“I’ve never had any regrets about anything that I’ve done in my life, my only regret is that I haven’t done some things, or that I didn’t do them sooner. I don’t consider myself a brave person; then again, do you need courage nowadays to be who you are? Had I been braver and more determined, had I done all this sooner, I’d have fared much better in life, and there would have been less damage to some people close to me – specifically, my children – but all of us have a mission given to us. This is probably mine,” Helena Vuković, a woman with a transgender experience, better known in the general public as Major Helena, said in her interview with Kurir.
Enjoying the freedom
She was born in 1973 as a man (initials M.V.) and in her previous life had a marriage of 22 years. She had four children and was active in the Serbian Armed Forces until 2014, when she went into retirement with the rank of major, because she announced she was starting the process of adapting her biological sex to her gender identity.
She started the transition in January 2015, and the surgery took place in May 2016. Today, seven years on, Helena lives with her female partner in Novi Sad, is involved in human rights, and enjoys her freedom.
“The price is high, but it all pays off eventually, your dreams come true. At the end of the road, when you’re by yourself and you sum up your life under the sun – are you happy? There’s no price tag on that! The Helena of today would tell the young and inexperienced Helena, as she didn’t author the scenario of her life, that she should at least direct and play the main role in this film of hers, rather than a supporting one,” she told us.
Her transition period was comparatively brief, but the surgery itself was quite difficult.
“Those were very turbulent times, because I was engaged on several fronts: the start of the transition, the effect of the hormones, the bodily changes, puberty-like behaviour, but this time in the right direction; moreover, there was the start of my activism, which came as a result of my personal experience and had become very intensive, with constant media engagements; in addition, there were the court trials against the state authorities. I had little time to be by myself. And all this while, I had to find all sorts of jobs to support myself – from helping house painters to apartment cleaning because 60 percent of the pension, out of which a half went into the alimony, wasn’t enough even to make ends meet. The surgery was difficult, but I was somehow ready for it all. I was more afraid of something happening to me before the surgery, so that my old name would be written on the cross. Then all of it would have been in vain,” Helena Vuković said.
A selfie after the surgery
Immediately after the surgery, she asked for a cell phone in order to take a selfie, and she wrote below the photograph: “Hello, world.” Her first shower was a kind of encounter with her new self, so she fainted from the excitement.
Her public appearances and talking openly about her life have made a significant contribution to the visibility and improving the human rights of transgender persons. She is also considered the spearhead of the trans-revolution in Serbia…
“The problem facing transgender people knows no boundaries or nations, nor does the problem of the entire LGBTI+ community, because there is a lot of stigma, which is unnecessary. I guess people cannot stand it if someone is different, and they don’t realize that it’s not an illness. We need to work on education – no one understands until they feel it themselves, so, when someone close to them comes out, even the most bitter opponents start to see things differently. For the transgender community, 2019 was one of the most fruitful years: The WHO adopted a new standard of diseases, the ICD-11, in which transgenderism was removed from the mental health section and placed in the sexual and reproductive health one, which constitutes one of the biggest global victories. Early on in the same year, the implementation started of the Law on the Amendments of Civil Records, defining for the first time the procedure of pre-surgery personal document change, as well as the change of the civil records data (sex designation, name, personal ID number),” she said, adding:
“After the Covid pandemic, everything started to go downhill somehow, with the whole world turning politically to the right, the Fascist and nationalist forces taking power in some countries, and getting stronger in others. As a result, the anti-gender, anti-trans, and anti-LGBT agenda became increasingly stronger. I hope that the world will come back to its senses because this simply isn’t good, hatred isn’t good… In this country, the church has become dominant, and has started to edit school textbooks, change the grammar, propagate hate instead of love, turn us against one another, because the only love that’s valid is the one they propagate, and anything else is illness according to them. That can bring great misery to us because, if the shepherd keeps provoking fights among its herd, then there is no herd or the shepherd.”
Helping the Ukrainian LGBT refugees
After the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out on 24 February 2022, Helena Vuković went to Poland to help the Ukrainian LGBT refugees to find a safe haven from the war.
“My organization, L*-Communio, based in Novi Sad, is a member of the EuroCentralAsian Lesbian*Community (EL*C), and I am on its Board. During the 2019 lesbian conference in Kyiv, we were attacked by the Ukrainian right-wingers and zealots – the hotel that housed the conference was stoned, and the police responded using force. We were literally in a ghetto. When Russia started its aggression, we immediately thought, ‘If that’s what it was like in peace, who knows what the situation will be like at a time of war, when everyone is additionally inflamed.
“We made the decision, and a couple of us set off for Poland in our cars, to the Ukrainian border, to save the lesbians and queer women from Ukraine. EL*C started a donation system and the ‘lesbian hosting network’ (a network that families would get in touch with so that they would be accepted into the countries of the EU). We founded four safe houses near the border, where we would provide temporary accommodation for women refugees with pets and children.
“We provided them with food, clothes, and anything else you might need when you flee a war with nothing to your name. When they recovered, we would send them to the countries of their choice. Over 350 lesbians stayed in our houses, and we helped them to start over in new environments. It was quite stressful, strenuous, and difficult, but at the end of the day, the sense of fulfilment when you know you’ve helped someone – that is priceless. It was an important experience, and I was able to apply the knowledge that I had gained in the Armed Forces,” she said.
THE BELGRADE PREMIERE OF THE PLAY THE MAJOR AND HELENA ON MONDAY
‘I cried throughout the play about my life’
The Belgrade premiere of the play The Major and Helena, based on her life, will be held on Monday at Bitef. It is a play that is also concerned with how much courage it takes to be who you are in a conservative society.
“About two years ago, a recent acting graduate Aleksa Jovčić got in touch, asking me if he could do a play based on the book The Major and Helena – written by Maja Bekčić Petrović and practically my own biography – for his master’s thesis. I was pleasantly surprised by the idea of the young actor to bring parts of the book to life and make them into a scenario for a theatre production. I was also a bit suspicious, what with his lack of experience and the fear of it being yet another ‘show-businessy’ representation of someone’s (my own) life – yet another form void of all content.
“I got in touch with Maja, the writer of the book, and we agreed to give Aleksa a chance, but with the proviso that he should bring the scenario to us first, to see if that was it. A few months later, the scenario arrived, and, with some minor interventions, Maja’s book started to come to life. Aleksa worked independently because we had agreed to let him do the work. I first saw the play during the dress rehearsal and cried throughout. I shouldn’t talk more about the production, but rather recommend it to the viewers. They will have a chance to see it first on 12 June at 8pm at Bitef,” Helena said.
B. Karović
NE PROPUSTITE
