Open Letter Against Intolerance in Armenia

Homosexuality is being discussed in Armenian media and literature in the context of a threat to national security, and as a disordered identity. These attitudes only advance the notion that gays are sick and dangerous, and serves to promote a culture of violence against LGBT citizens in the country.

"Even through the general absence of any desire to ask fundamental questions about homosexuality, male homosexuality in Armenia has been consistently described as a threat to national security, a result of accepting European decadent values or a pathology and disease, while homosexual women have been denied of existence all together or condemned in not fitting into the image of a “proper” Armenian woman.

We urge all officials, politicians, journalists, teachers, doctors and all those who are engaged in public work as well as each and every individual, to get acquainted with problems that homosexual men and women face in Armenia, their socially active initiatives and to the contemporary debates around gender and sexuality."

Please leave a comment to sign the petition on the Queering Yerevan blog.