Gap-year, Ukraine, test-optional, financial aid and LGBTQ+ (sucks to be me)

Answered

Honesty, I'm 100% certain that all Top 25 colleges in the US are looking for Ukrainian Poster Students to host and award full ride scholarships to regardless of their orientation. Since you probably don't know a lot about American colleges I will say that the very best financial aid is readily available to most competitive colleges. So as a international applicant that requires a full ride I would focus on only applying to the very best universities in the US. Since you are a transitioning person, I personally feel you would be more welcome have have more support at schools like Harvard, UPenn, NYU, Columbia, Brown, than more conservative Christian (Jesuit) colleges like Georgetown, Boston College or the University of Notre Dame. Mind you all these Jesuit schools do have trans persons on campus but there might be in the single digit numbers. At UPenn, there are close to 650 LGBTQIA members at the Wharton School club so you will have much more of a community of people to interact with on a day to day basis.

In addition to Ivy League Colleges, I would say that these colleges are very LGBTQIA friendly:

-Carleton College

-Oberlin College

-Bowdoin College

-Bennington College

-Harvey Mudd (Part of the 5Cs Claremont colleges in CA)

-Reed College (Portland OR)

-Grinnell College

-Olin Engineering

-Vassar College

-Bryn Mawr/Mount Holyoke (if you are a trans woman since they are women's colleges).

-I wouldn't worry about the SAT or ACT.

-I would however focus on making sure your essays are the very best that they can be written in your own voice. (Be extremely careful that you do not have someone write your essays for you because every admission officer will be extremely careful reading these. If you have a "tell" which is not consistent with the way you use the English language to write your supplemental essays or short answer questions etc, the will red flag your application and if will not be prioritized no matter how great an essay it is. Therefore, write as much of them as possible and only use people to make suggestions.

-The best thing you can do it present your story as accurately and honest as possible and explain that you are part of a marginalized population is the middle of a war defending against Russia who is entirely anti-trans, anti-LGBTQIA as well. If you were ever to meet a Russian soldier, you have the very highest chances of being killed on the spot or tortured extensively first.

-I don't know what kind of technology/equipment you have access to but in your case, I think I would recommend that you have a social media footprint. Be careful not to disclose your location, but I think many people in the US and the rest of world would like to know about your day to day life as a trans person in the middle of warzone. That is just my 2 cents. I think if you are have a decent audience on tiktok, instagram, facebook, twitter about your journey to an American college, I think the colleges themselves would be more compelled to help you find that solution. And if you did gain some kind of large following, that could serve a practical purpose in helping fund your college admissions journey and also any expenses related to your transitioning journey.

in a weird way, the war in Ukraine may actually work to your advantage and it was serendipitous to take a GAP year.

Good luck.