Azerbaijan’s small LGBTQ activist community gathered for a press conference for the first time in eight years, counting it as a victory amid the country’s not-so-queer-friendly social and political landscape. On June 9, LGBTQ activists Javid Nabiyev and Ali Malikov and feminist and political activist Rabiyya Mammadova held a briefing for journalists “to get attention to issues facing LGBTQ+s, to protest against the discrimination we see, and to voice our demands before the state and society.” The last such briefing was held in 2014, they said. June, celebrated as Pride month for queer communities around the world, “is a month of protest, resistance, and politicization,” Nabiyev said in opening the event. “For this reason, we — only three of us here for now — decided to hold this briefing.”