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A Conversation with Kyle Khandikian: Shunned for Speaking Up Against Bigotry

By Katherine Berjikian

I had been friends with Kyle Khandikian for a couple months before interviewing him. I had met him a couple months ago, shortly after I had I first arrived in Armenia. I had also interviewed him in the past for a previous article.

Before I interviewed him for this article, I ran into him at an Armenian NGO working towards LGTBQ rights in Armenia called PINK Armenia (Public Information Need of Knowledge NGO). I wasn’t there to meet him, but to talk to someone else about another article I was working on. At that point, Kyle had been internet famous for a couple days; I had seen his Facebook post and had read about his situation in other articles. From there, I knew the basic facts about what happened to Kyle: on 19 May 2016, Kyle Khandikian had been kicked out of his Armenian dance class for being gay.

After I ran into him, we went for lunch to discuss what happened to him. He told me that he was afraid. His Facebook post had spread across the internet, and because of it he was basically ‘outed’ in front of the entire Armenian community, within both the diaspora community and within Armenia itself.

I was confused; if he was afraid, why had he agreed to do so many interviews about what happened to him? As we spoke, he told me a version of the following. This statement would be repeated again when I formally interviewed him later:

“What was done to me was an injustice…There should be legal consequences for doing something like that. But there are no anti-discrimination laws [referring to the Armenian legal system]. And even though the constitution protects people from discrimination, it does not specifically protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation, and or gender identity and gender expression.

And there was just no way that I was going to keep quiet about this. Did I think that my face and my name was going to be all over the internet? And that the whole Armenian world, that Armenians in Los Angeles were going to hear about this and write about this? No. But that’s the way that it happened.”

After his recount, I asked if he would be interested in doing an interview with me. He did, and the following is an account of that interview.

The Article That Started It All

Kyle Khandikian’s dance instructor did not find out that Kyle was gay because Kyle told him. He found out because he read a poem that Kyle had published online about homophobia in the Armenian community, in both Armenia and abroad.

A couple days before Kyle was kicked out of the dance group, he wrote a poem for the online magazine ‘The Hye-Phen,’ which claims to be ‘The only Armenian magazine and cyber collective committed to uplifting trans, queer, and radical narratives'.

The poem was called: ‘Explain to me why and how I should be proud of being Armenian.’ It was inspired by the 2015 attack of an LGTBQ pride parade in Israel, which resulted in the murder of one teenager and the stabbing of several others. Kyle was inspired to write this poem after reading the comments of a Tert.am article about the event. The poem itself is made up of comments re-appropriated from that article. 

The following is a segment of the poem Kyle wrote for ‘The Hye-Phen:’

“It’s little
It was little, they should have killed those faggots once and for all
It should have ended with fire.
Break the degenerates
Always like this…This is good for your dignity, those four-legged animals should be burned, mother with child”

When asked about the controversial title, Kyle explained that his reason for titling his poem ‘Explain to me why and how I should be proud of being Armenian’ was the following:

“I wrote those words because I wanted people to feel something. I wanted people to be angry. Because I wanted them to understand my anger, and to understand the anger of queer Armenians…I know so many people here and in the diaspora who feel rejected by the Armenian community. And that’s heartbreaking.”

What Happened?

Before I describe the events that took place on May 19, I would like to state that I did attempt to contact Harut Baghdasaryan about his side of the story. However, I did not receive a response. Therefore, the following is an account of what happened by Kyle Khandikian, and all accounts of what Harut Baghdasaryan said in this interaction are recounted by Kyle.

Kyle had been learning Armenian dance for the past five months. He had been attending two different classes: the first class was a dance group for beginners called ‘Bekor,’ and the second is a more advanced group called ‘Aros’. Both classes were taught by the same teacher, Harut Baghdasaryan, who eventually kicked him out of both classes.

Kyle described the incident in great detail. He stated that on May 19, he went to the dance group as usual. When he went there, Harut pulled him aside and told him that he wanted to talk to him in private. They went outside and the instructor asked him if he had written an article. He was referring to the poem that Kyle had written for ‘The Hye-Phen.’

When asked why he wrote his poem, Kyle stated that he didn’t think he needed to explain to him that LGTBQ people are not accepted in our nation or the Armenian nation. In response to this Kyle’s instructor informed him that, “I struggle against this,” meaning homosexuality.

He then asked Kyle if he remembered the ‘gay parade,’ from a couple years ago. There has never been a LGTBQ Pride parade in Armenia. Instead, he was referring to the diversity march that PINK and the Woman’s Resource Center had organized in response to the DIY bombing.

