Di¡erent Shades of Blue:

Gay Men and Nationalist Discourse

in Mongolia

Franck Bille´



University of Cambridge

Abstract

The article seeks to challenge the implicit equation made between national
autonomy and personal freedom. Post-socialist Mongolian identity, articulated on
a notion of resistance against Chinese territorial and biological encroachment, is
accompanied by an explicit, often violent, anti-Chinese discourse. This resistance
against an external enemy also has a centripetal effect on Mongolian society, and
contemporary notions of Mongolianness tend to congeal into a homogenised
identity that leaves little space for personal reinterpretations. For those whose
voices are not heard, such as Mongolian women and gay men, ‘freedom to be
ethnic’ can be far from liberating. The data I present in this article suggest that,
while it is routinely depicted as the main danger against which to rally, China can,
for some people, open up spaces of opportunity and liberty unattainable to them
within Mongolia.

Wedged between Russia and China, Mongols have navigated a narrow political
path throughout modern history; much of their limited political power has
consisted in playing one giant against the other. During the Socialist period
(1921–1990), Mongols saw their culture attacked by harsh and at times violent
political and cultural policies: temples were destroyed, lamas and intellectuals
assassinated, and the traditional script was eliminated in favour of Cyrillic. But on
the whole, Mongols argue, it was a positive experience: without Russia, Mongolia
would not have been able to retain its independence and would have become part



Franck Bille´ is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Social Anthropology, University

of Cambridge, and a member of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Research Unit (MIASU),
Cambridge. His research interests include identity politics, gender, race, linguistics, and
psychoanalysis. He holds a degree in Russian and Arabic from the University of
Westminster and an M.A. in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS), University of London. He has published ‘Faced with Extinction: Myths
and Urban Legends in Contemporary Mongolia’ (Cambridge Anthropology, 2008) and
‘Cooking the Mongols/Feeding the Han: Dietary and Ethnic Intersections in Inner
Mongolia’ (Inner Asia, 2009).

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of China. This discourse of independence articulated on the ‘China threat’ has an
old genealogy and remained a recurrent theme throughout the Socialist period.
The doctrine of ‘the lesser evil’ (Wheeler 1960:41–42) employed throughout the
Communist East painted Mongolia’s Asian neighbours (predominantly – but not
exclusively – China) as dangerous actors against which Russian presence and
support were required.

Far from abating, the end of the Socialist period was not accompanied by a

change in attitudes. On the contrary, the disappearance in the early 1990s of the
role of protector played by Russia throughout most of the twentieth century saw an
intensification of China-related anxieties. As I have discussed in depth elsewhere
(Bille´ 2008), contemporary nationalist discourse in Mongolia continues to focus
on an impending Chinese threat. The Chinese government is widely rumoured to
be plotting a takeover of the country: it is suspected, for example, of trying to
exterminate the Mongols with poisoned food, of diluting the gene pool by
sponsoring Chinese men to father ‘half-breed’ (erliiz) children in Mongolia, of
spiriting homeless children out of the country for the organ trade, and of carrying
syringes with blood containing the AIDS virus. It is believed that in order for
Mongolia to survive as an independent and modern nation, the Chinese need to be
kept out of involvement with Mongolia and particularly with the (female) bodies
of its citizens. In the media as well as in discussions, these anti-Chinese sentiments
are explicit and often violent. Occasional graffiti on the walls of buildings in
Ulaanbaatar sanction violence against the Chinese, including murder.

1

A popular

hip-hop song by the band Do¨rvo¨n Zu¨g entitled Bu¨u¨ davar hujaa naraa (‘Don’t
push it, you Chinks’) explicitly encourages it: ‘Call the Chinese over and kill them
all, boom boom.’

Mongolian writer Erdembileg (2007) has pointed out that the figure of the

Chinese in the Mongolian media is akin to that of the ogre in tales, employed to
scare children into obedience. Native anthropologist Uradyn Bulag (1998:37)
has convincingly argued that the Mongols have come to craft an identity that is
defined largely in an oppositional mode against the Chinese. A similar claim
was advanced by Almaz Khan (1996:260), who contends that it was only in the
eighteenth century, when Mongols found their cultural traditions threatened and
stigmatised by Han ethnocentrism and ethnic chauvinism, that a sense of Mongol
ethnic identity began to emerge and develop. Throughout the Socialist period the
‘China threat’ was a card skilfully played by Moscow, and in the 1990s
accusations of having Chinese parentage was a strategy occasionally used to
discredit politicians. However, anti-Chinese discourse in Mongolia cannot be
solely ascribed to political games, and the pervasiveness of these sentiments has a
number of social and psychological underpinnings. The association of negative
social phenomena such as poverty, ill health, and corruption with China – an
external actor largely absent in living history

2

– conceals other influences, both

foreign and domestic, downplaying in particular the prevalent role played by
Russia in Mongolian affairs for most of the twentieth century. At the same time,
portraying Mongolia as a historical lure for China tends to elicit a certain national
and ethnic narcissism,

3

as well as magnifying the significance of Mongolia on the

international stage.

