When Enkhmaa Enkhbold first walked into the LGBT Centre of Mongolia, the country’s first organisation dedicated to LGBTQI human rights since 2007, it was the first time in her life she felt true belonging. Years later, as Executive Director of that same organisation, Enkhmaa and the Mongolia LGBT Centre have built something rare: a space where queer Mongolians can simply exist.
Through extensive engagement with UN human rights mechanisms, the Centre has helped secure nearly 80 LGBTQI-specific recommendations, enshrining protections in Mongolia’s criminal code and labour law. But perhaps more importantly, they’ve created spaces for queer joy to flourish. During a recent visit to London, Enkhmaa shared the story of how she found her way back to Mongolia and what it takes to build belonging.
I found the LGBT Centre and for me, it was the first time I ever felt belonging in my entire life.
How did you end up leading the LGBT Centre of Mongolia?
When I was young, my parents moved to the United States and took me with them. Whilst I was there, I had my immigrant community and my queer community, but I never had a Mongolian queer community.
I visited Mongolia when I got older. That’s what all queer people do. Any country you go to, you look for queer spaces and activists. I found the LGBT Centre and for me, it was the first time I ever felt belonging in my entire life.
I immediately fell in love and began to plan to move back. I volunteered for the Centre, raised funds, and was asked to be on the board. Then a job opening came up so I wrapped up my life in a few boxes and moved to Mongolia.
What are the biggest challenges facing LGBTQI people in Mongolia?
Our trans community experiences the most challenges. In many cases, you can hide your sexual orientation, but for a lot of trans people, they can’t hide their trans identity. Being visible brings a lot of physical harm, mostly by strangers on the street. They’re unable to find jobs. Often parents kick them out at an early age and deny paying for their education.
Often our people import hormones from different countries, mostly from Thailand, with great risk. They also go abroad to get surgeries. But this travel is very expensive.
When it comes to transition, there is no trans-specific healthcare in Mongolia. But that doesn’t mean we don’t transition. Often our people import hormones from different countries, mostly from Thailand, with great risk. They also go abroad to get surgeries. But this travel is very expensive. Some surgeries require at least one month recovery. Staying in a different country for that long is very expensive. Our people come back home with complications and it’s just bad.
It’s not that Mongolian healthcare doesn’t have physicians who can perform surgeries or hormone replacement therapy but regulation is not in place. We don’t have a trans healthcare standard. So oftentimes, even physicians who are willing are afraid to practise, especially surgeries.
On the flip side, what does queer joy look like in Mongolia?
Certainly there is lots of queer joy. Half of Mongolia’s population lives in the capital city and currently we have six queer pubs. One of them is an actual club.
These pubs are quite amazing. The club DX has shared their space with lots of queer artists. We have drag queen shows, but also drag king shows, which is very rare in most parts of the world. Drag king performances are mostly conducted by trans men and non-binary folks. That’s a very big deal. It’s a lot of joy to see such diversity within the community.
If you’re sitting with your queer friends and you run into a colleague and they ask, ‘Who are these people?’ you say, ‘Oh, my classmates,’ but they’re queer folks.
We also have a developed community language called ‘анги (angi)’. It means ‘classmate’. If you’re sitting with your queer friends and you run into a colleague and they ask, ‘Who are these people?’ you say, ‘Oh, my classmates,’ but they’re queer folks. Everybody says things like, ‘When did you enter the class?’ or ‘Since I entered the class, this is what happened.’ It’s quite fun.
Pride is amazing. The LGBT Centre has been the sole Pride organiser for the past 13 years. Our Pride is 10 days long. We have a film festival, community theatre, march, and receptions with different networks.
Could you tell us more about the Mongolia LGBT Centre?
The country has a very young population and our movement is led by young people, under 25 mostly. I am 40 today and I’m the oldest activist in the country. The pubs operate at night and require a lot of money. So what happens to our young people? Where do they go? The LGBT Centre creates that space.
Right now we’re in a hundred-metre square space with most of it being a community space. We organise poetry nights, mental health workshops, game nights. Up until two years ago, it was the only space that was queer, that was safe for our queer people.
For us as a movement, we know we need to multiply ourselves. We now have Trans4Unity, which started last year, and Youth Lead Mongolia. Now we have three spaces where young people can go and mingle, learn, and just be themselves.
