I had been to the restaurant a few times before. I had first gone there the week prior to meet with a professor from American University of Central Asia (AUCA), one of the most prestigious and expensive universities in Bishkek (the acronym for the college is colloquially pronounced “ow-tsa”). He and I had mutual friends in the Central Asian and Uyghur Studies world, and we met up at this restaurant for lunch one day upon his suggestion. After telling him about my new potential research avenues, which included Queer Studies, he had informed me that the very restaurant we were sitting in that exact moment was in fact a queer friendly space. When he told me that, I looked around and realized that much of the staff was genderqueer. I immediately felt at ease.
The next time I went there on my own, I intentionally made my voice a bit higher. I used my feminine voice because I wanted to be seen as queer. My higher voice combined with my masculine appearance immediately signaled to the staff that I was genderqueer and they reacted with shy and knowing smiles.
After that, the staff was really sweet and kind to me. They were always smiling and friendly with me, and they enthusiastically got me the menu and took my order each time. I always intentionally went there in the middle of the day when it wasn't busy, and I was often one of the only patrons at the restaurant during that time. But nobody approached me like they would have in China.
In China, I was constantly getting approached by Chinese and Uyghur people alike, curious about me and wanting to exchange phone numbers. At the gay bars in Urumchi, I would be approached multiple times per night with people—club employees and patrons—just wanting to talk and just curious to hear my story. Of course, it helped that I spoke fluent Chinese and Uyghur in these situations, and not speaking Russian or Kyrgyz is a barrier.
After I went back to the restaurant a few times, the staff started to know me. They knew I was obviously and visibly queer, but they never approached me or talked to me except to take my order. I think it was out of politeness, or maybe the language barrier. Although their English seemed excellent to me, so I think it might have been more of a cultural norm where people do not approach strangers the way they do in China.
It was kind of nice to be left alone, but it was also kind of lonely...and hard to do research. “Research in KGZ is so much harder than in China!” I thought to myself. This made me sad (“come talk to me!” I wanted to say), but it was also relaxing to not have people trying to talk to me everywhere I went.
I realized that if I wanted to do research in Bishkek, whether in the queer community or not, I needed to have an "in"--people didn't talk to strangers in KGZ the way they did in China. At the time living in China, I hadn't even realized how grateful I should have been for all those random conversations I had every single day in China that informed my research. Of course, both China and KGZ are authoritarian countries where freedom of speech is not a given, and in both places people were worried about the government. But in KGZ people were definitely more on their guard when it came to speaking to a stranger about queer identities and politics than in China.
Many of the Indigo staff knew the restaurant staff there, so everyone felt comfortable being themselves and nobody was worried if our conversation would be overheard.
Over dinner, the Indigo staff told me about a scandal that occurred last year when a former AUCA student went to a hotel with his boyfriend. A camera had been planted in the room (some people suspect by the state security forces, but nobody is sure who it was--again, the enemy is unknown). The boys were supposedly blackmailed over the video footage, with the police saying they would keep the video a secret if the boys gave up the identities of everyone at Indigo. But the boys refused to do that, so the police had the video published. Footage of them having sex leaked out to the press and internet. People photoshopped the video to make it even worse. Those who published the video in the news said, “Look, this is what AUCA is doing to traditional KGZ values.” The boys in the video were quickly shuttled out of the country because their lives were in danger. One of the boys’ mothers actually sued the interior ministry for planting the camera--but the verdict is still out on that one.
Meanwhile, the Indigo staff wrote a letter to the president of AUCA, saying "you should protect your students." But the university president did nothing. A few months later, the president got fired over an unrelated drug scandal (the president claimed he had prescriptions for the drugs, the university claimed that he did not). One of the Indigo staff said that this was karma because he didn’t stand up for the gay kids that had their video published. But it was clear: the KGZ government was not supportive of AUCA and their liberal agenda.
Queer people are seen as a threat to KGZ traditional Muslim values, and the government runs on a nationalist platform that is supposed to restore these so-called "family" values. The government cracks down on gay people and queer activism, especially recently with a return to nationalist politics. AUCA is seen and blamed as being a haven for queer people, and this is interpreted by the KGZ government as going against KGZ values. They see AUCA as encouraging gay identities, and AUCA has been attacked by the government and KGZ nationalists. AUCA is also known as encouraging freedom of speech and human rights, and is thus seen by the current KGZ government as being too liberal and left-wing for their taste.
My analysis on homophobia in KGZ and how it relates to a KGZ nationalist political agenda: queer identities in the midst of a post-colonial environment often conflict with religion, especially when religion is used as a force of survival, comfort and resistance in oppressive regimes. When you are insecure about yourself, your land and your people, you cling to anything to maintain that. Islam does not cause homophobia, nationalism does not cause homophobia. The homophobia in KGZ and in KGZ politics is related to post-Soviet colonialism and seeing homosexuality as an external influence and threat to the KGZ identity and survival as a people, which was under threat from the Soviets for so long.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, everything is integrated. This situation is not unlike what is happening with queer Uyghurs. Religion is a source of comfort for KGZ people, and this conflicts with queer identities. But it’s not just about religion. It’s also about identity and being insecure about one's place in the world. When people and the governments they run are insecure, they project that insecurity onto others and have a need to control them. In a post-colonial context, homophobia in politics is about body sovereignty: people want freedom over their bodies, but this makes the population harder to control. In addition, people have insecurity about the police and their status--whether socioeconomic status or citizen status--and this makes queer identities feel threatening to safety, livelihoods and futures.
For KGZ politicians running on a populist and nationalist agenda, queer people and AUCA are a scapegoat for the economic problems, which have their origin in Soviet colonialism as well as rampant government corruption, and this makes queer people an easy target for a population insecure about money, identity, and their future.
In other words, queerness, homophobia and nationalism are often linked when it comes to politics in post-colonial states and their populations that are still trying to re-gain their footing after years of oppression.
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