Franck Bille´: Different Shades of Blue: Gay Men and Nationalist Discourse in Mongolia

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Mongols tend to show less ‘political correctness’ and to be more overt about

their xenophobic sentiments than people in Europe or America. Anthropologists
working on Mongolia are therefore aware of these discourses but have been often
disinclined to address them. %i&ek (2005:156) has drawn attention to the double
standards witnessed in discussions of ethnicity, highlighting the disconnect
between our reluctance to engage with affirmations of our own autochthonous
traditions and our willingness to accept and even celebrate those of others. This
particular issue was also examined by Dale (1986) in his discussion of Japanese
forms of racism. For him, ‘our’ lack of moral stance on the xenophobia of others is
rooted in the fear of being ethnocentric: ‘Remaining ignorant of others is to be
preferred to inadvertently misunderstanding them; better to lapse into a passive
silence than to imprison and contort the sacred ‘‘alterity’’ of the Orient within the
conventional framework of Western knowledge’ (Dale 1986:4). Afraid of being
ethnocentric and of blindly applying a set of moral values to the societies we study,
we tend to look for extenuating circumstances whenever we are confronted with
certain unpalatable discourses: the Chinese are indeed powerful and the Mongols
are understandably worried about the preservation of their way of life. But what
such rationalisations do is bolster the implicit assumption that ethnicity constitutes
the principal identity system that people find meaningful,

4

as well as the equation

that is unproblematically made between political and personal goals and values.

The actual, discursive, and symbolic violence witnessed in Mongolia and

directed at the Chinese also has a centripetal effect on Mongolian society to the
extent that it enforces homogenisation. The rallying calls for collective resistance
defined in ethnic terms beg the question: Whose way of life is being preserved and
whose values? Or, as Butler and Spivak (2007) have phrased it, who sings
the nation-state? Current Mongolian identity discourse hinges on the idea of
impeding encroachment by China and is therefore articulated on the notion of
resistance. Mongolian nationalist discourses posit a Mongolian identity en-
trenched in a traditional nomadic lifestyle and look to the ‘deep past’ for
authenticity (Humphrey 1992). As a result, Mongolianness tends to congeal into
an essentialised identity, leaving little space for personal reinterpretations.
Descriptions can easily turn into ascriptions, and ‘ways of being Mongolian’ can
become constricted; but the most important restriction is perhaps the very
assumption that ethnicity itself is liberating and that it takes precedence over other
forms of identity. This can be especially problematic for individuals who have a
lesser voice in these ethnic definitions of Mongolianness, such as sexual dissidents
or women. For them, voicing an alternative mode of Mongolian identity
constitutes a form of ‘resistance against resistance’ that is coded as unpatriotic
and possibly even treasonous. A quote from a recent novel by Ire`ne Ne´mirovsky
opens Jacqueline Rose’s book The Last Resistance (2007). The heroine expresses
her reluctance to forego personal freedoms in the name of a collective identity, as
well as her desire to enter into a relationship with a German soldier: ‘I’d rather feel
free inside – to choose my own path, never to waver, not to follow the swarm. I
hate this community spirit they go on and on about’ (quoted in Rose 2007:1).

This article will focus on such acts of dissidence. In particular, I will examine

the social and political restrictions imposed on a rarely studied group – Mongolian

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gay men. As men, they enjoy considerably more freedom to enter into romantic
and sexual relations with non-Mongols than do women, but as gay men, their
intimate aspirations do not dovetail with the national interpretation of masculinity.
However, this article will not be about the Mongolian construction of homo-
sexuality, either as an external discourse or as a form of self-identification. The
chief question this article will seek to address is what happens when the forces
mobilised in defence of national independence and in the name of social cohesion
against an external enemy begin feeling restrictive to a number of a nation’s
citizens. The Mongolian discourse of resistance against China articulates on a
number of assumptions, including how the Chinese are imagined to be and the
specific Mongol qualities that are worth preserving and fighting for. What interests
me here is specifically the positioning of sexual dissidents vis-a`-vis a ‘traditional
enemy’ such as China. For Mongols, China is routinely depicted as the main
danger against which to rally; however, I suggest that Mongolia’s southern
neighbour is not necessarily perceived as such by all Mongols, and that for at
least some, China may open up spaces of potentiality and liberty unattainable to
them within Mongolia.

National Morality and Internal Violence

The definition given by Freud (1959 [1921]) for the process of group formation,
namely a process whereby a number of individuals set one and the same object in
the place of their ‘I ideal’, is one that can also be useful to understand national and
ethnic loyalties. For Freud, the group is not merely a process of exclusion keeping
the ‘Other’ at bay; it is simultaneously the surrender of the individualities of the
group’s members, an ‘interruption of the subject’. As psychologist Frosh
(2008:191) argues, while such a ‘group disruption of the subject’s fantasy of
autonomy’ may be productive, ‘the idea that it is always experienced as liberating
is clearly wrong. At times, there can be nothing worse than finding oneself in a
group, surrounded by other people who seem persecutory, threatening, damaging
to one’s precarious health’.

Anthropologist Tapper (1999) has discussed these issues of personal sacrifice

for the greater good in reference to sickle cell anaemia. Narratives and discourses
in the U.S. media on this topic have emphasised the duties of socially responsible
individuals in not transmitting the condition to future generations and urging
people to give up a potential mate if necessary. But as he points out, ‘although this
strategy is to be applied by individuals, it is not meant to improve conditions
within the sphere of the self, but rather to positively affect entire families and
communities’ (Tapper 1999:100). In Mongolia, because the construction of
ethnicity is articulated on the idea of impending extinction (see Bille´ 2008),
choice of marriage/sexual partners takes on a strong political dimension and tends
to follow a binary logic – either the choice is patriotic and in the interest of the
group or it is an act of treason.

