30-Day Challenges: Mindful Eating, Part 3

It's not that I hate mindful eating. 

It's that I hate being restricted. And, I love losing control and being "bad." Judgment of being "bad" or "good" is also part of the shame that comes from purity culture.

There is something thrilling and enticing about being “bad” that just makes me want to do it more. It's the archetype origin story of human history: What were Adam and Eve doing if not rebelling? It's part of human nature. 

Experts say that the adrenaline rush that comes from rebellion is one part of heroin addiction. They say that the finding and obtaining of the drug--the chase--is almost more addicting than the drug itself. With studies being conducted in Switzerland of drug addicts having all the access they want to the stuff, the study results show that users found it easier to break the addiction when the thrill of the chase was taken away. 

Play hard to get, they say, and then you’ll really hook them. 

Binge eating provides a feeling of losing control. The loss of control is like a drug, it’s a sweet drug that allows me to totally lose my mind and turn off my brain. In that moment, I am only doing what my body is telling me to do. As someone who is often disembodied from myself as well as often “in my brain” for work and life, to turn off my brain and let my body move with abandon and without thinking is a release, surrender, and numbing all at the same time. It’s intoxicating. 

When this happens, I enjoy my food in huge big bites, swallowing so much and so fast that it actually hurts as it goes down my esophagus. All I want is to feel that comfort and dopamine rush that you get from eating and feeling full.

When I allow my body to take over, it naturally just tells me to eat as fast and as much as possible, to preserve as many calories as possible for the winter or until the next hunt. 

I follow some YouTubers who have had histories with eating disorders and experience “extreme hunger.” Some of them talked about how they had extreme hunger during and after having eating disorders. They talk about how there is a difference between extreme hunger and binge eating. 

They validate that it’s not normal to be thinking about food all the time. 

The first time I heard that, I thought to myself: "It’s not?" 

This was news to me. 

The YouTubers have documented how they actually got themselves back on a more even and healthy eating pattern by letting themselves eat as much as they wanted and gain weight, and eventually—over the course of one or two years—find their body’s healthy weight on its own. They call this "going all in" as a recovery from eating disorders. These videos are validating for me in my journey of listening to my body, eating as much as I want, and finding a body weight that is healthy for me. Listening to my intuition and my body is really new for me. Mindful eating is a part of this journey but I still struggle with it. But it's all part of learning more about myself, what my triggers are, and how I can listen to my body and get my body what it needs. 

Sometimes I am ignoring my body and hurting my stomach. But sometimes, it's because I actually am that hungry. My body actually does need the calories. Do I eat so much because I exercise so much? Or do I exercise so much because I eat so much? Probably a little bit of both. Either way, I am slowly learning to listen to my body and what it needs. 

30-Day Challenges: Mindful Eating, Part 2

 I wrote in my journal one day all of my reasons for mindful eating:

“My stomach has been hurting a lot recently. I want to slow down when I eat so I don't hurt my stomach. I want to taste, savor and enjoy my food as one of the great sensual and bodily pleasures in life. Eating is a great way to nurture myself and doing it mindfully makes it a whole body experience. Mindful eating helps me connect with my body in a way that translates to other parts of my life. Mindful eating helps me practice mindfulness and presence, which translates to writing, doing jiujitsu and learning foreign languages, as well as other activities.” 

Of course, mindful eating seems like an obvious thing to do and perhaps for some people this is the way they normally eat. So why is it so hard for me?

Because, for me, binge eating is also one of the great pleasures of life. 

(People define binge eating in different ways, of course, but for the purposes of this essay, I define binge eating as eating as quickly as possible in big, engulfing bites, not really paying attention to the flavors or textures but eating with the sole purpose of feeling the heady intoxication of being too full--also known as “food coma.”)

Macaroni and cheese is my favorite food of all time. I ate it with full pleasure and abandon even when I was vegan, as I declared finding and preparing vegan macaroni and cheese to be my new favorite hobby. I remember one night I was feeling particularly lonely. I prepared a huge bowl of vegan macaroni and cheese seasoned with buffalo sauce, with bits of vegetarian bacon sprinkled in it. I also had coconut milk chocolate ice cream with brownie chunks for dessert waiting for me in the freezer. As I sat down to eat, I knew I should be mindful while I ate it. I had just spent an hour making vegan macaroni and cheese from avocado and cashews, I should at least enjoy it, right?

