Elvira Drangoi, Moldova (she/her)

18 September 2025

I'm from the South of Moldova, from a village named Zîrnești next to Cahul city.

Do you remember your childhood? How was your childhood in that village?

We lived in, with my parents and with my little brother, we lived in a house with one room smaller, I think, smaller than these rooms. And I lived like that until I was 15. Not 15…13…yeah. So, it was also a hard part for me.

Yeah, my childhood in the village is also about my school and my time in my school. At that time in my childhood, I felt really not so good at school. It was different, different aspects. Why? Because I was learning…oh my God...because I was really like a good girl, like doing...listening to parents, listening to teachers, always like only 10 grades I had and always with diplomas, this at the end of the school. But at the same time I felt really bad sometimes because I faced bullying because of the colour of my skin.

You had problems because you were Roma?

Yes, I, yeah, because I am Roma, because of that also my skin is darker and they would call me țigancă [gypsy] always, and I was telling my dad and my parents, “they call me țigancă, they call me țigancă”, and as a child, I didn't really understand why this hurts me so much, because it's, yeah, I am a țigancă, this is my ethnicity, but because they were saying this in a funny way, you know, in a somehow really judgy way I felt really, really bad about this and also about my lips because they were like maybe bigger than usually in my class and because of that I had like “Porekle”, I don't know nickname, but nickname it's a good one, porekle it's like a bad nickname, you know, “buzata”, it's like with big lips.

And also they called me “ciocolată”, I think this is, like chocolate, and I remember my mom arguing with some neighbours, “don't call her like that, don't call her like that”, and that's why I really didn't like that I am a țigancă, I am Roma, and I was trying to hide it so, so, bad. I was looking at my dad. My dad is Roma, my mom is Moldovan, half Moldovan, was half Moldovan, half Armenian. I was looking in my dad's birth certificate, and with the hope, maybe he's not Roma. I was hoping so much because of that, and they – even in birth certificates – they wrote on my dad’s Sergio țigan [gypsy], which is not acceptable anymore in our country but at that time also you would write Roma, not țigan.

So yeah, and I was trying to hide it. But in school it was hard to hide it, because there are some programs and NGOs that wanted to help Roma children, but sometimes they were doing it in a very, very bad way for us as children. Because you can [say], “who is Roma? Let's go to...to the club” – it's a room for children, another room in the school – “to club, we have a meeting about…” I don't know something, or they will give you some support or something and just I felt it was like a segregation, you know? Who is Roma come to…and I was like no [laughs], I don't, I want to go, and when I was telling my dad about “ah you know people and children in the school is saying to me like these bad things” because they were also had some…and my dad just said, “go to them and say uh Moldovan without brains” or brain, or something like this, you know? some stupid things [laughs], I think…And I was like, okay, I'm not going anymore to tell my dad anything [laughs], because I don't like this answer. And I was dealing actually alone in this, because I didn't want to tell my mom about this to protect her somehow, like a child, because I know for her it was really hurtful to know that their children are verbally abused in school because…and yeah, so this is a little bit about my child and also a lot about my childhood is a religious part because my parents are Baptist and the church was in my house, yes. So, people every Sunday came to my house. We had two houses, one this little, like I said, where we lived and another one bigger for church things. And every Sunday people were coming in my house to pray, to do all this stuff. I also...me and my brother were like obligated also to go to these meetings and I was very religious girl, going to my school with books about Jesus and telling children about Jesus and how they need to accept Jesus in this life. And you know when I was a child actually my biggest fear was that Jesus will come one day in the night, and I'm not baptized, and I would be in hell [laughs]. That was my biggest fear as a child. 

So, this is about my childhood. And also, it's about my…I have a big, so big, family, extended family, because my dad, they are eight children in [his] family, and my mom, they are 12. Yes, and I had lots, lots of cousins, and also we had meetings with cousins, dancing. This was the funny part, but as a child, I really felt that I'm somehow more, how to say...attached, not attached, attached is not the way…I had more time with my family from my mom and the family from my dad, I didn't have so much time together because as I said before, I think my dad still has also internalised like problems with accepting he is Roma also. And we meet, we met, also with my family from my dad, but they didn't, they weren’t so much in the village, and they came just sometimes. for years, and we’d go also to them. But I really felt like my dad didn't have such, didn't, the connection between him and his brothers was [not] so strong. I still don't know why. Maybe because they also faced, in the family, problems. And my grandmother from Dad, she died when I was like, one year [ago], and they said I was her favourite nephew [niece]. And I really feel like Dad and I really feel so connected with her.[...]But my grandfather, I didn't…Yeah, and my grandmother is coming from a family of Lăutari from Romania, Lăutari, people that are singing, Roma people that are singing, and usually at the weddings, at some ceremonies, and they could, like, on the violin, sing and all this stuff.

