Kyrgyzstan, LGBT activism: Part 1

One evening, I was hanging out at the hostel. It had gotten quite late and I hadn’t eaten dinner yet. I overheard another guest, who was Kyrgyz, at the hostel saying she was going to go find some dinner, and I asked if I could join her. She suggested we go to a food court down the street, where we could get pizza and street food at this hour. 

She spoke some English and this is verbatim the conversation that we had as we walked down the street: 

Her: “Can I ask you a question?” [giggle]

Me: “Sure.” 

Her: “Are you a girl or a boy?” [giggle]

Me: “well… I was born female…”

Her: “…but you feel like a boy.”

Me: “Yes.”

Her: “In our culture this is something totally unbelievable. People would never accept this here. If you say you are gay, you are dead. If a guy says, ‘I am gay,’ the next day he would be killed. Totally like this. For girls, it is not as bad. She would be told to go to the mosque, and pray to the saints to change her mind.”

Me: “Do you know anyone like this?”

Her: “What do you mean?”

Me: “A girl who dresses like a boy.”

Her: “Yes, I know a few people like this. I don’t know them well, but I’ve seen them before, maybe on Instagram. But if a boy wants to look like a girl? That would be totally unacceptable. He would be beaten to death. It doesn’t matter if it’s a friend, a neighbor, a family member, they would kill him for this. I think it’s because we are Muslim. I don’t know. Kyrgyz people are kind of wild.” [laughs]

In reflecting on our conversation, I thought about all of the LGBT activists who are working hard in KGZ for queer rights. I don’t think they would have appreciated what she said, and I couldn’t believe that what she was saying was all true. One person can’t speak for a whole country, and I’m sure there’s a spectrum of beliefs: some people more accepting than others with some people fighting really hard for rights. 

I did some research online and saw that there was a Pride parade in KGZ in 2019, what some people call the first Pride parade in KGZ. There are a couple LGBT organizations, and activists who are active in the country. I also found a documentary made about Kyrgyz queer women and a Queer Studies conference held at American University of Central Asia in Bishkek. 

There are also articles online about the only Kyrgyz gay bar being shut down in 2017, and about other hate crimes and homophobia happening. 

So what my new "friend" said was not exactly the truth; there are lots of queer people who are out and fighting for their rights. But clearly life is hard here for LGBT people. No wonder LGBT people from Central Asia seek asylum in Russia and the US, fearing for their lives. It’s so sad that only a small percentage of them are successful. 

I tried emailing the LGBT organization I had read about online, but their email bounced back, saying “this email address does not exist.” 

I also reached out to a KGZ queer activist I found online, Dastan Kasmamytov, who runs an organization called Pink Summits to spread LGBT activism awareness. His goal is inspire "young LGBT to believe in their powers and abilities to change the world around them" (listen to a podcast with him). 

I also emailed the authors of two academic articles I found online ("Securing an LGBT Identity in Kyrgyzstan" and "Translating ‘Queer’ Into (Kyrgyzstani) Russian"), as well as some of the journalists. I could only wait and hope someone would respond to me. 

To be continued...