5

This is the case in particular for certain groups in

Mongolia, such as women who choose not to conform to the gendered codes of
behaviour and enter into relationships with Chinese men. These expectations,
however, are very much one-sided. An important part of my fieldwork research

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190

has consisted of monitoring media discourse about Sino-Mongolian relations.
While stories of Mongolian women having relations with Chinese men were very
common, I never came across the reverse.

6

Unfailingly, these stories were narrated

as cautionary tales in which innocent (and/or selfish) women entered into relations
with or married Chinese men to later find themselves in nightmarish situations.

As is often the case with nationalist discourses, the responsibility of the future

of the group as a biological entity rests with women, and their conduct is thus
subject to strict social policing. In August 2007, the nationalist group Dayar
Mongol issued a statement warning that they would shave off the hair of women
having sexual relations with Chinese men (Jargal 2007; Nyam-O

¨ lzii 2007). An

article published the following month in the tabloid Mash Nuuts (‘Top Secret’)
(2007) argues that while such warnings may seem brutal and violent (hargis,
hertsgii), the fault does not rest with the nationalists but with Mongolian girls who
have ‘over-enjoyed’ their freedom (erh cho¨lo¨o¨g hetru¨u¨len ashiglahdaa garshsan).
While not always expressed as forcefully, my interviews with informants and
fieldwork data generally corroborated this general position: Mongolian women are
seen as having a social responsibility that they are expected to prioritise over
personal desires.

The Mongols’ right to protect their traditional way of life and culture demands

sacrifices, but these sacrifices are not exacted equally from all. The differential
between which group is expected to be socially responsible and who has the power
to define these responsibilities highlights the gendered power structure under-
girding the community: ‘Nationalisms turn the control of women, their bodies, and
their sexuality into a matter of national importance by defining patriarchy as the
core of national identity’ (Tumursukh 2001:122). While some women in
Mongolia vocally support nationalist views in urging other women not to ‘betray
the nation’, many do not. A large contingent of Mongolian women is actively
looking for a foreign husband in order to find an easier life abroad. A number of
introduction agencies in Ulaanbaatar cater specially to them. The largest facilitates
contacts between Mongolian women and men from Japan, Korea, Western
Europe, and the United States; two other agencies focus specifically on
introductions to Korean men.

7

Nationalism, however, is not just a gendered and sexist practice; it is also strongly

heteronormative. The figure of the soldier, just like that of the fallen hero, is not
easily reconciled with a homosexual identity.

8

Butler (2004:34–35) has highlighted

the belated (and selective) public recognition of the families of gay victims of 9/11,
thereby illustrating U.S. society’s perception of a misalignment of the homosexual
with the group as well as with its explicit/implicit claims. In a similar vein, Ventrone
(2005) has argued that, particularly in periods of perceived imminent danger,

9

the

criminalisation of homosexuality constitutes an attempt to regulate and channel
non-reproductive sexual practices. Homosexuality thus appears ‘as a meaningless
waste of precious energy which, instead of contributing to enriching and
strengthening the nation, [is] geared towards mere personal pleasure’ (Ventrone
2005:15). This reading parallels that of Freud who, as mentioned previously, saw
the formation of a group as a relinquishment of autonomy by its members by
binding their libidinal investments (Frosh 2008:186).

10

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Especially in contexts where the state concerns itself with the sexuality of its

citizens, sexual difference can be equivalent to sexual dissidence. This is
particularly true of homosexuals who are discursively saturated with sexuality,
thereby rendering precarious their inclusion into a nation defined as a communal
enterprise where libidinal interests are to be harnessed and sublimated (see
Bernstein 2007:132; Starks 2008:188). Deviance from national ideas/ideals
constitutes a political act that is routinely subject to legal punishment and/or
medicalisation.

11

Sexual Dissidence

Homosexuality in Mongolia is a taboo and largely unknown subject. Despite its
lack of associations with religious notions of sin like in Christian and Muslim
cultures, it is perceived very negatively. It is not clear whether this was also the
case in pre-revolutionary Mongolia or whether the current attitudes reflect values
inculcated during the Socialist period. Allegedly, the eighth Jebtsundamba
Buddhist reincarnation (hutagt) was bisexual, and this seems to have shocked
Western travellers and missionaries more than it did the locals (Bawden
1968:165–66; Lattimore 1962:211). In post-Socialist Mongolia, nationalist
discourse looks back to the time of Chingis Khan – to the ‘deep past’ (Humphrey
1992), that is, a past unadulterated by foreign influences and reflective of a golden
era of cultural and political accomplishments. As is well-known, Chingis Khan’s
legal text, the Ih Zasag Huul’, condemned homosexuals to death. The rationale,
uncannily reminiscent of contemporary ethnic policies and positions, was
articulated on the notion of survival. It is unlikely that the negativity associated
with homosexuality in contemporary Mongolia is directly attributable to Chingis’
stance on the issue, but it provides a rationalisation of social opprobrium to the
extent that Chingis Khan has come to stand as the touchstone of Mongolian
cultural authenticity.

