From Kyiv/Tbilisi to Yerevan: lessons to learn for celebrating LGBTQ+ Pride in Armenia
By Joshua Losinger, Arman Martirosyan, Juliane Steuer
The situation of LGBTQ+ people in Armenia today
Although Armenia has recently shown positive signs towards integrating more EU values, several human rights reports (ECOM, HRW, PINK, ILGA) point out that between 2018 and 2025, the situation for LGBTQ+ people in Armenia has not significantly improved: LGBTQ+ Armenians continue to face discrimination, violence, and harassment, none yet recognised as hate crimes in the country’s criminal code. As a result, not only is living as an open LGBTQ+ person still stigmatised, but it is equally hard to organise events to celebrate queerness in Armenia. Today’s few available queer spaces are “clandestine”, or exclusively indoors. In recent years, other Eastern Partner countries, particularly Ukraine and, to a lesser degree, neighbouring Georgia, have successfully – though with serious challenges – organised several Pride events out in the streets. This article provides an overview of Pride events in Ukraine and Tbilisi, highlighting how members of Armenia’s LGBTQ+ community can learn from these experiences and potentially manage an outdoor Pride event in Yerevan some time in the future.
Pride events in Ukraine and Georgia
Ukraine’s LGBTQ+ movement in wartime
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ movement has faced significant difficulties. Equality marches are threatened by homophobic groups, Russian military attacks, and martial law prohibiting large demonstrations. Nevertheless, with around 30 organisations, the movement continues to fight for LGBTQ+ rights, freedom, democracy, and much more. The need for these rights takes on a new dimension in wartime; for instance, without legal recognition of same-sex relationships, LGBTQ+ partners of military personnel face difficulties accessing information, or worse, the bodies of their loved ones. Freya Proudman, an expert on Eastern European LGBTQ+ rights, identifies three lessons that can be learned from the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ community.
The first lesson is creativity in how they continue to organise despite the disruptions caused by the invasion: Kharkiv Pride 2022 was held in a bomb shelter, and a car parade was organised for 2024. That year, Kyiv Pride demonstrated adaptability in hosting its first Equality March since the full-scale invasion – its location shared only hours before, the event lasted just ten minutes for safety reasons.
The Unicorn Battalion, a group of LGBTQ+ soldiers in Ukraine’s military, shows that the fight for LGBTQ+ rights is intersectional. In many Eastern European countries, harmful narratives persist, such as claiming that LGBTQ+ identities are incompatible with national identities. By fighting for Ukraine – true to its Pride’s motto, “There is no rainbow without blue and yellow” – they prove otherwise. They defend not just Ukraine, but also democracy and freedom from oppression, including Russian aggression and homophobia.
Finally, the Ukrainian LGBTQ+ groups show the power of international solidarity. For instance, Warsaw invited Kyiv Pride to co-host their 2022 Pride together. Ukrainian LGBTQ+ groups also regularly participate in other events like EuroPride, London Pride, and World Pride, strengthening global support for LGBTQ+ rights and solidarity with Ukraine.
Georgia’s complicated Pride journey
Fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in Georgia has not been easy for its community. Institutional, social, and political shortcomings have paved a difficult way for celebrating both the singularity and multiplicity of queer identities.
In Georgia, as in Ukraine and Moldova, anti-discrimination laws on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity were passed, as required by the EU for their Association Agreements. This step towards greater guarantees of freedom of expression and association should have made it safer for LGBTQ+ demonstrations, such as Pride parades and rallies for the International Day against Homophobia. However, the reality is more complicated, as the Georgian LGBTQ+ community still lives under the pressure of hate speech and generalised homophobia, including the violent mob and counter-protest attacks during the first 2019 Pride parade and the second edition in 2021.
In 2022, Tbilisi Pride had a different outcome. Amid safety concerns and doubting the real protection effect from the authorities, the organisers decided to hold Pride week events indoors. A major letdown was the absence of a March of Dignity, symbolic of what constitutes the essence of a Pride parade. Despite this shortcoming, activities involved the screening of Georgian queer drama “Wet Sand,” exploring the difficulty of living an authentic life. Pride week concluded with Tbilisi Pride Fest, which provided the opportunity to attend performances like drag shows and music concerts. International guests, including ambassadors from the EU, French and US delegations, gathered to support the event.
Pride events since then have followed the same fashion – indoor activities – but still, LGBTQ+ presence was embraced. However possible, Tbilisi Pride celebrated what it could, with great resilience and despite danger. It aimed at promoting dignity and equality, if not complete visibility of queer people.