The DIY bombing refers to the bar DIY Rock Pub which was the target of an arson attack in May 2012. The pub was targeted because it was known to be a ‘gay-friendly’ bar. After the attack, both PINK and the Woman’s Resource Center organized a diversity march in response to this attack. While it was not a Pride parade, news of the march spread before it started and was widely referred to as a ‘gay parade.’ In response to this parade, ultra-nationalists appeared at the march as a counter demonstration. That night after the march, there were reports that the DIY pub was further vandalized.

Harut then told Kyle the following:

“I was standing there. I was one of the first people there to protest against that march. And we were holding signs that said ‘Send Gays to Baku.’”

He then told Kyle that if he saw someone like Kyle on the street, he wouldn’t do anything but people like Kyle should be stoned. Afterwards, he told Kyle to leave and stated that he would tell every dance instructor that he knows Kyle’s name so that he would not be able to learn Armenian dance.

Kyle also informed me that during this interaction, his instructor told him that he had kicked out another student before Kyle. His name was Davit, and Harut had kicked him out because he was not part of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The night that Kyle was kicked out of his dance class, he wrote about it on his Facebook page. That post spread from his friends, to their friends, and to the wider Armenian diaspora. As I am writing this, Kyle’s Facebook post has received five hundred and forty-four likes, one hundred and twenty-two shares, and one hundred and twenty-two comments.

Kyle has also done countless interviews about the incident. PINK, the NGO Kyle works for, has made a statement of support for Kyle and has called for the Ministry of Diaspora to respond to what happened to Kyle.

When Kyle’s story circulated around the internet, some of the people who heard about it tried to figure out who had kicked Kyle out of his dance class. In the original post, he did not state any names or information about the incident.

At some point in the Facebook posts of others, people started claiming that Gagik Ginosyan, one of the world’s most famous Armenian dancers, was the person who kick Kyle out. This is inaccurate. However, the story was so widespread that Gagik Ginosyan did an interview about Kyle with aravot.am. In that article, Gagik Ginosyan, who knew Harut Baghdasaryan and had been his former teacher, argued that it was Kyle’s poem and not his sexuality that was the reason he was kicked out of his dance class. When I spoke to Kyle, he stated that he thought neither his former dance instructor nor Ginosyan had actually read his poem. If they had, they would have seen the portion of the poem that stated that, “I love Armenia even though Armenia doesn’t love me back.” Instead, they focused entirely on his title.

Regardless, it is interesting to note that while at the very least what happened to Kyle was somewhat due to his sexuality, Gagik Ginosyan refused to talk about Kyle’s sexuality once. Instead he focused on ‘nationalism’ and ‘pride.’

 ‘We are afraid’

So what about the people in Kyle’s dance classes? Did they hear about what happened to Kyle?  What did they think about one of the people from their class being kicked out for being gay? According to what Kyle told me, he was actually close to some of the people in his dance group, and had gone on one trip with them outside of Yerevan to drink and to eat. He says he is still close to the people who were in the class. 

While I was writing this article, I attempted to try to find some people from the class to talk about what had happened to Kyle. After I spoke with Kyle for this interview, he gave me the names of several people who were in his class who were his peers and thought would be interested in speaking to me about how they felt when he was kicked out. They had all expressed their frustration to him about what happened, and had chosen to leave the class in support of him. However, when I approached them one by one they all declined.

I was confused; at first I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to speak with me. When I spoke with my friend later about it, they explained that it was probably that they were scared. They might be put in danger if they spoke out in support of a queer person.

Because of this, I met them in person and offered to only use their first names, or to make them anonymous. Again, they all refused.

When I asked them why they didn’t want talk about what happened to Kyle they responded that the reasons they did not want to talk to me were variations of ‘I am afraid.’ The following are examples of what some of the dance students told me:

-       Fear that they would be found out even if I made them anonymous in this article.

-       That it might affect their future. They might not be able to get a job if they were connected to this in anyway.

-       That Kyle is in danger because this was done to him, and because he chose to speak out about what happened. One person told me that they could avoid that. That they didn’t have to talk about it.

I am not writing this to judge the people who chose to not participate in this article. While I do not know how close they are to Kyle, I do know for a fact that they have supported Kyle in person.

However, I wanted to use this example to point out that while the internet erupted with support after what happened to Kyle, people who supported him online, on their own personal Facebooks and other social websites, were afraid of speaking out in support of Kyle in a more public sphere, or even being vaguely connected to what happened to Kyle.

While I don’t know the amount of violence the queer community faces in Armenia, there is no statistics to state the actual number, I can say that many people feel and think that there is a legitimate concern for the safety of the LGTBQ community in Armenia. And with incidents like the bombing of the DIY pub, who can contradict them.

It seems, that for some people in Armenia, being remotely connected to anything LGBTQ is enough to make someone feel like they are in danger.