But my grandfather, I don't know so much about him. I know he was an abuser, and my dad didn't speak with him so much, and when he died, my dad even didn't want to go to the cemetery, for us also, and I wanted also to know my grandfather. But as I was saying yesterday [laughs] trauma…but the good thing! [laughs] No…I was living, I was living between like, on the right, it was like a Roma community from my village and the place, they were calling it Purican…I don't really know where this is from, but I think it's not the goodest thing to say, this. So, this zone was with Roma community, and on the left, it was the [ethnic] Moldovan community. And I lived on the street between these two, and on my street, I have also Roma and Moldovans. Yeah. So, on this street, we had also, we were Roma, Moldovan, like together. And this is how I felt like most of the time between two of these communities, and actually didn't accept any of this identity of mine because I was asked where do I belong? Where do I belong? And it took me so much time to really say proudly “I am Roma.”

And I started also in school with some NGOs that did some trainings, and I was involved in that, but even that didn't help me. I was like, a little bit faking that I'm accepting it, but I didn't at that time, so when…I think the therapy really helped me to accept that, and to see the power, and the love in all this.

It was very, very hard for you to accept that you are Roma

…and the most hard, the hardest part about it was these internal things, and usually when you're staying with your friends, with your colleagues, and they start to do jokes about, they started at that time to do jokes about the Roma community, and you're like “I'm from the Roma, maybe I should say something to defend me and my community” and on the other hand I was like “yeah but they will know I'm Roma they will…” and it was such a discussion in myself and…yeah, and I didn't speak Romani language at my home, but my neighbour started to teach me when I was a child and he was a really, he is a really good old man [laughs] and he didn't, he had a lot of time, I also, like a child, and we just met on the street and he would teach me Romani language. Yes, but because I didn't practice it, I forgot this...but sometimes when I hear something it's like “ah! I know this from somewhere” and yeah and for me it was also a question of if I can speak Romani language and I am a Roma person? If I can't speak Romani language, it's, it's also…or… should… maybe I had discrimination and bullying, but it wasn't so hard like in other communities, and if I didn't face so much discrimination, am I a Roma person?

For me it was like, I need to face some kind of discrimination and after that I can call myself a Roma person. And yeah, so it was basically so hard like on this existential part and we followed all of this stuff…

You told me, like we were talking like a little bit earlier, that you…like, it was hard for you to accept that you are Roma, but you told me that you were after that homophobic. How hard it was for you to accept that you are an LGBTQ person?

Yeah. I think I was homophobic because, as I said, I was raised in a religious environment, and I was religious…I was. Until like 16 years old, I think. I was an activist, religious person. I was part of a group of students – and it still works, some of my cousins are there working – that works to engage more students in this so they can teach other students in universities about Jesus and to make this whole community bigger, and I was involved in this, learning how to use some kind of tools to make teenagers and youth to believe in God. And at this kind of stuff, we also discussed about LGBT people and why this is not okay and this is obscene and all this stuff. And when I was having questions about my sexuality for the first time, I was in a relationship with a guy at that time. And it was hard because I was still religious, and for me, it was like I'm threatening God or something like this, like a traitor, I'm a traitor…and how could I do that? And I started to talk with my mentors from that [group] and they didn't accept it, like, “this is not okay.” You know, I was telling them like I have some friends, you know, and I just felt like I needed to take some time to not be involved in this and just stop going to these meetings.

And yeah, also I started to do – I just went to, I just went to a workshop, a filmmaking workshop, and there I met one girl and I really, really liked her, like romantically, and sexually, for the first time in my life, a girl. And after that, yeah, I started to put these questions and to take that space, and the first time I understood like, “yeah, I'm from the [LGBTIQ] community” was when at one party one girl just kissed me [laughs] and I understood, yeah, this is it [laughs] I do love girls. So yeah, for me it was hard because I had such a really good connection with my mom, and with my dad actually also, with my dad, my mom, my brother. And I do not like to hide things from them – like, I'm open with them, talk about everything – and when I felt like that, I just immediately felt like I need to come out somehow, to say to them, and I started to ask some questions: 

“Are you okay? Oh, look, I have one friend that loves girls. What do you think about this?”