It is also important to note that Mongolian society attaches a great deal of social

capital to (hyper)masculinity, namely strong resilient bodies, wrestling, and the
capacity to drink alcohol. The Mongolian summer festival of Naadam (also
known as the ‘three manly games’ – eriin gurvan naadam), the customs of which
articulates precisely on virile qualities of strength and endurance, is a particularly
good illustration of this cultural inclination. Further, as Hamayon (1979:122) has
noted, wishes, lullabies, and blessings bestowed on children unequivocally evoke,
irrespective of gender, masculine attributes such as heroism, skill, and strength.
Notions of masculinity also seep through discourses about ‘Others’, namely the
Russian and Chinese. Whereas the Russians are perceived to be Mongol-like
(mongolchuud shig) on account of their physical resilience and capacity to
withstand alcohol, anti-Chinese sentiments tend to be couched in narratives of
physical weakness and deficiency.

In Mongolia, like in many other contexts such as in contemporary Europe and

the United States, homosexuality tends to be associated with femininity or at least
with modes of failed masculinity. This assumption has been reinforced by the high
visibility of a few transgender individuals, the most famous of whom is probably

Franck Bille´: Different Shades of Blue: Gay Men and Nationalist Discourse in Mongolia

192

Gambush, a transvestite

12

who is routinely referred to as manin (hermaphrodite).

Although Gambush is a prominent show-business personality who regularly gives
interviews to tabloids, he is not necessarily popular: some stories circulate that he
does not have a permanent home because he is afraid of acts of violence that could
be perpetrated against him. His extremely feminine appearance does not make it
easy for closeted homosexuals to come out and the majority of my informants did
not find him a positive role model to identify with.

While Mongolian law does not criminalise homosexuality, homophobia is very

pervasive in Mongolian society. Despite a sizeable gay population, there are no
homosexual public spaces such as bars or clubs.

13

However, private parties are

organised monthly, and information about their time and location are disseminated
by word of mouth and text messages. Venues change from one event to the next so
that knowledge about the existence of a ‘gay club’ will not spread and intimidate
people from attending. Most Mongolian gay men tend to be closeted, rarely out to
their families and their (straight) friends. They are so concerned about protecting
their privacy that some of them even give a false name to friends who are aware of
their sexual orientation.

14

These careful attempts at insulating the two different

parts of their life are not a symptom of excessive caution – there have been cases of
people being blackmailed by former lovers. Unlike Europe and the United States
where gay identities are inextricably linked to the ‘culture of sexual story telling’
(Plummer 1995) and ‘coming out’, Mongolian gay men generally adopt different
strategies to deflect familial pressure to marry. Like many Chinese and Japanese
men, they tend to show a cultural preference for deferment strategies while
maintaining an ostensibly traditional gender role. In the hope that family pressure
will eventually subside, this approach can be seen as silent dissidence, a refusal to
conform to society’s rules without confrontation.

Not everyone is so careful, however, and some of my interlocutors

15

were out to

their family and even in their work place, without any apparent negative fallout.
However, these were rare cases. People have to tread carefully and create their
own personal spaces with caution, abroad or online, in order to connect with
others. The Internet has in this sense provided a safe space in which to get to know
other people, share thoughts, and discuss personal issues. A substantial number of
Mongolian gay men and lesbians have a blog, and it is often through comments
left on them that relationships develop and flourish. Many of these bloggers live or
study abroad, either in the United Kingdom, Japan, or the United States. A good
friend of mine, whom I will refer to as Z, has established a strong network of
friends this way, finding it easier to interact virtually than in the limited safe spaces
the city has to offer.

Different Shades of Blue

V is in his late twenties. Very open and direct, he has a reputation as a bit of a
player. He is a generous person with a really good sense of humour. His work takes
him abroad regularly, and he is keen to explore what the cities he visits have to
offer. ‘I quite like China’, he tells me one day. ‘I like going to Hohhot, they have
great saunas there. I always have a great time when I go.’ But his interest in China

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is not limited to sexual encounters; he speaks some Chinese and enjoys spending
time there. ‘Last May I went to Hohhot with my mum, she also really liked it. They
have McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut . . . Hohhot is a rich city. My mum was very
excited about it. She said, ‘‘Let’s buy an apartment here, and then we can live a bit
here and a bit in Ulaanbaatar!’’’

N is in his early twenties. He has never been abroad and, as a student financially

dependent on his family, cannot afford to. Unlike V, he is not interested in random
hook-ups; a romantic at heart, he is looking for a long-term relationship. He is very
much aware that a stable relationship with a Mongol in Mongolia poses a number
of difficulties – not least of which in terms of discretion. Like most Mongols, he is
not out to his family. He would like to go abroad in the future to enjoy more
personal freedom; in the meantime, he uses the Internet in order to try and
establish contacts with foreigners.

Z is in his mid-twenties and was educated in both Mongolia and the United

Kingdom, where he has lived for several years. The last time I saw him he was just
returning from England, with a ‘detour holiday’ in China. It was his first time
there, and he had a good time. Because he prefers Asian men to Europeans, it was
interesting for him to visit the gay clubs in Beijing. To his surprise, he even met an
Inner Mongol in one of the clubs. ‘It was really cool, we were chatting in
Mongolian and no-one around us could understand. We talked about the sex words
we [speakers of the form of Mongolian spoken in the Republic of Mongolia] use
and they [speakers of the form of Mongolian spoken in Inner Mongolia, China]
use. For instance, we say tavih to say ‘‘to cum’’, but they use the word harvah.’

