Please join Fletcher Eurasia Club for an online panel discussion on LGBT+ advocacy throughout Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The aim of the event will be to understand similarities and differences in terms of how LGBT+ activists operate across the region, including both political and social factors, and the implications for queer rights and communities.

The panel discussion will be moderated by Emily Channell-Justice, who serves as the Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at Harvard University. She is the editor of a recent book titled Decolonizing Queer Experiences: LGBT+ Narratives from Eastern Europe and Eurasia (2020). The panelists will include LGBT+ activists from Ukraine, Armenia, and Kazakhstan. The event is open to Fletcher students only and will be conducted under the Chatham House Rule. Please make sure to register via myFletcher to participate in the event on Zoom.

Speakers:

Andriy Maymulakhin is the coordinator and project manager of the LGBT Human Rights NASH MIR Center in Ukraine. The center began in Luhansk in southeastern Ukraine in 1997 as a grassroots group and is a founding member of the Council of LGBT Organisations of Ukraine. The organization recently published a report titled “Community online: LGBT situation in Ukraine in 2020.”

Mamikon Hovsepyan is an LGBT+ rights activist and human rights defender from Yerevan, Armenia. He is the founder and former president of PINK Armenia, the country’s oldest and largest queer rights organization. He currently works for PINK Armenia as a communications officer and is the Chairperson for the Human Rights House in Yerevan. He is the winner of the Soul of Stonewall Award, the Equal Rights Trust’s Bob Hepple Equality Award, and the Changemaker Award – all for his work improving the rights and living standards of Armenia’s LGBT+ community.

Amir Shaikezhanov works for the Global Health Research Centre in Central Asia (GHRCCA) of Columbia University. He directs the HIV self-testing project at the GHRCCA headquarters in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He is also an independent LGBT+ activist.