And they started, you know: “Oh, you, Vira, I can't imagine this!”, you know, “God, God, God”…

My mom, all my life was like, you should…when I was a child, I was telling, “Mom, I love you first, dad second, third my brother”, and she was [saying], “No, first Jesus, after, me, dad…”

And for, yeah, for her it was like… and I started to do therapy because I wanted her to help me with coming out to my parents and I did like one and a half year in the pandemic and then I, in one day, I decided to come out to my parents and I wrote uh…like a letter and met them in the evening. I told them I want to discuss something with you, and I just read that letter to them [sighs]… and it was...My mom started to cry. She was like, “I can't imagine this. Please, be alone all your life. Don't have children. Do what you want, but please don't do this to us.”

My dad was [saying], “What we will say at the church? What will the neighbours tell us?”

He was at first [saying], “I'm going out from this home.” He was like, “Yeah, I'm leaving you here. I don't want to be part of this family anymore.” After, like, one hour he said “you decide – you're going from this house, or I'm going” like, he’s going, and my mom just, was between us, and then “please calm down” after that she was saying “so you go, you go from this house” and my mom’s just trying to calm us down so yeah my dad started to say “when I will die, don't come to my dying ceremony [funeral]” and…but that night, my mom started to say, I love you every, every night. Because second day, she was telling me she was feeling guilty for that. She thought it's her fault. And my dad actually also said to her, “it's your fault, you educated her like this”, and she started [saying], “Oh, it's my fault because we didn't eat dinner together always, like, that's why you're gay, you’re queer, yeah” [laughs]. And yeah, it was hard for her, but after three days, I went to a project for two weeks just to take some space between me and my dad, and when I came home, he just pretended like nothing happened and he just started to talk with me like usually, and my mom also, like that. And they just didn't [laughs] bring this into discussion. But sometimes, when they when they were saying something, I just reminded them about this.

After that, how was the Roma community in general in your village towards you because you were coming out as LGBTQ person?

Actually, I came out to my parents, and I didn't come out to the whole community. I didn't feel like I need to, you know, maybe I was thinking maybe I should post it on my Facebook or Instagram. Everybody will see and just, this is it. But no, I didn't have…after this story with my parents, I didn't have the energy and all this stuff to do to the whole community. But I think to the community, I wasn't uh… oh, I forgot the term, it's not coming out, outing… I was outing, outed and it was…happened actually this year because my mom had cancer from when I was 16 years old, and she was, she was having several cancers and the last one it, that we found out, it was in May this year. And after that – and I was always going with her to hospitals to help her. That's why I was telling you yesterday, because sometimes we change the roles, like, sometimes I was the parent. And this, in May, my mom had… yeah, it's hard to talk about this, because actually, I'm feeling really guilty sometimes. Because one day I was going home in my village and just making some food with my mom, talking with her. Because of therapy, our roles became normal, she's the mom and the parent, and I was telling her, “You know, Mom, actually what I'm doing in Queer Café? Because I'm telling you, but I'm not sure if you know.”

And she said, “what?”

And I was telling her, “I work with LGBTQ+ people.”

And she said, “what do you mean?”

“Yeah, LGBTQ+ people who love...” And at that time, she's starting just to laugh, and I was like, “what's happening? It's funny?” But after that, she had convulsions, you know? Convulsions, like people with epilepsy.

She started and I didn't know what was happening. I thought she will die in that moment. We called the ambulance, and I was the only one at home. I called my brother. My dad wasn't in the country. We took her to the hospital. It was a really, really hard moment, and after one week, or two weeks, we found out she has brain cancer, and at the same time with breast cancer and...and yeah, the thing about outing is that for the first time I didn't feel like I can any more go with her to hospitals and to stay with her. And for the first time my dad becomes, like, more adult and took the responsibility,  and  she was already changing so much week by week – couldn't walk, couldn't talk after that – and someone from my village followed me on Instagram, one of my old friends from the religious part, and she saw that I'm making queer events. I was working in a queer cafe; it was my work. She wrote me a really bad message like “how you can do activities for devil people when you know that your mother is dying and she needs your support and she's begging for you to be there” and all this stuff. But… and I know I found out after that that my aunt’s sister's mom, she told my aunt that I'm a lesbian. I posted online that I have a girlfriend. My aunt told more people, and they told it in a way that “she's a lesbian, she's doing all this life in Chișinău, and she doesn't help her mom who's dying.”

Yeah, but they didn't know…

It’s okay, take your time…if you want to make a pause.

No, it's okay...Yeah, they didn't know all the work that I did until that.

And all the going to hospitals and times…and when I found out that my mom had brain cancer, I was going to the doctors to ask...and when I go to mom at home and I asked her, “mom, you know, you should choose because they said, you can do an operation or you can just live with that and see, because both of them have risk.”

And my mom said, “Elvira, you know, you choose for me.”

