10 November 2015: Activists urge the Rada to pass the anti-discrimination legislation. (c) Nazar Furyk / Demotix.Last Thursday, Ukraine witnessed a historic event: under the defiant hashtag #DontFuckWithUs, the concepts of 'gender identity' and 'sexual orientation' made their first appearance in the country's legislation, and anti-discrimination provisions were written into Ukraine's labour laws.
The exact process of how this happened, though, makes for a far more interesting story.
A long story
The introduction of an anti-discrimination amendment to existing Ukraine's labour laws is just one of the demands made by the European Union in negotiations over visa-free travel within Europe, and is referred to in the European Commission's fifth report on Ukraine's visa liberalisation progress to the European Parliament and Council.
