Combining the (In)compatible: Ukrainian Strategies for Living with Competing Religious, Feminist, and/or LGBT+ Identities

Abstract

The article is devoted to strategies for living with  multiple competing identities, based on the study Combining the (In)Compatible, which was conducted by WASR in 2021–2022 to explore the experience of feminist and LGBTQ+ believers in Ukraine. 40 interviews were conducted with people of different age, education, and religious affiliation. From their responses we have identified 3 main strategies of coping with the stress from having competing multiple identities: 1) transformation of one identity from a public identity into a private one (e.g. when people stop participating in their religious community, but focus on personal religiosity instead, or when they stop expressing their feminist identity in their religious communities); 2) renunciation of one of the identities (e.g. when people completely withdraw from their original religious community without looking for a substitute); 3) combination of both identities in public, which can lead to two opposite results:  being accepted in both competing communities and leading a fruitful life, or being rejected by both communities, exacerbating the stress of juggling competing identities.