But just rebelling against that feeling of “I should be mindful” made me feel instantly liberated. Instead of slowing down and enjoying my food, I said “fuck it” to myself and wolfed down the bowl. I could taste the cream, the fat, the spice, the chewy texture of the noodles, the cool splash of oat milk as it washed everything down. All of the sudden everything was right in the world. I was full at the end of it but I dug into the carton of ice cream with abandon anyway. 

Nothing had ever felt so good. I had a full stomach, and I reveled in the sleepiness and sedated feeling that came with the fullness and sugar that was washing over me like a weighted blanket. I didn’t clean up. I just left the dishes on the table and stumbled to my bed and curled up with Netflix, already dreaming and planning my next binge session. Would it be brunch at Walnut Cafe? Lunch at City O’ City? Or dinner at Native Foods? (Three of my favorite vegan restaurants at the time.)

"Surely I needed--no, I deserved--something for all my hard work and also my loneliness and pain! And that one would be the last one. Just one last treat," I thought to myself as I lay in bed.

These thoughts swirled as gassy bubbles started rising in my belly and heartburn set in. Self-hatred bubbled to the surface and in the back of my mind I wondered if I looked fat.

For me, eating is an obsession.

On top of that, the pleasure and rebelliousness of binge eating even tops the mindful eating experience...sometimes. It’s the feeling of doing something wrong or bad that makes binge eating even more desirable and tempting. Food is also the main source of comfort for me.

Sometimes I feel so alone, so detached, so futile. I have felt very existential. "What’s the point?" I ask myself all the time.

One day, I also felt empty and sad, depressed just like they describe: like a dark cloud descended above my consciousness and everything felt heavy, sticky, pointless and hopeless. So I walked through the grocery aisles of Sprouts and picked out four different kinds of boxed vegan mac and cheese. I had a craving for that processed taste and convenience, something to bring back the bodily pleasure and connections with my body through food, the feeling of being blanketed and held, which is provided through this easy and rich and sweet and salty and fatty combination. I piled them high in my cart and then I had something to love and something to look forward to, something to fill me up when I was feeling empty. 

30-Day Challenges: Mindful Eating, Part 1

Mindful eating is the one "30-day challenge" that I have never been able to successfully complete. 

I’ve tried a "30-Day Mindful Eating Challenge" on three separate occasions, and while I can last 7-8 days at a time, I cannot pull myself away from the urge to binge every once in a while. For me, a 30-day streak of mindful eating everyday feels more like a jail cell than a liberation. I feel too chained and restricted to stand it. I always end up breaking the streak at least a few times during the month. 

How do I define “mindful eating” for the purpose of a 30-day challenge? I define mindful eating in this context as only eating while sitting down (eating while driving does not count though!), and putting my fork down on the table between each bite (if eating a taco or hamburger or other such finger food, it means putting down what I’m eating between bites). 

If you’ve never tried it, try just putting your fork down after taking a bite of food, and then waiting to pick up the fork again only once you have swallowed all of the food in your mouth. 

It is SO difficult! 

The sitting-and-put-your-fork-down-between-bites trick really forces you to slow down and requires you to pay attention to the food in your mouth.

I love it and I hate it all at the same time.  

I love mindful eating for the obvious reasons: It helps me enjoy my food more. It helps me savor my meal time too, as I connect with my body and really feel the pleasures of food and eating. 

Mindful eating is not just about food and eating, though. Food itself is pleasurable most of the time. But when it comes to meals I really love, they are all about mindset and environment. For example, when I lived in Boulder and worked from home during COVID, I ate lunch while sitting in the grass in my front yard. Feeling the grass on my hand, the breeze on my skin, and the sun on my face, lunchtime was a moment in time for nobody else except for myself. My favorite meal was quinoa bowls. The quinoa was salty and flavored with vegetarian broth, and its nutty texture rolled around like tiny marbles in my mouth. On top of the quinoa were various toppings. The soft, chewy texture of the fried tofu, the smooth skin of the zucchini, the crunch of cashews, the tart pop of the pickles, the soft and earthy scent of the micro-greens I picked two seconds ago from my own garden, the zing of the kimchi; it all mixed it my mouth to a harmonious melody.

The thing that made the quinoa bowls the most memorable though? It was the chili paste that I poured on and mixed in, which burned in my mouth and made my eyes water. It made me sit right on the edge of being able to stand it, an uncomfortable but thrilling feeling of “it hurts so good.” Knowing that I was flirting with the edge of discomfort and sitting with it? That brought me right to the present, right inside my body, as my tongue and mouth said “you can’t ignore me now!” 

