There Are 18 Transgender People in Armenia: Pashinyan

Since the change of power, have people with non-traditional sexual orientation appeared in Armenia? Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan responded to this question at today's concluding press conference regarding individuals with non-traditional sexual orientation.

“What did the conservative forces think when they granted citizenship to such people in the Republic of Armenia? They endowed these individuals with all rights. They say these people should be burnt at the stake; well, why didn’t they do that? Now we are being accused of not burning an Armenian citizen, whose passport they themselves issued. We are not going to burn anyone,” Pashinyan stated.

“After the well-known events, when it was said that the National Assembly should be incense-burned, I had the following conversation with senior clergymen: I asked, does a person with non-traditional sexual orientation, a transgender person, have the right to enter the church? They said, yes, they do. I asked, do they have the right to light a candle? They said, yes, they do. Thus, it turns out that the National Assembly is a holier place than the church, right? They say this person can go to church, sit there, communicate with God, but if they have spoken out in the National Assembly, should they be incense-burned, exorcised? Why do you let them enter the church, then? It follows that the church should be incense-burned first before thinking about that,” Pashinyan added.

“Today, there are 18 transgender individuals in Armenia, all of whom were granted Armenian citizenship before our government came to power, and we have inherited this situation,” Nikol Pashinyan concluded.