I was twelve, going on thirteen, and living in Kyiv when t.A.T.u.’s controversial “Я сошла с ума” hit the airwaves (released in English as “All the Things She Said”). Though I already suspected I was queer, I lacked the vocabulary and the courage to articulate it. The lyrics, saturated with teen angst and confusion, spoke to something true. A couple lines in the original, Russian version translate to: “I don’t understand myself . . . /Why, why am I attracted to you?”

But what struck was the reaction I absorbed at social gatherings and in school hallways—the zeal in dismissing the song and the music video as “attention-seeking” and “vile.” It made my own silence heavier. And here I was hearing it again, years later, as the soundtrack to a gutting scene in Heated Rivalry.