If I washed it down with smoothie or milk, I felt immediate relief and I would eagerly take the next bite and enjoy the spicy-sweet combination. 

But, if I resisted the urge and really sat with and embraced the spice for several minutes, endorphins were released and a wave of calm and satisfaction washed over me like getting a small tattoo. Eating spicy food like this makes you feel like all is right in the world, and that, at least in the moment, there is nothing you have left wanting. 

Being present and mindful to the food and attune to my surroundings and bodily sensations sounds like a very nice, pleasurable experience, doesn’t it? So why do I hate it so much? Why do I resist mindful eating so much? Why is it the only 30-day challenge that I’ve never been able to complete?

Kyrgyzstan, LGBT activism: Part 5

 One day, I had brunch with a Kyrgyz friend (a mutual friend had introduced us at the beginning of my trip) at a coffee house and we sat on the patio, eating scrambled eggs and drinking lattes. She was fluent in English. I told her what I had been up to. She said, “I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be gay and Kyrgyz.”

In response, I explained to her my theory about the link between colonization and homophobia: Insecurity around land, identity and the future for the KGZ people due to a legacy of Soviet colonization, as well as contemporary Russian and Western imperialism, means that anything different can be a threat, and also means that nationalism, conformity and religion are a source of comfort and survival. 

She nodded and said, “Yes, I agree with what you’re saying that we don’t have a secure sense of national identity. We don’t have the same sense of security in the cultural, political or economic sense that Westerners do. I think we have a type of insecurity we grow up with our whole lives. It’s a privilege to have the time and resources to even think about identity. Most people here are worried about food and shelter. They don’t even have the opportunity to think, 'who am I?' As a Kyrgyz, you don’t grow up thinking, 'my country is #1, my country is the world’s police, my country is the most powerful in the world' like Americans do. Thinking about identity, who am I and what I want, how I want to express myself...now that is a privilege. It’s not a privilege we have access to because we have other, bigger things to worry about than identity. It’s a privilege to be able to come out as LGBT. It’s a privilege to come out and feel safe. This is not something we have access to.”

I pushed back against what she was saying a little bit. I said: “Yes, I agree that coming out is a privilege, and coming out and feeling safe is an even greater privilege. But to come to find one’s own identity is not necessarily something that only the wealthy have access to. 

Now, I know there is a hierarchy of needs, and one must have secure food and shelter before they can attend to creative needs or self-actualization, and I agree with what you’re saying about insecurity and how KGZ has not had a recent history of secure national identity. 

But, to say that identity itself is a privilege that only the rich have access to is not exactly true. Of course, we know that places the world over, rich and poor alike, have national and ethnic identities—and often fierce conflicts over these identities. But identity includes sexual orientation and gender identity. People everywhere are queer, and there is a long history of queer identities in human cultures and societies. It’s just a matter of feeling safe or not. Safety and being queer is not equal across time and place. 

For example, the ancient philosophy of Buddhism teaches—and many other faiths teach—that to find true identity—that is, the access one’s Essence not covered up by ego—is something you can achieve through yoga and meditation. Accessing one’s true Essence through prayer is something that people have had access to for thousands of years before material comforts were even a thing. Jesus and Buddha would probably also say that fasting and other kinds of aesthetic lifestyles is one way to achieve enlightenment, this kind of third eye perspective on yourself--what we call identity--is something achievable by anyone no matter their socioeconomic status or situation. So identity is not a privilege. But being able to fully true and open and out in one’s queer identity AND feel safe at the same time is no doubt a privilege, and a privilege that only some people have had access to for a very short time.” 

We talked more about her life story and her own feelings living in KGZ. 

From this conversation, as well as many others I had in KGZ and working with Indigo in their community space and with their community activities for the rest of the two weeks I was there, I came up with a few goals for my next research project on LGBT community in KGZ:

First, I want to represent the LGBT community as whole people in the fullness of their humanity. Not objectified and exoticized, not as just a collection of limbs and organs and a brain, but as whole people with hopes, dreams, desires and regrets just like anybody else.  

Second, I want to find out more about the importance of safe community spaces for queer identity. 

Third, I want to better understand the relationship between Islam, colonialism, queerness and spirituality for Kyrgyz people. 