16

For someone like Z, not out to his family and always taking great care in ensuring
his two worlds do not collide, having this free space with a fellow Mongol felt
liberating. The fact that gay places exist in Beijing was also something he greatly
enjoyed. The last time I saw him he was about to go travelling through China and
Southeast Asia, and he spoke about learning Chinese.

M is about thirty. A male-to-female transsexual, she has been living in London

for many years. ‘In Mongolia, this is something I could never do’, she explains.
‘Mongols are very macho. When I was younger, I worked on TV as a presenter.
I was a boy then but very feminine, very unlike Mongolian men.’ M does not see
herself as gay; she considers herself a woman, living her ‘real gender’ in a
different country. When I met with her, she was with her English boyfriend. They
looked just like any of the straight couples around us.

N tells me one time, ‘I think Mongols don’t generally know about homo-

sexuality. Mongols go and study in Russia and when they come back, they know
about being gay and that’s how people here know. It’s like propaganda!’ [smiles].
Although he was being facetious, for him homosexuality was not a position easily
compatible with Mongolianness. In some ways analogous to the situation
described by Boellstorff (2005) in Indonesia,

17

homosexuality was often

discussed as something extraneous, if not altogether foreign, to Mongolia and
Mongolian culture. To my surprise, a female student in her early twenties, fluent in
several languages and cosmopolitan in both education and outlook, confidently
asserted to me that ‘there are no lesbians in Mongolia, but we do have one gay
man’ [referring to Gambush].

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194

This lack of fit, or ‘incommensurability’ to borrow Boellstorff’s term, is in fact

also reflected linguistically in the terms used for ‘gay’, which are exclusively of
foreign origin. The most common one is possibly the English word ‘gay’ itself
(gei), but the Russian derogatory gomo (‘homo’) was also used, mostly in a
tongue-in-cheek manner. Apart from the rather clinical ijil hu¨isten (homosexual),
I did not come across specific Mongolian terms, derogatory or otherwise. Yet
identities did not seem particularly fluid, and my interlocutors did perceive
themselves as different on account of their sexuality, not merely as ‘men who
sleep with men’. In fact, the word o¨o¨r (different) was commonly used as a way of
suggesting an alternative sexual orientation. This is the wording N chose for
instance to turn down a girl who was interested in him: ‘bi o¨o¨r baina’ (‘I’m
different’), he told her.

I would suggest that the lack of autochthonous terminology does not necessarily

reflect an absence of a native notion of homosexuality, but perhaps simply a
cultural reluctance to discuss sex too openly. In fact, this linguistic preference for
metaphors and circumlocutions is also seen in expressions such as the poetic uulen
boroony yavdal (‘relations between the mountains and the rain’) to refer to sexual
intercourse. Despite V’s generosity, intelligence, and great sense of humour, his
openness about sexual topics made some of my gay friends uncomfortable. As an
excuse not to join us for a drink, I was told, ‘He’s too direct, I don’t like that.’ I also
noted very little public displays of affection beyond discreet hand-holding during
the monthly parties, even if the locale offered complete privacy and had bouncers
stopping strangers from coming in. I hardly ever saw couples kiss.

Another term occasionally used is tsenher (light blue), a direct translation of the

Russian goluboi,

18

which is also used occasionally in Mongolia in the original

Russian.

19

The etymology of the Russian term is somewhat obscure. Some

scholars have suggested it may be a reference to aristocratic ‘blue blood’, hinting
at exclusivity; others suggest that it may have derived from the term of endearment
golubchik (‘little dove’) (Kon 1993:113).

In the Mongolian cultural context, this use of the colour blue is especially

significant, even if cultural associations tend to point to a darker hue, ho¨h, with
specific associations, namely to the sky (tenger). Originally employed as a referent
to the Mongols in the Chinese system of orientation, which was later adapted and
modified by the Mongols (see Bulag 1998:44; Hamayon 1978:229; Lhamsuren
2006:73), blue remains to this day the favourite colour of Mongols, used for
clothing and to symbolise support of national sentiments (Hamayon 1978:224,
244). More importantly, it is also the colour of the ‘blue spot’ (ho¨h tolbo), the
birthmark found on the lower back of Mongolian infants,

20

thus symbolising

Mongolianness itself (Erdembileg 2005:167), as bears witness the ubiquitous
doublet ‘ho¨h mongol’ (blue Mongol). In this sense, tsenher Mongols represent an
altogether different kind of Mongol and the self-appellation ‘tsenher’ can be
construed as a voice of dissent, a claim to legitimacy beyond the narrow confines
of traditional patriarchy.

In July 2009, a multimedia exhibition created by Fulbright Scholar Brandt

Miller, held at the Mongolian National Contemporary Art Gallery, sought to play
precisely on this alternative reading. His short film ‘Tsenher tengeriin tsaana’

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(Beyond the Blue Sky) depicts the tragic love story of two Mongolian boys, whose
faces are covered throughout with a traditional hadag (blue scarf). The hadag,
traditionally used in Mongolia to cover the face of the deceased, was used in the
film primarily as a way of ensuring the safety of the actors but also acted as a visual
commentary on the invisibility

21

of homosexuality. It also represented the brute

force of societal pressure in Mongolia: the blue (ho¨h) of the hadag covering and
silencing the blue (tsenher) shade of gay Mongolian men.

