For over seven months, Sarah Ashton-Cirillo was the only openly transgender war correspondent working in Ukraine. She gained online fame for reporting almost exclusively from Kharkiv, one of the most dangerous cities in the country. Ashton-Cirillo is now making waves by enlisting as a combat media in the Ukrainian armed forces.
Still, her media coverage is worth close attention for reasons beyond its content. By jumping deep into the fray, in spite of online harassment and threats to her life, Ashton-Cirillo has shown incredible bravery while challenging stereotypes about transgender people along the way.
Originally, none of this was supposed to happen. Ashton-Cirillo told me in an interview in June that when she first came to Ukraine in early March, her goal was simply to report on refugees. Years beforehand, she had tried to cover the Syrian refugee crisis but, overcome with fear, ended up staying in east Turkey and reporting on the crisis from there. She quickly wrote a book about that experience, but it was rushed, and she ultimately hated it. Ukraine was her chance to try again, but the right way.
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After almost changing her mind at the Ukrainian border, she made it into the country and serendipitously met two men working in security. They invited her to Kharkiv to “see the real war.” Impulsively, she joined them and, despite several moments of fear and doubt, was soon enmeshed with Ukrainian security forces in Kharkiv, a city that few journalists or aid workers dared visit at the time. She saw dead bodies for the first time, which imparted upon her the gravity of her work. She began to tweet furiously about the atrocities occurring around her almost every day. Unlike other journalists, myself included, who stayed in the relative safety of Kharkiv’s downtown and southern neighborhoods, Ashton-Cirillo lived in the city’s northern residential district, Saltivka, a no-go zone where shelling was incessant. Ashton-Cirillo’s videos showed lonely, abandoned neighborhoods marred with burnt-out craters. After a while, her apartment windows were blown out by an explosion.
What shocked Ashton-Cirillo, though, was how little trouble people gave her for being transgender — something she didn’t expect given the country’s reputation for being socially conservative. “People in Ukraine are not focused on gender identity or a person’s sexuality. People in Ukraine judge you based on your values and viewpoints when it comes to liberty, democracy, and your desire to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against terror,” she said in a call last week. ‘Being a trans woman here is a non-factor, and that’s how I like it. It’s part of who I am, but it’s not who I am. I care about making certain that freedom is something we can all possess, be it Ukraine or the United States of America.”
However, being a transgender reporter on an Eastern European war front is nonetheless provocative, especially because Russia considers LGBT people a symbol of Western degeneracy. In April, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs personally singled Ashton-Cirillo out and accused her of being a “Nazi,” leading to a deluge of death and rape threats from Russia’s supporters, which, even months later, have not abated. Recently, InfoWars published a hit piece on her that parroted Russia’s discredited claims.
In the summer, as more journalists began to venture to Kharkiv, Ukraine set up a media hub to help them do their job more effectively and safely. Given her regional experience and close ties to local security forces, Ashton-Cirillo became a press liaison for the hub, which included taking them on tours through liberated areas. Like many local Ukrainians, she was frustrated with journalists who only wanted to take graphic photos and then disappear.
“The war is so much more than watching people in the trenches on the front lines, or seeing an M777 firing. It’s how a grain farm manages to sell its products. How are shopkeepers able to rebuild under near-constant rocket attacks? What is the governor doing to prepare for winterisation? That’s the holistic approach – capturing all of the other verticals in the war.”
Months of reporting on the front lines hardened her, and she began to wonder if she was doing enough. The “tremendous amount of atrocities” she saw “put the seed in my mind about wanting to do something more.” She approached the government about enlistment in July. The discussion picked up steam before being interrupted by the massive counteroffensive in early September, which liberated almost all of the Kharkiv region. With journalists swarming the area to report on liberated villages and mass graves, Ashton-Cirillo focused on providing press support. Then the situation calmed down, allowing her to begin her enlistment last week.
When pressed about her qualifications, Ashton-Cirillo did not have permission to disclose details of her enlistment beyond stating, “I was put through a test in order to qualify for this position.” I was able to independently verify that the UAF only admits enlistees who meet health standards and have relevant specialized skills. While serving in the UAF, Ashton-Cirillo will obviously not be able to work as a journalist. She will also have to be more cautious about her social media posts, not only because they have to conform to UAF policies, but also for reasons of operational security.
Serving on the front lines will be particularly dangerous for Ashton-Cirillo. Russia’s supporters have frequently and enthusiastically wished a brutal and painful death upon her — a wish that they might fulfill if she is captured. But she is undeterred. “Ukrainians and Americans both hold dear a fundamental belief in freedom — and that freedom begins with the individual and extends out into the state. Taking the values of the greatest country in the world, the USA, and taking them with me to Ukraine is one of the greatest privileges of my life.”
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Adam Zivo is a Canadian columnist and policy analyst who relocated to Ukraine earlier this year to report on the Russia-Ukraine war. He is writing a book on how the war is experienced by average Ukrainians.