My proposed research questions are: 

• What is the role of safe community spaces in KGZ queer people’s lives? 
• How do queer community spaces function as sources of safety and identity? 
• How do queer people in KGZ use queer community spaces to celebrate their identity and transform their culture? 
• How do these spaces function as political activism?
• How does the intersection of Kyrgyz, Muslim, Asian, queer, and gender identities influence the way people come together as a community and create a shared culture? 
• How do queer identities and spirituality intersect in KGZ? 
• What is the intersection of race and queer identity? 
• How has colonization and racism shaped the queer KGZ experience?

In my previous work with queer Uyghur people, I found intersecting dynamics between their identity as Muslims, Uyghurs, and queer people. Queer people did not find a conflict between their spiritual and Muslim identity. However, race (e.g., Uyghur versus Chinese) and a history of colonization did play a role in being able to find safe spaces where they could be secure in their queer identity. 

In other words, I hypothesize that marginalized communities struggle with accepting queer identities if they already feel threatened in their space and identity by outside forces such as colonization. (For the Uyghurs, it was Chinese influence, for the Kyrgyz, it might be Russian or other outside Western influence.) I would like to continue this work with the people of KGZ to better understand the intersection between race, queer experience, and colonization. 

I recently received some great news. Indigo and the Czech Academy of Sciences have approved my research proposal and agreed that I can continue conducting this research in the future. I am excited to continue learning more. 

Over and over again I have heard, "I've never even heard of Kyrgyzstan!" This is sad. I hope more people have a better understanding of Central Asia after reading my work. 

Kyrgyzstan, LGBT activism: Part 4

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. 

Kyrgyzstan, LGBT activism: Part 3

Dastan had never been to the new Indigo location. We called his friend who was meeting us there and we waited at the corner of an intersection for him to take us inside the building. After waiting at the corner for some time, a guy came out and showed us through a gate at an apartment complex and through a parking lot. The entrance was through a back facing building. 

On the first floor was a pink sign that said “Indigo Vibes” in English. There was a large group of staff meeting with masks on the first floor, and Dastan explained to me that the first floor was for HIV testing, prevention and treatment. They were doctors, nurses and medics in a training. On the second floor were offices, and there we met some more of the Indigo staff who worked on political advocacy and community organizing. 

On the third floor was the community center, which they called “Queer Lab.” There was a small library of books in one corner. One of them in English was about reconciling the Abrahamic faiths and queerness. I found a book in English called “The Divine in You” was about affirming queer identities in people through the readings of the Eastern World Religions. They also had a lot of reports about HIV in the region, mostly in Russian, as well as reports about the state of queer people in KGZ and the rest of Central Asia. There was a small kitchen with water, coffee and tea, and a bathroom. On one wall was a big mirror and above that a pink florescent lighting that said “Queer is Good.” 

At that point, others had started to gather in the community room and many of them spoke English, but not fluently. Dastan explained that the meeting would start soon, and that it was an open community meeting for anyone in the public to join. The topic was “before and after coming out.” The meeting would be held in Russian, Dastan explained. 

Dastan translated simultaneously for me most of the meeting by speaking softly into my ear what everyone was saying. I was very impressed! I had never had someone do a simultaneous translation like this for me before. 

When I spoke, Dastan translated simultaneously: he spoke at almost the same time I was speaking to translate what I was saying into Russian. When I introduced myself, everyone clapped enthusiastically for me. It felt like a very welcoming environment. 

Dastan then shared his story, which was about conversion therapy. His parents took him to a bunch of Muslim leaders who performed exorcisms on him, thinking he was possessed by an evil spirit. But now he is out and active. He was one of the founding members of Indigo, he said, and now he is totally out to everyone: family, friends and anyone else who cares to ask.  

He ended the story saying that he founded Pink Summits as a way to show that “we as queer people have been through so much hardship and yet we still persevere, we still triumph, we can still do amazing things like climb Mt Everest. I wanted to show that we are strong and powerful and can accomplish great things.”

I will not share the other stories here, since they did not give me permission to do so. In summary, all of the stories involved triumph and heartbreak, love and loss. All of the stories had some positive things about them and some negative. Coming out in KGZ is not a black and white narrative where I could say “everyone in KGZ is homophobic,” like some of the stereotypes say. It’s not like that, actually most of the stories had at least some aspect of love and acceptance. Unequivocally, all of the stories were about accepting oneself, learning, self-discovery, courage, and love. Most people had exposure to some form of conversion therapy and some had been kicked out or shunned by family and friends for a time, but had been accepted by them later. Many spoke about knowing at a young age and being found out by snooping parents somehow, or else about secrecy, hiding and shame. 