The Romance of Resistance

It is with some reservations that I have used the term ‘gay’ in this article,
essentially as a shortcut for less loaded but more cumbersome phrasings such as
‘sexual minorities’ or ‘men having sex with men’. Similarly, I have avoided terms
like ‘community’ that convey a false sense of unity. Perhaps the notion of ‘affinity
without identity’ proposed by Haraway (1991:155) in her discussion of female-
ness – ‘a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific
discourses and other social practices’ – is a better fit. As was discussed earlier,
there is little (if any) cohesiveness among the Mongolian gay men I have met.
Even at parties, it was clear that the ‘community’ was in fact a heterogeneous
collection of many sub-groups who often were not on speaking terms with each
other.

22

It was made quite clear to me early on that interacting with certain people

would alienate me from others, even if my status as an outsider gave me some
leeway in this respect. The lack of friendship ties was a reflection of mistrust and
self-preservation against those who might attempt blackmail later. It was also a
direct consequence of living in a relatively small city where it seemed everyone
knew (of) everyone. Sometimes a lack of interaction was the safest way to go. The
people who attended the parties were also there for myriad reasons: looking for a
safe space to have fun with their immediate group of friends, hoping to meet a
long-term partner, or using the parties as sexual ‘hunting grounds’.

Of course, the grouping together of individuals as ‘gay’ is a political statement,

just as are the relatively recent equation of lesbianism and male homosexuality
(Dynes 1992:229) or the exclusion of other types of sexual minorities. The
emergence of gay identities outside of the Euro-American context does not
necessarily map neatly onto these political formations. As Essig (1999) has
shown, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the gay rights movement in
Russia, spearheaded by Roman Kalinin and Evgeniia Debrianskaia, was much
more inclusive and comprised all kinds of sexual minorities (seksualnye
men’shestva), including sex workers. Essig reports that many members of the
emerging groups were unwilling to identify as ‘gay’, and it was only under the
financial pressure exerted by foreign sponsors that the focus of these groups
narrowed around fixed identities. Until the early 1990s, she argues, sexual
practices in Russia had not translated into a fixed identity; subjectivities were
much more fluid, and this fluidity was mirrored in the national positioning vis-a`-
vis other groups (Essig 1999:125).

The more relaxed attitude vis-a`-vis China, which I frequently noted among

Mongolian gay men, may be construed as a form of resistance against a national

Franck Bille´: Different Shades of Blue: Gay Men and Nationalist Discourse in Mongolia

196

discourse seeking to exclude contaminating elements such as foreigners or sexual
minorities. But it was not necessarily a political act. In a conversation with N over
a meal, he tells me that he does not like seeing Mongolian women go out with
Chinese men; it’s not good, he argues, they are betraying the nation. Since he had
told me a few days earlier that he would be open to meeting a Chinese man, I call
him on this double standard. ‘But it’s different for me’, he says. ‘I’m not a woman,
I can’t get pregnant!’ Similarly, M explains that she understands a Mongolian
woman might fall in love with a Chinese man and decide to follow her heart and
marry him. ‘But’, she adds, ‘she will always be sad over the fact she’s produced
Chinese children. That’s something she will have to learn to deal with.’

Such comments highlight the complexities of mapping the ‘individual’ against

the ‘collective’ and suggest that great caution should be taken whenever we
employ terms such as ‘resistance’. Abu-Lughod (1990:42) warned against the
tendency to romanticise resistance, to read ‘all forms of resistance as signs of the
ineffectiveness of systems of power and of the resilience and creativity of the
human spirit in its refusal to be dominated’. I agree with her that we should be
careful about construing the actions of a group at odds with the mainstream as
necessarily constituting resistance. Gay men in Mongolia may not fit the
Mongolian image of heteronormativity; but, as men, they can still collude with
the dominant discourse in oppressing women. These positions of resistance
against a hegemonic discourse have been problematised by black feminists, such
as bell hooks (1981), who contend that by arguing on behalf of ‘women’, white
feminists have participated in racist ideologies and in silencing ‘racially other’
women. Zito (2006:35) has argued along similar lines that ‘the oppression of
‘‘women’’ is not (and has not historically been) based solely on sex gender
difference from men, nor is it solely perpetrated by men’.

While the positions taken by some Mongolian gay men undeniably counter a

dominant discourse imposing a narrow Mongolian identity crafted against the
backdrop of a ‘China threat’, this resistance to inclusion is not necessarily
liberating. Foucault (1976) has pointed out that resistance is in fact never in a
position of exteriority in relation to power, and as Abu-Lughod (1990:42) argues,
it is perhaps more useful to see resistance as a diagnostic of power. Mongolian gay
men are subjects that are already embedded in the social structure in which they
actively participate.

De Certeau (1990) has used the term ‘tactics’ to refer to the ways in which

individuals who are not in a position of power seek to meet their needs behind an
appearance of conformity. While his theoretical framework opens up a number of
possible readings, this dichotomy between those in power and those without feels
somewhat contrived. In Mongolia, women and gay men may be construed as
minorities to the extent that they do not necessarily have a voice in defining who/
what a Mongol citizen is. But are the most vociferous actors in nationalist groups
such as Dayar Mongol or Ho¨h Mongol necessarily in a dominant position? A large
section of the individuals filling the ranks of these groups are young men, many of
whom are unemployed; by contrast, women are over-represented in higher
education, making up about 60% of students in tertiary education, as well as in
the business sector. So while the violence – symbolic and actual – employed by

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197

nationalist groups seeks to reinforce traditional norms, it may also be symptomatic
of a lack of power. The theoretical prism of power/resistance condenses actors into
either ‘dominant’ or ‘dominated’ groups while concealing other tools at their
disposal. ‘Gay’ or ‘female’ may be a minority or even a dissident status, but are
wealthy gay men or women in government merely ‘resisting power’? Anthro-
pologists such as Benwell (2006:133) and Bamana (2008:62) have in fact argued
that it is precisely the feminisation of education and the decreasing role played by
men that has led some young men to emphasise and reinforce masculine ideals.

