“Pride is more about celebrating your identity with people whom you trust and want to share your experiences with,” Ripa, the Executive Director of Pink Armenia tells us when talking about Pride in Armenia. Based in the country’s capital of Yerevan, the organisation provides support and services to the LGBTQI community in Armenia.
In this interview, Ripa sheds light on the struggles and triumphs of the LGBTQI community in Armenia. Ripa discusses the impact of regional conflicts, and the evolving concept of Pride within Armenia. She also shares practical ways for the UK community to stand in solidarity and support their Armenian counterparts, emphasising the importance of global awareness and interconnectedness.
What is the current context in your region when it comes to LGBTQI rights?
It is quite a challenging time in Armenia. It is quite a homophobic country in a similarly homophobic region. In Armenia, we don’t have any legal means to protect our rights. In some countries in our region, homosexuality is seen as a crime and queer people might be put in jail or might be unalive because of their sexual orientation. There is a lot of discrimination and hate towards LGBTQI people which is also hard to navigate.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, we had the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Because of that event, we are currently having escalations and security issues which narrows down the space for human rights protection in general, specifically for LGBTQI people because we are one of the vulnerable groups. But the government or other state representatives don’t see LGBTQI people as vulnerable whose human rights should be protected.
“It is quite a homophobic country in a similarly homophobic region. In Armenia, we don’t have any legal means to protect our rights.”
And although Russia is not in our region, their influence is very noticeable. The war between Russia and Ukraine forced many to leave their own country because they didn’t feel safe. A lot of queer people have come to Armenia because of this. Before this, we would only see people fleeing from neighbouring countries, but now we have people from Russia and Ukraine as well. So on top of queer people’s rights in Armenia not being protected, there is also the added challenge of being a migrant in a country that is known for being homophobic.
And how does this context play out in your region? What are the lived experiences of LGBTQI people?
Living as a queer person in Armenia differs between if you live in cities or you are from the regions. Many people in Armenia are homophobic, especially in regions where this hate might come from your own family. But with fewer job opportunities in regions, young queer people often depend on their family for financial support which makes it very challenging. We also document a lot of domestic violence cases which is very sad.
The reality might be different for those able to move to bigger cities such as the capital Yerevan due to more opportunities for employment and housing. However, with the amount of migrants moving to Armenia recently, we have noticed rising rent prices making it difficult for queer individuals to live independently. As a result, many share apartments. You can find new families in this way because a lot of queer people share the same challenges and it brings them together.
What does the concept of ‘pride’ mean to you personally, and to the LGBTQI community in your region?
It’s a very discussed topic for us in Armenia but here, Pride is more about celebrating your identity with people whom you trust and want to share your experiences with. Stereotypically, when you think about Pride, you think about big celebrations with people walking down the streets dancing.
We often have discussions about the possibility of having a public Pride event in Yerevan, but each time we see that it’s very challenging for us as the first priority is to ensure the safety of people. It’s important to know that the police would be able to protect our rights. By now we know that they won’t as they have been very public about their inability to protect queer people.
We had something like Pride where we walked through the street, we called it a diversity march, but even then we had a very bad experience. We don’t want to be targeted for something we feel passionate about. After this it becomes clear for us that Pride is something that we would like to do on our terms.
If we can voice our concerns to society and they understand our message, we might consider taking the risk. Every year, we discuss whether it’s the right time to do Pride and what we mean by Pride, and every year it’s very different due to the changing context since 2018. In the meantime, we focus on smaller events, such as queer parties and drag shows, which allow us to celebrate our identities and support each other. One day, we hope to have a larger celebration, but we will be very careful with when and how we do that.
Why is it important for the community in the UK to be aware of the experiences of LGBTQI people around the world?
What comes to my mind is that I think we are so different and so similar, but sometimes when you live in some context you might not think about how other people that are like you are having their own struggles. For people living in different parts of the world where there are more opportunities and you might feel more protected, it’s a privilege, and it’s very important to be aware of your own privileges. Recognising your own privileges helps you to understand different experiences and to be kinder to others. It’s just about sharing which can help us to be aware of what we are, who we are and what we have, and just being more sensitive and caring towards each other.
“It’s very important to be aware of your own privileges. Recognising your own privileges helps you to understand different experiences and to be kinder to others.”
What are some of the practical actions we in the UK can do to stand in solidarity with the LGBTQI community in your region?
There are some very practical things that can be done by the community in the UK to raise awareness about the Armenian queer community. Sharing stories, videos, and other materials from our webpage, which are available in both Armenian and English, is one way to help. One obvious way to help is through fundraising. Inform your friends and anyone who might be interested about ongoing fundraisers because it’s also very important for the queer community in Armenia to have that financial support.
Also talk about the challenges and issues in Armenia. We’ve seen publicly a lot of things about wars elsewhere, but events in Armenia have not seen the same public attention. This is something that our international friends can do, to make sure that these things are talked about and not ignored.
What is a message you would like to leave supporters in the UK with this Pride month?
Learning about each other’s experiences might help us to stay connected because it’s really easy nowadays to be within your own thoughts and kind of be disconnected with whatever is going on in the world. But if you keep yourself open to new knowledge and experiences it might help you to also stay connected to the world. By learning from each other we can become better versions of ourselves and become more sensitive to each other.