After that, we left and a small group of us went to a restaurant for dinner and drinks.

To be continued...

Kyrgyzstan, LGBT activism: Part 2

While I was waiting for a response from the activists and journalists connected to the queer community in KGZ, I tried to find a queer bar to go to. But the only information I could find was about the rampant homophobia in the region, or else articles about the only gay bar in Bishkek getting shut down three years ago. I was a little surprised and disappointed—I had thought there would at least be some online forums about queer hang outs in Bishkek. In other cities I’d visited, especially in China, there was always at least one TripAdvisor forum about the local gay bars. But I was having very little luck.

Based on the articles I was finding and what other people had told me, it became clear that the queer scene in Bishkek is quite hidden. I was realizing that it was not safe to have your queer business or queer organization easy to find on the internet, and it was not safe to be openly queer either. 

Finally, I got a response to one of my queries. It was Dastan, the KGZ queer activist who started the organization called Pink Summits that comes together to climb mountains and put rainbow flags at the top. I had found his Instagram (he has 13.5K followers!). His Instagram bio said, "queer activist" so I knew then that he is open about his status. I contacted him on Instagram and he responded quickly, saying that he would be in Bishkek the next week. He lives in Europe but was visiting his family the same time I was in town. I eventually got his WhatsApp number and we set up a time to meet at a local LGBT activist organization. 

At first he sent me one address, then he messaged me again later, saying the location of the community center had changed and sent me another address. He said to call him when I got there, that he would come out and get me. 

I could tell that it had to be somewhat secretive, as he couldn’t give me the name of the exact location or the exact address. He mentioned that it would be a meeting with “Indigo,” which I had heard was a queer organization here but couldn’t find any info about it online. The secrecy was for good reason too. Based on the articles I was reading online and what other people said, the queer situation was not safe here.

While I was waiting for the day of our meeting to approach, I sent Dastan a video of myself, just introducing myself and telling him, "I know you’re taking a risk inviting someone you don’t know from the Internet to come to your group meeting, I just want to let you know this is who I am and I’m excited to meet you." He responded with a message: “Looking forward to it.” 

On the day of our meeting, I took a taxi to the address he gave me. I called Dastan and at that moment he was walking down the street with his friend. We greeted each other and he explained why he had sent me two different addresses to Indigo earlier in the week. 

There had been some protests against the government recently and the government was blaming the protests on foreign influencers and LGBT influence that was inciting division in the country. Somebody unknown released a video on the same day that one of the protests were planned that published the name and location of Indigo, as well as the names, identities and email addresses of the employees of Indigo.

After that, at Indigo's old location, there were suspicious cars and people monitoring the comings and goings of the people at Indigo, with cars and people following them to and from work, and watching them. 

Dastan said they didn’t know if it was the government or some private security organization, or just some hate crime groups. That was the problem in KGZ, that they didn’t know who the enemy was. They often used the pronoun “they” to describe this invisible entity that was targeting LGBT people and organizations, but they said it wasn’t always explicitly the government. Though they suspected it was government-funded or government-initiated, the government is not so bold as to be completely public about targeting these organizations and people—the government knew that this wasn’t a good look for international human rights standards and organizations. Such behavior could threaten funding from the US government and USAID. But at the same time the government didn’t like LGBT organizations and saw them as a threat to Kyrgyz traditional family values. The current nationalist government appealed to populist politics and appealed to people by instigating fear in them against LGBT people. Even though Dastan didn't know for sure who was stalking the Indigo employees, they all had suspected the current nationalist and populist government was behind it somehow. 

So that is why Indigo had to change the location of their office recently, for security concerns because they were being stalked.  

Like everything else, the situation was highly even, of course--it wasn't a completely underground organization and people didn't constantly hide in fear. Indigo had a website and an Instagram. Dastan was open and public about his queerness, to his family and everyone else--hosting a public-facing LGBT organization and posting queer activism related content to his public Instagram with 13.5K followers. Indigo was more public than I previously realized, too, with a public-facing Instagram account themselves (2,500 followers) and a website with all of its activities. Indigo and Dastan were happy to host me and be a part of my blog posts and research. It just took me a while to find them. Still, you will notice that I don't post pictures or information about the location or employees. 

To be continued...