From Patrick Burton, curator Mighty Real Queer Detroit:

On the evening of October 20, two young Queer men jumped to their deaths from a bridge in Armenia’s capital city, Yerevan. The couple—16-year-old Arsen and 21-year-old Tigran—recently posted photos on Instagram with the caption, “Happy end: decisions about sharing the photos and our future actions were made jointly by both of us.”

The deaths led to an outpouring of hate speech on social media.

The reaction to the Instagram photos, showing the two young men kissing, applying face masks, and displaying what appeared to be wedding bands, included some emotional tributes – but were expressions of jubilation that they were dead and called for other gay people to kill themselves.

PATRICK WEBB

PATRICK WEBB