Dressing as a Woman to Escape War

This is a story that occurs from time to time; it was said of Jefferson Davis, for example, that he fled Richmond dressed en femme. (Davis hotly denied this for the rest of his life.) This is the first time I've ever heard of a biological female confessing to dressing like a woman to evade war, but these are strange times.
But as a transgender man — a man assigned female at birth — different questions raced through his mind about leaving his homeland. Andriy is a pseudonym used to protect his identity.

He read the news that all men in Ukraine, ages 18 to 60, were not permitted to leave the country and were obligated to serve in the military.

He told Insider he needed to stay with his mother and care for her. Leaving her to flee Ukraine alone just was not an option....

"If the border force saw him as a man, he would have to stay in Ukraine and not care for his mother," Dubilewski said. "It was very painful for him to dress up as a woman, wear his mother's makeup, but it would have been more painful to leave her in a foreign country to start her life over." 

Yes, very painful.

I suppose 'Andriy' adequately proved he wasn't a man by dodging his duty to fight for his country in the face of invasion, but it's ironic to see someone who has been so insistent on the point reach for that female privilege just as soon as it matters. As usual the duties and hardships of  manhood aren't what 'Andriy' really wanted.

5 comments:

  1. Didn't Achilles give that a try too?

    I saw but didn't read a sob story about the reverse--border authorities weren't interested in the interior life of a man who identified as a woman, and wouldn't let him leave.

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  2. It does sound like something from the earliest years of some mythology, that has puzzled scholars for centuries after exactly what it meant.

    Which is about right. I have no idea what it means either. It's just too weird to get my head around. I hope his mom's okay, whatever else happens.

    Oh, and I really hope that no one has him write a book or make a movie about this.

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  3. That's not 'to escape war,' is it? It's more like the legend about the time Thor's hammer was stolen by giants, and he dressed up like Freya and agreed to be married to one of them in order to receive it back as a wedding gift (and then killed all the giants).

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  4. Maybe it was. I remembered the part about him marrying the girl and sneaking off to Troy with her, but the article you linked says the reason he was sent there was that his mother didn't want him to go to war and tried to hide him.

    Odysseus pretended to be crazy to try to dodge the war in Troy. So it is said.

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