Similar initiatives in Armenia and lessons to be learned for a future Yerevan Pride
Tsomak – the owner of an LGBTQ+ bar in Armenia that was bombed in 2012 – teamed up with Milena to create S-pichka, a musical duet. Since Tsomak sought political asylum in Sweden, a return to Yerevan was no longer possible, and so in 2016 they performed for their community in Tbilisi instead, attended by Armenian individuals as well.
In recent years, several LGBTQ+ events have successfully been organised in Armenia itself. The dance club The House of Writers (HOW) in Yerevan hosted an event entitled “House of Drags: Armenian Nights in Queer Heaven” on 11 November 2024. It announced the event as “a night dedicated to celebrating Armenian heritage, identity, and pride—reimagined through […] drag.” Several months later, the first-ever “Drag Ball” competition was organised for 14 February 2025, thus “making history.” Amid the Eurovision Song Contest, another drag event, “Dragovision,” was held on 10 May 2025 again by The HOW. In another venue, called The Gate, Armenian Ballroom organised a Barbie-themed vogue ball on 25 May 2025. After the event, the organisers wrote that “Ballroom and our community are all about freedom, love, and living your truth, and we’re so proud to be building something meaningful together here in Armenia.” Finally, for Pride Month, The HOW announced Armenia’s “first-ever Pride celebration drag show,” qualifying it as “a groundbreaking night of queer joy, [and] visibility.” Although performed in their venue, which is to say indoors like all the previous events, the significance of these events should not be underestimated.
It is important to note that The HOW regularly organises other musical and artistic events, with several invited performers from the Eastern Partner countries, notably Georgia and Belarus, but also Ukrainians and liberal relocated Russians. Thus, even if we speak of potential lessons to be learned for Armenia from Georgia and Ukraine, we should not look at the situation only as a one-way flow of influence. Instead, we should embrace the LGBTQ+ community’s intertwined celebration and joint efforts to promote and normalise Pride and other LGBTQ-related events in Eastern Europe. This could be one of the missions of PINK, an Armenia-based LGBTQ+ NGO, whose members attended the 2025 Moldova Pride, alongside Prides in Ljubljana and Vienna. The participation of Armenian LGBTQ+ leaders in such events – specifically in a country like Moldova, where “Pride March remains a protest” – should have a positive impact on the future organisation of a Pride event in Yerevan, in which PINK would undoubtedly be involved. Besides Armenia potentially learning from Kyiv and Tbilisi Prides, a recent event in Copenhagen inquired “What we can learn from Eastern European queers”, to which we may add Armenian queers. Indeed, this event (entitled “Pride Under Pressure”) featured mainly a panel discussion; a similar initiative already happens annually in Armenia – PINK’s 10th Rainbow Forum took place in Yerevan this June.
Conclusion: The role of Pride and protection of LGBTQ+ people in EU accession
Pride events in Georgia and Ukraine have seemingly influenced the situation in other Eastern Partner countries, such as Armenia. The enactment of legislation targeting gender-based and sexuality-based discriminations in Georgia and Ukraine, as well as in Moldova, have set a legal framework to protect the LGBTQ+ community from hate and violence. This remains at least on paper, as proven by the difficulty for the movement to publicly express Pride. Though Kyiv hosted an Equality March in 2025, Tbilisi was unable to celebrate Pride in public this year. Like in Armenia, Georgian LGBTQ+ members nevertheless did organise queer events in June, such as a drag show, rightfully claiming that “Georgian drag isn’t just art; it’s resistance, it’s a message.” Such messages and art – from Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, and elsewhere – deserve to be heard, seen, and celebrated.
More recently, a Vogue Ball in Tbilisi held on 19 July featured an Armenian queer artist, which further reinforced the ties between the two LGBTQ+ communities. If next year Tbilisi is able to hold an outdoor Equality March once more, this would not only be a welcome change in Georgia, but it would also positively impact the chances of Armenian LGBTQ+ members and artists – who may participate in Tbilisi Pride or perhaps be involved in its organisation – to learn from that experience and implement a similar event out in the streets of Yerevan when time is right.
Despite war in Ukraine, multiple violent attempts to shut down Pride in Georgia, or the absence of legislative protection against homophobia in Armenia, these three LGBTQ+ communities have one thing in common: resilience. They have proved time and time again that visibility and authenticity will prevail, even behind doors in queer spaces, for now.
As the US Ambassador to Georgia, Kelly Degnan, said in 2022 while attending Tbilisi Pride, “As we honour the resilience of LGBTQ+ people, who are fighting to live authentically and freely, we reaffirm our belief that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights.”
