During June, we witnessed Pride Marches in many parts of the world, some of them could be held and some of them couldn’t be done. These marches contain numerous stories and experiences. The story of LGBTQ+ people who had to become immigrants comes to mind.

Lia, from the GALAS LGBTQ+ Community established in Los Angeles, talked about the difficulties faced by queer Armenians in addition to being queer as an immigrant. DENİZ KAYA When was GALAS founded and what was the need? Approximately 40% of the Armenian diaspora lives in Los Angeles. GALAS was founded in 1998 by a group of Armenian LGBTQ+ people in Los Angeles who needed friendship, support and a sense of community.

Since then, it has been one of the leading voices in the struggle for equality for Armenian LGBTQ+ people around the world. GALAS currently has around 2000 members. It continues to maintain contact with many LGBTQ+ communities in Armenia, such as Pink Armenia, and support their struggles.

The events and marches we organize are now attended not only by Armenians, but also by local Americans, immigrants, and even officials. So, can you talk about the problems queer people experience in the USA? Our biggest problem right now is that the public school curriculum is not LGBTQ+ inclusive. There was even a protest in Los Angeles to draw attention to this.

Half of the protest community was made up of GALAS. I would like to say that another problem we have is the language barrier. The main language spoken by the par.