And this is how it was, like, all my life from 16 about my mom and her cancer…and they didn't know about all the work that I did and all the parent work that I did…and they started to talk about my sexual orientation and that…who do I love? And I came home and my dad also was so sad because people started to talk about me, how I'm doing here, prides, going to marches and not…it was, yeah, about the community in my village and my relatives...yeah...I just forgot what I was...

It's okay…it's okay, take your time.

Yeah…and I just went home, and I went to that aunt and just started to yell at her. And she said, like, “you can say to me thanks. I didn't say to the people all the things that I know. 

And I asked her, “what all things? Because I live with a girl who I love?” 

And she said, “this also, I know about this.”

And it was, yeah, whatever. But in this, the most support in all this I felt was from my Roma community, from my dad's side, actually.

And my aunts – after four months, my mom died – and my aunt, sister-in-law of my dad and all, I really felt their support like they came they really did care about me at that time and she said like if you don't want to – you know, all people at the death ceremony they started to say “put the hand on your mother's body, do something” – she was so supportive with me and she cried with me a lot and she stayed with me and like they...didn't really, you know when I was at this ceremony in the village, and I was going in the village actually every week, but they didn't saw this. I was in Greece at this Roma [Roma Rights Summer School] and they start to talk that I moved to Greece and I left my mom, and it was such a lie. And actually, at this ceremony, I went with my girlfriend, with Stella, you met her yesterday. They started to ask who is that girlfriend, and you know some of them talk between them, who is this girlfriend? But, yeah, this aunt really didn't care. She just said to me it's good that you have here her, and she's your support here and it's good to have her here.

And she cried with me and she really did support me and, yeah, I felt like more connected to my Roma part in this. Because it's somehow for me was like Roma community, my family, can cry, and I needed people that can cry and can support in this time. I didn't need, in my mom's family, it's protection mechanism to make jokes. But I didn't need that, to make jokes, to do some...I just needed this, to cry together and to feel like family.

And yeah, I didn't speak to them about my sexual orientation after this and I really do want to go to see them to visit in their village because after this I felt so connected and yeah, I just feel like I want to be with them and…But at the ceremony, they just said, like, it's good to have her here. And it wasn't like my aunts from my mom's part that talked to her in a bad way or said, “talk to Elvira, because she will regret, she didn’t spend so much time with her mother's body” or, you know, things like this.

Okay, can you talk about like now, like your present life? Do you have like problems in LGBT community in Moldova because you're a Roma or no?

I think the problems are, like, the jokes that LGBTQ+ people are making sometimes about the Roma community; the language that some of them are using. And yeah, I had a friend from the community that she was making always jokes about the Roma community, and I was starting to tell her why this is not okay. And she said like, “you know, but let's discuss where is the limit of humour. Like if you're not making [jokes] about Roma, not making about et cetera, you will be censoring, and you can't, like go with the flow with your mind and your…” Yeah, and I think the problems that you can feel are still the stigma and, through these jokes, yeah there are still stereotypes about the Roma community in the LGBTQ+ community and some people doesn't know and doesn't see the problems that the Roma community are facing and the importance to…you know, there is on 8th march, there is a feminist march for human rights. On 8th April, there is a Romni [Romani women] march or some feminist march. And you cannot see the queer community also there at this march. You can see the differences. This march is like 51 [people], and people are not going to support also this march, because you can see the queer community is involved in so many marches and protests, but not a lot of them are going to this one. And maybe it's because of more promoting than...

You're saying that there is no support for Roma stuff, Roma rights here?

Yeah, and there is no…you know, even at the Queer Café where I was working, we started to do some Roma – some events about the Roma community –  like, to just a second. Yeah, because we saw it's like LGBT community, Roma community, and other communities divided between them, and after I came back from Greece also and talked about Roma LGBT people, we were starting to think about some activities with the Roma community at the Queer Café, but yeah, we didn't have a lot. We have just some activities about this. It was a screening about the Roma community and it was a talk and like that. But yeah, you can't really...and we don't have activities for Roma LGBT community because, I don't know, it's like either you are from one community, or you are from another, nobody thinks that you can be Roma and from LGBTQ+ community [laughs] and yeah, this is why you're not making events. But yeah, and that's what I was saying. The problems are also stigma and all this prejudice collects, yeah.

Okay, can you talk about, not only about Roma, but in general, how is it here living in Moldova for a person of LGBTQ+? How they are living here?

For me, right now, it's...we are staying with my roommates because we are living in a bubble somehow because we live together, like, lesbians and we work in this. We don't face discrimination at work, but this is not the reality of LGBTQ people in general in Moldova.