An LGBTQ Friendly Dance Class

However, this fear has not stopped Kyle, or other people, including queer Armenians, who want to support him. Instead of giving up on learning Armenian dances, Kyle has decided to create his own Armenian dance class that would be open to people regardless of sexuality or gender. One of the reasons he stated for wanting to start this new dance class was because of the history of resistance the Armenian community had instilled in him:

“If there was one thing that I learned back home in my Armenian school, in my Armenian community in Los Angeles…it was this understanding of what injustice is…They put that spirit of struggle in me. It is really unfortunate that I had to experience this in my own homeland, but the struggle against injustice is just what it means to be Armenian. I’m going to struggle, and I’m going to do what I feel is right. And as I’ve said in my post, and people keep referencing this, I am going to dance…No one can tell me that I cannot dance.”

One of the members of Kyle’s new dance group, Melia Hadidian, a queer diasporan living in Armenia, talked to me briefly about why she wanted to join the dance group. She stated the following:

“I joined Kyle's dance group because…after what happened to Kyle, I felt like I wanted to make sure I could learn Armenian dance in a context that would welcome me with open arms, rather than judging how "worthy" I was to be dancing the dances of my ancestors. It makes me incredibly sad that I now feel a moment of hesitation when a friend suggests coming along to another dance class…With Kyle's class, I know walking through that door that I will be welcomed and encouraged as a dancer, identity-politics aside.”

(Katherine Berjikian is a Birthright Armenia volunteer from the U.S. now working at Hetq)

 

Comments (5)

General Koofta
Homosexuality is reprobate sin and an abomination to our God and his son. Read the first chapter of Romans if you care what the Bible has to say about it. There are plenty of beautiful places in the world for this guy to practice his sin until his end is meted out. In the meantime, don't shove your politically correct crap on this poor desperate country facing an existential crisis. This is the last thing that is relevant to this small struggling state.
PS
I hadn't thought about Kyle's story in this way before, unexpectedly becoming a story throughout a sizable portion of the Armenian world. That would be shocking for anyone, out or not. I've experienced homophobia in Armenia myself. I attended an English language discussion group for young 20-somethings on the topic of human rights, which somehow turned into someone saying that all gays should be killed. The leader of the group who had said the group was a free-minded place agreed that gays should be at least punished. Most Armenians would be surprised to know the sizable number of LGBT Armenians, not just diasporans either, and this is not counting the uncountable number who hide it. They think of queer people as the transvestites at Children's Park and as nothing else. They have no LGBT people pointed to as role models, but only as the worst of the worst. I too have experienced homophobia, though luckily after I left a job. A co-worker reached out to me and suggested that he believes that I'm gay, and that if so he would have killed me when he had the chance. I had never had a negative encounter with this person and I don't even know why he came to that conclusion about me, but it happened. Kyle's story had simultaneously depressed me, but also gave me hope to see just how many Armenians were supporting him. LGBT issuers are almost never mentioned by Armenians, so it is difficult to know where people stand, but to see so many unafraid to show their support on Facebook would make people who might be quiet reassurance that they aren't alone, that they aren't alone in perhaps their secret support of LGBT people. This article shows a different side however, and is ominous in many ways. Change is slow however, we can't expect these people to completely turn about in a moment, but hopefully this was the first step for some of them.
Vahagn
Conformity is for some reason very important to Armenians. As a neopagan Armenian, I know the fear of coming out and letting people know I don't follow Christianity,because I don't fit perfectly into the Christian-Armenian mold (despite having nearly the same religion as Tigran the Great). While it probably isn't as difficult as being a gay Armenian, I know that a few of my family members would reject me if they knew, as well as many fellow Armenians. I feel uncomfortable going to Armenian churches in the diaspora, and only go for certain events. I sympathize with the struggle of LGBT Armenians, and will support them if I can. I don't think Anahit or Astghik would reject them the way Jesus does.
minas
I have nothing against gays but I am tired of all this gay talk! Why is it that straight people don't feel the need to keep reminding everyone that they are straight. Kyle has the right to live his private life but we don't want our society to turn into something like France or Germany where family values are dead and to survive you need to import Turks and Arabs to impregnate your women!! We love our family values and cherish them. A boy is born to become a father and head of a new family, if you cant do this then go and live your private life but don't attack our values with your leftist nonsense.
Fallon Leung
Very engaging article. It must be hard for Kyle to not only experienced such alienation and blatant violence toward, but also keep recounting his story and have it be shared amongst the community with little control over it. I hope this helps embolden people to show more support in real life and to ensure the safety of Kyle and other LGBT community members because they are truly the ones who suffer most from these kinds of situations.

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