Although the more liberal views of Mongolian gay men vis-a`-vis China may be

reflective of self-interest in the sense that China represents a space of anonymous
possibilities away from the prying eyes of family and neighbours, they still
potentially undermine a dominant discourse that posits China as ‘evil’ and
‘imperialistic’. Whatever the rationale – anonymity, personal preference for Asian
men, availability, or simply proximity

23

– sex with Chinese men intrinsically

remains a highly transgressive act in Mongolia. While it may not be an act of
dissidence, explicitly political, or fully conscious, it can be tagged as a ‘critical
practice’ (Kipnis 2003:28). It also posits Mongolian men as less xenophobic and
more cosmopolitan. Even if some of my friends did align themselves ideologically
with nationalist discourses, many did not. They preferred to form opinions on the
basis of direct experience rather than accept a discourse that rested on strong
heteronormativity and therefore potentially excluded them as well. They were also
often more cosmopolitan, better travelled, and better educated, and they were
therefore less prepared to accept media information and news uncritically. Rather
than locating resistance in the nature of the subject, I suggest it may be this very
fracture in belief in the nation that constitutes resistance. As %i&ek argues:

‘I believe in the (national) Thing’ equals ‘I believe that others (members of
my community) believe in the Thing’’’. . . . The national Thing exists as long
as members of the community believe in it; it is literally an effect of this
belief in itself. (%i&ek 1993:202)

As he later developed in a recent lecture, the whole system of belief functions
when every individual presupposes that there is another one who believes, even if
this putative Other does not exist at all (%i&ek 2008). I discussed in the
introduction to this article how contemporary Mongolian identity is constructed
in an oppositional mode against the Chinese and how it articulates on an idea of
resistance against an impending threat from China. In the particular ethnographic
context I have discussed here, the attitudes displayed by Mongolian gay men with
regards to China perhaps do not constitute an act of resistance but precisely the
opposite. Their readiness to interact with Chinese men on a physical and
emotional level may simply be a relinquishment of resistance, a loss of belief in
the need for the nation to resist.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Christopher Kaplonski, Uradyn Bulag, Gre´gory
Delaplace, Olga Ulturgasheva, Gae¨lle Lacaze, Valerio Italiano, Paula Haas,
James Kapalo´, Sandra Lo´pez-Rocha, and Bernard Charlier, as well as the

Franck Bille´: Different Shades of Blue: Gay Men and Nationalist Discourse in Mongolia

198

journal’s two anonymous referees for their invaluable comments at various
stages of the revision of this article.

Notes

1

A trilingual series of graffiti, in Mongolian, English, and Chinese, reads ‘One mustn’t kill

people, but one can kill the Chinks’ (Hu¨n alj bolohgu¨i, hujaa naryg alj bolno). Numerous
anti-Chinese graffiti are also found in various spots around the capital.

2

While at the time of the Communist revolution in 1921 there was a sizeable Chinese

presence in Mongolia, for most of the twentieth century there was very little contact. Until
1990, very few Mongols travelled to China or were able to speak Chinese.

3

Renata Salecl has reported a similar phenomenon in Slovenia, which she refers to as

‘narcissistic exultation’. Following the anthrax scare in the United States after 9/11, similar
cases were reported in the Slovenian media. ‘[I]n the way Slovenian media reported on
these anthrax scares one could discern concern coupled with some kind of narcissistic
exultation. When these anthrax cases became the primary news story of the day, it was as if
this tiny country was becoming equal in its fears with powerful America’ (Salecl 2004:11).
Worthy of note on this issue is the rumour that circulated in 2007 in Mongolia concerning a
possible terrorist attack by al-Qaeda in Ulaanbaatar.

4

For a more detailed development of this argument in the context of Inner Mongolia, see

Bille´ (2009).

5

Some families encourage their daughters to study foreign languages in the hope that they

will marry a rich foreigner, but such practices remain subject to social opprobrium and often
lead to permanent emigration. Responses also vary depending on the nationality of the
foreign spouse; marriage to a European or United States citizen tends to be perceived more
favourably, even by right-wing nationalist groups such as Dayar Mongol (Interview with
Byambatulga on 5 October 2007).

6

This is due in part to the way transmission of ethnicity is conceptualised in Mongolian

culture. As it is considered to follow the paternal line, a Mongolian man will father
Mongolian children regardless of the ethnicity of his mate, while children of a Mongolian
woman will take on the ethnicity of the father.

7

The focus on Korea represents less a cultural preference than available opportunities.

South Korea is the main foreign importer of the Mongolian work force, and the managers of
these latter two agencies have personally established contacts there. Note, however, that
despite Mongolia’s geographic proximity to China, none of the three agencies operating in
Ulaanbaatar offers introductions to Chinese men.

8

On the topic of gays in the military, see Butler (1997:ch. 3).

