Gay mongolians
FEATURE: Pride on the steppe – existence gay in Mongolia
While the world’s eye has turned on Russia’s recent attacks on LGBT rights, its neighbour and former Soviet satellite state Mongolia just celebrated its first Pride Week. However, there is a still a distant way to proceed before LGBT Mongolians can live reveal lives.
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I settle down for coffee in downtown Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital urban area of around 1.3 million, with Otgonbaatar Tsedendemberel. As we communicate, a group of school girls sitting adjacent to us giggle. They acquire recognised Tsedendemberel, the first gay male to publicly ‘come out’ on a Mongolian talk-show in 2010.
Now executive director of the LGBT Centre Mongolia (the country’s first Queer woman , Gay, Bisexual and Transgender [LGBT] rights organisation), Tsedendemberel, 33, is the most famous gay bloke in Mongolia – with only a handful brave enough to live accessible lives. He says he is lucky to have a supportive family, but many don’t.
“It is very difficult. That’s why there are only about five people who are openly LGBT in this country,” Tsedendemberel says.
“Both at home, and at work, people are not as free as they want to be.”
While homosexual sex is not illegal,
A rainbow flag outside the Fantastic Khural, Mongolia's parliament building, Ulaanbaatar, March 2019. Photo (c): The LGBT Centre Mongolia. Used with permission.
During the summer of 2017, I spent some months in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital city. There, I met a young female in her second year of university, who told me about the difficulties of being an LGBTQ+ person in the nation. I was immediately struck by the gravity of some of the situations she portrayed. Although she was only 19 years old, she had already faced such discrimination herself. I knew that she would have valuable insight into what younger members of the country's LGBTQ+ society were going through.
Mongolia is a country with a history of discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. Even though laws exist to guard them, it is not uncommon to read reports of fluid and homosexual people who possess been beaten, raped, or even kidnapped by hate groups. There are some cautious signs of change. At the end of last year, police brought charges against a far-right group after an attack on a trans sex worker, in a uncommon case of the authorities searching an anti-LGBTQ+ hate crime.
So when I suggested tha
The Mongolian government has refused registration of the Lesbian Gay
Bisexual and Non-binary Centre (LGBT Centre) as a non-governmental
organisation (NGO) since 2007, in spite of many statements by local and
international organisations. A new step is expected now, as the authorities
own responded the issue with a letter, marking the liberty to establish
organisation.
(7 October
2009) The Mongolian government has refused registration of the Queer woman Gay
Bisexual and Transgender Centre (LGBT Centre) as a non-governmental
organisation (NGO) since 2007, in spite of many statements by local and
international organisations. A new step is expected now, as the authorities
have responded the issue with a letter, marking the freedom to establish
organisation.
The letter
by the National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia said, citizens of Mongolia
shall be "guaranteed the privilege to develop a party or other public
organizations and to unite voluntarily in associations according to social and
personal interests and opinion" under the Constitution of the country.
Under this statement, LGBT Centre should be registered as an NGO.
Ts
Otgonbaatar, one of the foundi
Charges in Mongolia LGBT ambush hint at changing attitudes
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia – Last month, Bosoo Khukh Mongol, a far-right Mongolian nationalist group, teamed up with a local television station to lure a transgender sex worker into a hotel room.
In the room, they threatened her with physical force and forced her to describe her work on camera.
The video was aired on the evening news and posted on Bosoo Khukh Mongol’s Facebook page, alongside incendiary commentary accusing the LGBT community of paedophilia, spreading disease and compromising national security.
Gay and transsexual people continue to be the target of harassment and violence in Mongolia, although some progress has been made in recent years.
In 2017, changes were made to the law to provide more protections for the LGBT community as well as better development for law enforcement officials on hate crimes and preventing and prosecuting them.
“Previously, Mongolians had limited learning about acceptance of LGBT rights and dignity,” said Tamir Chultemsuren, a political sociologist with the Independent Investigate Institute of Mongolia, “but now, people have more information… and so general universal awareness has