And this is Chișinău, but Chișinău is not Moldova, and if you're going to the south or to the north, people are facing so many challenges, like, their family doesn't accept, that's why they don't talk about this. They don't have safe spaces to go to meet and – not [just] safe spaces for LGBT community, but safe spaces to go on a date like in the town or things like this. Also, discrimination at work, it's really bad for transgender people here, and because of that, people are not accepted at work.

So yeah, somehow, it's good in Chișinău, in the city centre [laughs, but when you're going outside and some of… like in Cahul right now, the mayor is religious, the president is religious, like it's more religious right now, and you cannot make events publicly. We started to do, we wanted to do an event during Pride in Cahul, and we just needed to...give it another title, to not be so obvious that we want to speak also about LGBT rights. And you have to do it more from a lower level, you know, just trying to talk about these subjects a little bit like that. 

I was working at a festival in Cahul, Moldox it’s called, last year. I worked like an executive director at this festival, and it was so hard because we had participants from Chișinău, one agender person that looked that for society, in society’s norms looks like boy, but he was scared, and we had so many problems about this, and in Cahul people were just calling us and asking “who's that guy?” and “we will come to beat him and all of you.” And I needed not to focus on the festival, but to focus on the police and on to security of our participants of the festival, and it was so, fucked up at this time.

And we also did some first queer party there and some teenagers came and were throwing things at us and also, we came… we called the police, and yeah if you're doing something very loud, they will come and they… you found out really quick in Cahul about this and they really are aggressive, some of the people. So, this is the reality of some people that lives in Cahul, and I know that people from the community from other parts of Moldova wants just to move to Chișinău. Because, you know, NGOs also don't work so much in other regions. So, people are moving to Chișinău to feel safe here. But when you come here, you don't have food, you don't have money for renting and all this stuff, and you're facing also these problems. So yeah, a lot of community, even from Chișinău right now…even yesterday I talked at Queer Cafe with some people and they said that some of them don't have anywhere to live right now because they don't have money for rent, or they don't have for food, for basic needs, so yeah… and some of them are teenagers because they…and this is like we were saying, sometimes one of the rules of coming out, if you come out to your parents, just make sure you have another place to go, because it's bad here sometimes, just parents throw the children out.

Do you see like some kind of solution to this kind of problem? Is it to educate society more or…?

I think for me it's very important, education. Because society is scared of something that they don't know anything about. They know, they are educated from pro-Russian propaganda, and if our government is not making any information, education about this, also NGOs of course, but if they are not making, they just see info about this from Russian propaganda. And that's why it's important to have also sexual education in schools, because one of the subjects of sexual education is gender identity, also, and you learn about identities, you learn about different sexual orientation, and this is important just to just to teach people basic human respect here; like, to respect others' rights and in general rights education.

I think it's really important to educate them, and also to stop Russian propaganda here, because they will use LGBT people for every political election. We'll have elections next year for parliament, and I'm sure they will use also this. So yeah, one of the things is education and starting to monitor somehow, more, the hate speech, the hate crimes and all this.

Can you tell me, like, for you, what makes a human being, a human being? What makes human, human?

For me it's emotions. I don't know, me and my friends are saying that I'm very emotionally focused person, and human beings, yeah, it's about emotions, about love, about human dignity. Yeah, but for me it's about how you express what you feel, yeah, what you feel, and what you are, how you express this, yeah, what makes a human being, human.

I know that I forgot something, or some question is important that I didn't ask. Do you think people should know something about Romeo LGBTQ in Moldova or in general?

Yes, because we exist! And I know it's only [laughs], you know, when I found out for myself, I am a lesbian, I was thinking, “oh my God, I am Roma. I am lesbian. I am from a village. I am a woman. And it can exist together, yes!” [laughs] and it's hard because you're facing intersectional problems. But we exist, and people should know about this because people from two communities that are discriminated in one country and facing more problems than…yeah, you know…and at the Ake Dikhea Film Festival, it was the first night a film about Roma, two Roma guys, two Roma gays that are together, and it was like, it's how to live like a minority, in a minority, they call it like that. It’s interesting because you will live like [laughs] like this in…you know, you are from already an oppressed group here and another oppressed group in this. So yeah, I was really afraid that my Roma community like wouldn’t accept my LGBT part, and sometimes my LGBT community, like my friends that, maybe they make jokes about Roma, and they said they respect me, they respect Roma community, but they make jokes. This is not 100% acceptance and respect. Let's be honest…and this is, yeah, hard. So, people should know about this. Because if you talk about this, you'll find more solutions or what we need instead to feel more safe and…yeah, just to live.

 

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