On 15 February, a group of unknown men beat up and harassed five LGBT activists in the centre of the Armenian capital, Yerevan. The following day, one of the activists, a transgender person, was mocked by hospital personnel when he attempted to seek medical aid.
The incident prompted a fresh round of public discussions on LGBT rights and “traditional values” in Armenia — on social networks and in the media. Six weeks later, the outbreak of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh on 2 April strengthened the proliferating nationalist discourses in Armenia, generating a new dramatic gender backlash.
In some cases, LGBT people are even called “Turks”
