Alex Shah (pronouns they/them, o in Azerbaijani), a 16-year-old queer activist from Azerbaijan, is on a mission to break down deeply entrenched prejudice against the LGBTQ+ community at their school. It has been a bumpy road, but they are prepared for a long journey toward LGBTQ+ equality. One of Alex’s distinct childhood memories is a dress-up show they would organize when they were just a few years old. Everyone in the house was to dress up as a woman, and the upstairs neighbor would rank everyone based on their style. “I would always score the highest points,” recalled Alex in one of their personal essays published in July 2023 in Minority Magazine, Azerbaijan's first online LGBTI+ magazine. However, it was only a matter of time before getting dressed up or trying their mother’s lipstick and makeup would earn them mockery and humiliation. At home, their father would beat their mother for Alex’s increasingly feminine disposition, and at school, Alex became a laughing stock among peers, who did not shy away from humiliating them, calling them names, bullying them, and physically abusing them. “I've been bullied since third grade. I always stood out. Once, I was peed on in the boy’s bathroom in school because of how I behaved at school. It was the last time I ever used a public bathroom,” recalls Alex in an interview with Global Voices. The humiliation and bullying continued over the years, despite Alex complaining to the teachers and the headmaster. Instead, teachers also bullied Alex. “If I am constantly bullied both by students and the teachers, how should I expect a solution from the school management? The system is homophobic,” said Alex. Bullying is a persistent problem in Azerbaijan. There is no official documentation about the rate of bullying, though a 2019 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) noted, “in Baku (Azerbaijan), 36 percent of students reported being bullied at least a few times a month, compared to 23 percent on average across OECD countries.” Azerbaijan does not have any anti-bullying laws. In 2019, the story of Elina Hajiyeva, a teen who died from suicide after jumping from the third floor of her school building, shocked Azerbaijani society. It also sparked a social media campaign against bullying in a country where the topic is rarely discussed. In Elina's case, despite numerous complaints to the school principal, no action was taken about the bullying. At the time of Elina Hajiyeva's suicide, recommendations to develop an anti-bullying bill fell through. Instead, some schools started removing window handles and installing metal bars on windows to prevent their students from similar attempts. But can the system be changed? In April 2023, Alex had enough with bullying at his school. “During Geography class test, my teacher scolded me yet again, telling me that I should be like the rest of the boys in the classroom. One of the boys said, those like me are cursed in Islam and should be murdered. I started shaking and crying. My teacher told me to stop behaving like a girl,” recalls Alex. Alex, with the help of their mother, sought help at the local police station, but they only faced further humiliation. They then wrote a complaint letter to the Ministry of Education. “I explained in the letter that because I was feminine, I was subject to bullying. In their response, the Ministry of Education told me I was bullied because I was a feminist and that, as a student, I had no right to propagate an ideology. Even though I have done no such thing.” Alex was then invited to the prosecutor’s office. The office offered to investigate and advised against filing an official statement. “I wrote the statement anyway. They asked me to leave the room because they wanted to speak to my mother alone. Whatever they told her there caused her a mental breakdown.” “It is as if they [the state institutions] are trying to kill your will to fight,” explained Alex after yet another meeting, this time at the local administrative office. It was not until Alex sought help from the LGBTQ+ community and their case was covered by the local media that there was finally change. The Geography teacher was reprimanded over her actions, and the classmate who said people like Alex should be killed received a warning. There have been previous cases where queer students spoke out about the abuse and humiliation they faced at their schools. In 2021, then-senior high school student Ali Malikov (pronouns they/them) decided to boycott their school after years of bullying over their physical appearance and lack of action from the school administration and the Ministry of Education.