Unlike all EU member states, Armenia and Azerbaijan do not have anti-discrimination laws that protect LGBTQ+ people. Georgia has one, and adopting the law is a strict condition to become an EU member state. However, in 2024, Georgia also passed a Russian-style anti-LGBTQ+ law to “protect family values and minors.”
Despite all the societal homophobia, inadequate laws, and repressive governments, queer people in the South Caucasus find ways to celebrate queerness.
Among those celebrations is drag art: think of it as a kind of queer theatre, often performed by drag queens, who are usually queer men or trans women. There are many ways of doing drag: comedy queens, conceptual queens, fashion queens, lip-sync queens, you name it. They perform and play with gender, often in hyper-feminine and deliberately exaggerated ways.
For Pride Month, celebrated worldwide in June, we spotlight three queens whose stories reveal how drag culture is emerging in the South Caucasus amid widespread queerphobia.
Sirena Soul, Armenia
In one of Europe's worst places to be queer, she is open about being a drag queen despite recurring harassment and assaults. Though she also notes that queer Armenians, especially drag artists, must be cautious as public visibility has increased and police raids on alternative spaces have become more common.
For Sirena, drag is essential to advance LGBTQ+ rights in the country. “The mere act of doing drag is resistance and activism... We put ourselves at risk for the LGBTQ+ community, for young queer Armenians, so that they understand that their lives are important,” she told The European Correspondent.
Yerevan does drag like no one else. Armenia's queens give the country's culture a queer twist: performing folk and pop classics, playing the dhol, one of Armenia’s national instruments, and even staging acts about the Armenian Genocide.
Otaraant Queer, Georgia
Similarly, Georgian-ness is present in its drag scene. Otaraant Queer says that her drag name is a play on Otaraant Qvirvi (Otar’s Widow), a beloved Georgian play and film. Tbilisi’s queens take inspiration from Georgian classical musicals and perform gigs wearing the chokha, the country’s national costume, while Otaraant herself, being a comedy queen, likes to flip Georgian culture on its head, making it draggy and funny.
But here too, her act is dangerous: performers avoid arriving at clubs in drag and disguise dresses as “theatre” costumes when ordering them. Otaraant recalls fighting off police during a club raid as they fired rubber bullets and tear gas. Georgia has seen raids on queer-friendly clubs since 2018, while in recent years, Pride events have been met with violent counterprotests.
For Otaraant, visibility is political. “Being openly queer shows… especially the younger [generation], that you can be yourself… That is the main way we fight homophobia – by existing.”
Lady Slim, Azerbaijan
Lady Slim is Azerbaijan’s first and only drag queen. The rest of Azerbaijan’s drag artists, she says, have left the country. A decade ago, Lady Slim recalls, Azerbaijan was safer than any other place in the region; queens from Georgia would come to perform in Baku's clubs. Today, Baku offers no public spaces for queer art.
”To avoid unnecessary problems with law enforcement, no one dares organise themed parties or anything like that. We don't even have basic LGBT clubs for entertainment, and other venues are afraid to rent out their space for queer parties,” she told us. Last December, the Baku police violently raided one of Azerbaijan's few queer-friendly clubs.
Formerly performing in clubs, Lady Slim now mostly appears at private events and on social media, where her videos garner thousands of views.
For her, drag is explicitly political. “My show isn't just entertainment but a cultural statement and a way to overcome barriers in a patriarchal society.”
Though she says she is “a bit far from national colours,” she still sings in Azerbaijani and covers iconic local pop songs.
Pictured: Armenian drag queen Sirena Soul performing in Yerevan, 2026