I was born in Zaporizhzhia and grew up in a very conservative family. When I was 5 years old, I was accepted to ballet school. There I was always embarrassed by all the women's parts, they seemed unrealistic, all the 'dying swans' and the princesses who had to be rescued were repulsive. There are also female roles in ballet that are traditionally given to men, they are usually characters like evil stepmothers or witches, and the choreography is very complex. At 8, my dream role was the party of the wicked fairy Carabosse. I didn't understand at all why boys could qualify for something and I didn't. Around the same age, I started using masculine pronouns about myself.

Another episode in which I had to deal with "adult reality" was when I was about 12. There was some programme on TV about "transvestites" and "sex change" in which the host insulted the heroines. My mother took her mind off her chores, turned to me, and said: "But it's not going to be like that with us, is it?"

A little later, there was a time when I thought I needed to make a full transition, but over the years, I got closer to the idea that it is not necessary, I can just express myself as a person, not as a man or a woman. My entire childhood I have been driven by an attempt to move away from the conservative ideas about men and women that existed in my family. My mother is a stylist hairdresser, a glamorous woman from Zaporizhzhia and my father is a lawyer who smokes a pipe and drinks whiskey with colleagues. I am a persistent, loud person, I can defend myself, but my father always thought that only a man could have these traits and all our communication was reduced to the attention that he thought a girl needed: "Buy yourself a new dress, get your hair done". Because of this, we have had frequent conflicts. In our family, it is not common to express emotions openly, everybody is so withdrawn, and I am, on the contrary, a puzzle piece that does not fit in.

My parents found out about my orientation when I was 13 years old, and after another 2 years, I left home because our relationship continued to get worse. We fought all the time, they told me that I was a monster and that everything about me embarrassed them. At the time, there was still a period of men’s clothing, chest binders, and I was still building up my self-awareness and had not come to understand that you can feel comfortable in any clothes.

For a while, I lived with my girlfriend who was older. When I was 16, she died in a car crash and I had a severe nervous breakdown. My family put me into Frunze (Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital), a few years later I learned that my father had agreed to conversion therapy, which was to include ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) for the "treatment of homosexuality". It was hard to recover from this experience.

They were very helpful: they took me to psychotherapy, we went to LGBT-friendly Church and went to California. I made friends there. Then, realizing this contrast, I decided that I did not want to go back to Ukraine, so I entered a university in the Netherlands.

Now I have had to return to Ukraine because of the pandemic and the period in between universities. We keep our distance with my parents, we can communicate on neutral topics, I no longer expect acceptance or support from them.

In fact, it was only by separating from my family that I was able to finally shape my identity. Separating was important for self-preservation and to find role models. I can’t say that my parents are terrible people, they could be great parents for a child who fits into the gender binary system, but not for me. Sadly, this is how our relationship turned out, but I’m fine now, my experience has given me a lot.

If we are talking about role models, about the process of finding someone like me, it is worth talking about music. I have music inspired tattoos: David Bowie and T. Rex. Of course, there is a family influence in this regard. With my father, we have one common theme important to me: old rock music. Also, my grandmother is a jazz pianist. Therefore, for sure everything started at a very early age. We rented the first flat in Kyiv, I was 9, we had an old TV that we brought with us. There used to be music channels where music videos were played all the time. During the day it was Ukrainian and Russian pop music, and at night foreign clips were shown. One night I was home alone, I was scared and decided to turn on the TV, and there was a David Bowie video "Life On Mars?"

He was standing there in a blue suit, with bright blue eyeshadows, with bright orange hair. I didn’t have the slightest idea who it was, I didn’t know English at all, and I was shocked because he looked just like the way I felt on the inside. It was a completely wild sensation for me because until then, I hadn’t seen anyone at all who had somehow represented my inner self-image. We had a vinyl record with his music at home and I wore it out. I even made up some lyrics to sing along.

Another vivid memory from childhood. I was in the fifth grade, a New Year’s matinée at a new school where I didn’t know anybody yet. I decided that I would be David Bowie for the matinée. The costume was improvised from things at hand: a red curtain was turned into my suit, my mother drew a lightning bolt on my face. I had a bowl haircut. I was very proud of my costume, thinking about how I would come and impress everyone. And here comes the moment when I go to class, and there are all the girls as princesses and snowflakes, and they look at me as if I were from another planet. I remember that at that time it felt like the beginning of a film and since then, the importance of music in my life, people who were not afraid to be strange, to sing about something other than stereotypical heterosexual love — Joan Jett, Lou Reed, Brian Eno — has once again established itself.

The last concert of Ziggy Stardust Tour plays in the background. Through music, you can express any identity, any experience, which you cannot always do with your body. Bowie came up with this character, Ziggy Stardust, an alien from Mars, he has no gender, he doesn’t know what’s good and what’s bad, and he wants people to explain to him the emotions, the meaning of life. This feels relatable in many ways.

With the family, we had to move frequently. That way of living has become part of me, too. I can stop at some location for a year or two, and then I have to move on because I don’t really understand what needs to happen next. I didn’t have time to settle down as I had to leave again. I have lived in Thailand, India, Kenya, Poland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, USA, England, and Ireland. There are advantages to this, of course: I can quickly adapt, organise basic routine and make acquaintances. Right now I have friends in different parts of the world.

Soon I will go on to study, I managed to get into Oxford University and I hope to stay there longer. England has become my favourite country, there I feel most comfortable. There, I don’t need to prove to be non-binary to anyone.

Now I am in my healthiest relationship, in which I don’t have to prove anything either, I can simply be. Here, too, I had to learn from my experience which relationships are healthy and which are not. I had to go through stalking, be in a relationship suffering from chemical dependency.

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with my father, where he said: "I wanted my son to be a lawyer, smart, good, and I what I got is a f**king disgrace". In general, it has become easier because when you’re a "f**king disgrace" for your family, you no longer have to try to be someone, you can be free and do what you want. Do I manage to be a good person for myself? Not yet, but I’m learning. Much more important is that I’m learning to be good enough for my partner. I’m good enough for her and it’s beautiful.

I’m still thinking about whether I need a medical transition, I know that I would like to start it in the future when I feel more stable. Sometimes I can look at myself in the mirror and cry, and understand that I’m uncomfortable having breasts, but the resistance of society creates more problems. Sometimes I wake up and think: what if I am a man and a partial transition is not enough? The way I look is still not fully consistent with how I feel. Partly because there are social stereotypes.

If a man wears women’s clothes and uses make-up, everyone will think: yes, he is probably gender nonconforming. And if a woman wears men’s clothes, then others will think: well, she’s still a girl but without a dress and heels. But I’m not a girl and I don’t know yet how to signal this in a society where it’s not customary to ask for a person’s pronouns, but it’s customary to see first the gender of the person and then everything else.

I’d like to be a person first, a music researcher, and then a non-binary person. But for society, I am an LGBT activist, the non-binary, non-heterosexual person at first, and then everything else. A person is essentially a set of identities, and I want to choose which of these identities to put first and which to put second, third, tenth. On the one hand, you have to point out that you’re non-heterosexual to stop being invisible, and on the other hand, you have to face being shamed "seeking attention" and "propaganda". I would like my identity to fit into society, without being something fundamental.

I now have a fairly safe environment where I am loved and accepted, I still have music, a place where I can study music, a beloved person and although I have gone through many difficult periods and continue to cope with the consequences, I can say that I am a happy person.