the northern suburbs, which were still being blown to bits. A no-go zone for most journalists.