GAY BASHING AND HOMOPHOBIA IN ARMENIA

10% of the world population is LGBT and Armenia is no exception. Let’s stop living in denial and face reality.

I was just in Armenia and on Grindr, so don’t make me tell my stories as I have many. The silence of majority of Armenians is defeating about the gay-bashing in Armenia on Friday, August 3^rd, 2018, including fellow Angelenos. Lip-service from our so-called hetero-allies is no longer cutting it. We are watching to see who has the courage to stand-up and be a true leader.

It pains me to write anything negative about the beautiful motherland I just visited, but this isn’t about me. Nine innocent queer Armenians were savagely beaten by thirty villagers while others watched. Earlier this year, a trans woman was beaten and set on fire inside her apartment. She barely survived after being in intensive care but has permanent damage to her face and body.

They can be your sons & daughters, brothers & sisters, cousins & neighbors. Where is the collective outrage? Will YOU be silent if YOUR child is beaten due to their sexual orientation or gender identity? Is THIS the Armenia we want in international headlines? Do we want our human-rights record to be worse than our hostile neighbors’? Do we want an Armenia that hurls eggs & insults at Elton John while he is there on a humanitarian mission? Who is next? Where is the outrage from Armenians in Hayastan and diaspora? The world is watching, so what are YOU going to do?

Vic Gerami

A noted columnist, Vic Gerami is also a journalist and media contributor who is also publisher and editor of The Blunt Post. His show, 'The Blunt Post with Vic' on Public Radio KPFK 90.7 FM, part of Pacifica Network, launched in 2018. Today reaching national international audiences, Gerami first built a foundation of knowledge and skills by learning the media industry during his years at Frontiers Magazine, followed by positions at LA Weekly and Voice Media Group. For the second time, Gerami was selected as a finalist in the Los Angeles Press Club’s National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards “Columnist of the Year” category in 2019, having first made the final round of consideration in 2017. His celebrity Q&A column, '10 Questions with Vic', is syndicated internationally. The Wall Street Journal featured Gerami as a “leading gay activist” in its landmark 2008 coverage of opposition to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that for years denied same-sex couples in California the freedom to marry. In addition to his years of volunteer work as a leading advocate for marriage equality, later Gerami went on to serve as a Planning Committee member for the historic Resist March in 2017. Vic Gerami is also a founding board member of Equality Armenia. In 2015, Gerami was referenced in the landmark Supreme Court civil rights case, Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Vic Gerami is a contributor to the LGBTQ San Diego County News, Windy City Times, Montrose Star, DC Life Magazine, Out & About Nashville, Q Virginia, GNI MAG, QNotes, GoWeHo, Asbarez, California Courier, Desert Daily Guide, Armenian Weekly, GED, The Pride LA, IN Magazine, OUT Traveler, The Fight and The Advocate Magazine among others.

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