Many of our volunteers shared that they came outside our office many times and couldn’t go in – they were so afraid to enter the Centre. That’s how isolated they are. We try to make our space as friendly as possible. When you walk into our space, it says, ‘Welcome home.’ Every time I talk about it, I just feel very emotional. It’s a very important space.
When you walk into our space, it says, ‘Welcome home.’ Every time I talk about it, I feel very emotional.
You also run the Beyond the Blue Sky Film Festival. Why is that important?
Art helps us occupy public spaces. Art helps us learn to be in public spaces as queer people. That’s very important.
We’ve been doing Beyond the Blue Sky for 11 or 12 years. In 2019, when I started at the Centre with my team, we thought it was time that we tell our own stories, that we see ourselves on that big screen. We decided to do a Mongolian queer film contest.
We were nervous because six or seven years ago, it was very hard to find people who would show their face on screen. But we received many Mongolian queer films. It was so amazing. So far we have screened 80 films over the years. It’s so beautiful to see narrative change.
In the beginning, it was mostly flags, rainbow, visibility. But then it goes into relationship, friendship, then marriage, and children. Two years ago, we made it international. Last year, we received more than a thousand films from all around the world.
What kind of narrative change have you seen?
In the beginning, the Mongolian films were mostly rainbow, holding hands, not a lot of story, but visibility. That was very important. Then we began to see parents coming into these films, parent and child relationships. That’s something we’d never seen before in Mongolia. The only films about queer characters in mainstream were mocking us or belittling us. The message was always ‘Hide, stay away from these people.’
We have family, parents that we love and care for, siblings. . .It’s becoming richer and getting very close to showing our complex life.”
But now we have strong narratives of representation. We are part of a community. We have family, parents that we love and care for, siblings. Two years ago, there was this film called ‘Voice’. It had four generations of an LGBTQI family – the grandma, the child, the child’s baby. It was just so beautiful. It’s becoming richer and getting very close to showing our complex life. Because often we are only measured by our sexuality or gender identity and that’s terrible.
But occupying public spaces for the festival isn’t easy?
A couple of years ago, the cinema we always partnered with received a lot of threats from the public. We learned it was Christian mothers who were against our film festival. We had to get police protection to show our film festival. But we begged the police to not wear their uniform because we don’t want to scare our community. It takes a lot of courage to come to the cinema to watch a film.
This year, we used an individual to do the contract and didn’t put any banners outside. It was more within the community online, very carefully. We were so terrified they could simply cancel. But thankfully, it went okay.
When you watch these films with 200, 300 or 400 people together, people like you on a big screen in a mainstream theatre, it does something to you. What happens after our film festival is all of us go to different pubs that day and you hear the film discussions happening. It’s creating dialogue and truly normalising us to be part of the bigger society.
What moment really brings the work you do to life?
The one I really like is how we want to expand our movement horizontally. The LGBT Centre has been the only organisation working on LGBTQI human rights for so long. We have so much on our plate. We need organised activists who are shoulder to shoulder tackling thematic issues. Somebody needs to focus on trans healthcare alone. Somebody has to focus on same-sex marriage or legal recognition.
Last year, the first trans-led trans organisation in Mongolia was founded through our Trans Leadership Programme. It’s a group of amazing trans men and non-binary folks. They’re doing amazing work. The Centre tries hard to have Trans4Unity, the LGBT Centre, and another organisation called Youth Lead Mongolia united with the same language, the same strategy on advocacy.
For UN mechanisms, it was only the LGBT Centre engaging. But this year, all three organisations individually wrote reports and together, as a coalition, we wrote a report. Two of us went to Geneva to do advocacy. It used to be just me but now it’s a group of people. This was my dream.
It was so great this year, working together, ordering pizza and talking. Even though it’s challenging, we’re laughing at the same time.
I’ve been to a lot of regional and international spaces. I do envy some countries who have so many frontline organisations doing amazing work. It was so great this year, working together, ordering pizza and talking. Even though it’s challenging, we’re laughing at the same time. Before it was mostly me doing the work alone five years ago. This is so beautiful. We want to continue strengthening each other. The Centre has so much to give to mentor our young activists. I’m all for it. Sometimes I feel like a parent and I love it.
Follow Mongolia LGBT Centre on Instagram, and visit their website to learn more.