“RIGHT SIDE” HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER NGO MADE A PUBLIC STATEMENT
ABOUT DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS TWO TRANS PEOPLE

On September 3, 2018 “Right Side” human rights defender NGO got a complaint from two trans people about discrimination towards them, violation of their consumer rights, violation on restrictions of their freedom of movement and degrading treatment towards them by the employees of one of the sport clubs in Yerevan.
In August of this year, the citizens of RA M.S. and N.A. were forbidden to use the services of the sport club, with the “justification” that they are trans people to be directly proclaimed to M.S. and N.A.
M.S. and N.A. were ridiculed, insulted, humiliated, revoked the sport club membership and rejected the access to the sport club by the employees of the sport club. During a telephone conversation with president of “Right Side” human rights defender NGO Lilit Martirosyan, L.G.-the person presenting herself as the director of the sport club. has confirmed the discriminative attitude of her employees towards trans people, and there is a a record of that conversation. The latter also addressed to Lilit Martirosyan with surprise whether Martirosyan saw the appearance of those people and whether it was normal. In her words: “the normal Armenian men were constrained by the presence of trans people because it was not clear whether that person is a boy or a girl. Men with breasts are coming, and you do not know whether the keys of which wardrobe to hand them”. She as a director prefers these kind of people not to visit the sport club rather than losing their “normal” customers.
Based on the abovementioned, ”Rights Side” human rights defender NGO made a request of clarification to the director of the sport club requesting to explain the legal bases of denial of the entry of M.S. and N.A. to the sport club revoking the already provided membership.
“Right Side” human rights defender NGO qualifies such activities by the staff of the sport club as a discrimination and strongly condemns such treatment towards trans people. So far trans people have not been protected from discriminatory practices by the Armenian legislation, as it does not regulate the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of gender identity and self-expression. “Rights Side” human rights defender NGO will use all human rights protection mechanisms including the judiciary to restore the rights of the victims.