9

Ventrone discusses this in reference to World War II in Italy, but it may also be applicable

to contemporary Mongolia where the constant reiteration of a Chinese threat produces a
climate of political and ethnic insecurity.

10

Naiman (1997:147) has demonstrated that in the early years of the Soviet Union, state

discourse focused heavily on sexuality and particularly on the necessity to sublimate the
individual into the collective. At the same time, the Russian revolutionary regime, though
short-lived, exhibited fairly liberal attitudes evidenced by the legalisation of abortion
(Bernstein 2007) and the decriminalisation of homosexuality (Carleton 2005).

11

Kon (1993) notes that the same Article 121 of the Soviet penal code applied to both

homosexuals and political dissidents. Unlike the U.S. and some European penal codes,
which construe the homosexual as a discrete category and punish ‘acts’ that include
attempts and fantasies (Dall’Orto 1999; Kipnis 1996), Essig (1999) argues that the
reluctance of Soviet medical and psychiatric professions to consider homosexuals as a

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199

separate ‘species’ made the latter reformable and treatable. In a different ethnographic
context, Metzl (2003) shows how Freudian psychoanalysis was employed in the United
States in the 1940s and 1950s to institutionalise cultural biases as pathologies. Using
psychoanalytic language, the medical establishment made women who did not conform to
established gender roles the subjects of pharmaceutical intervention.

12

It is not clear whether Gambush is a transvestite or a transsexual, and discussions by

Mongols betray considerable confusion between the two concepts. Because Mongolian
does not differentiate pronouns in terms of gender, ‘ter’ means both ‘he’ and ‘she’. Friends
and informants speaking to me in languages other than Mongolian (namely Russian and
English) used the masculine pronoun (on/he), and I have followed their practice here.
Because I do not know how Gambush positions himself with respect to gender, the
perspective imposed by English grammar should be construed precisely in this way – as a
grammatical constraint – not as an assumption or implied judgment on my part.

13

One gay bar, managed by a Russian couple, opened in Ulaanbaatar some years ago. It

soon became unpopular, allegedly because of its prohibitive prices.

14

I was surprised when, after several weeks into our friendship, my friend X told me: ‘You

know my name’s not really X, right? At [gay] parties everyone knows me as X, but that’s
not my real name. You have to be careful in Mongolia, some people have been blackmailed
by former lovers. My family and even my boss know about me, but still I prefer to separate
these two parts of my life.’

15

During the year of fieldwork (2006–2007) I spent in Mongolia as part of my doctoral

dissertation in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, I interviewed people of
all walks of life about their feelings and attitudes towards China and the Chinese. When a
Mongolian gay friend invited me to a monthly party and introduced me to a number of his
friends, I quickly noted very different responses to China among them. Later, the incipient
gay ‘community’ grew into an important pool of informants, some of whom eventually
became good friends. Based on the ‘traditional’ method of participant observation, my
methodology has largely reflected my liminal position of social anthropologist/friend,
accounting for my toggling between terms such as ‘friend’ and ‘interlocutor’. This
purposefully fuzzy terminology was also motivated by my uneasiness in using the loaded
category of ‘informant’ with its many colonial implications, historically as well as lexically.
As Metcalf (2002:43–48) has pointed out, anthropology lacks precise terms to describe the
numerous types of relations that ethnographers form in the field, and many of the lexical
substitutions for ‘informant’, such as ‘co-researcher’, ‘mentor’, or ‘consultant’ merely mask
the moral ambiguities of the fieldwork experience.

16

The primary meanings for these slang terms are ‘to release’ (tavih) and ‘to shoot’

(harvah). While both these terms carry sexual connotations, they are only used as a
translation for ‘to cum’ in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, respectively.

17

The situation in Mongolia differs from Boellstorff’s ethnographic context to the extent

that homosexuality in Mongolia is not associated with religious notions of sin and is not
explicitly or legally proscribed. While gay-bashings occasionally occur, there are no
organised hate groups (Smith 2002). Incommensurability between Mongolianness and
homosexuality operates fundamentally on the cultural assumption that Mongolian men are
inherently both masculine and heterosexual.

18

Lesbians are ‘pink’ (rozovye), a name which is likely to have surfaced as a gender-

appropriate counterpart to ‘blue’.

19

Given the close contact between Russia and Mongolia (and the numerous Russian

language television channels), it is not surprising that people have become familiar
with the term. Although it is not a Mongolian word, it does crop up occasionally, in
particular when people become inebriated and lapse into Russian. Several Mongolian

Franck Bille´: Different Shades of Blue: Gay Men and Nationalist Discourse in Mongolia

200

friends have pointed out this tendency, which I have also observed first-hand on many
occasions.

20

This birthmark, which looks similar to a bruise, gradually fades in the course of the first

five years and only rarely subsists into adulthood. The spot, normally found in the
lumbosacral area, occurs as a result of the entrapment of melanocytes in the dermis during
embryonic development. Allegedly present on all Mongolian infants at birth, it is also
widely prevalent in Japan and Korea, where it is known as a ‘Mongolian spot’ (mo¯kohan

and mong-go banjeom, respectively). Research suggests it occurs in 99% of births

in Japan (Vlcˇek 1965).

21

Part of the aim of the exhibition was to draw the attention of the Mongolian public to the

plight of gay Mongols. While it predominantly attracted the expat community, it also led to
a number of television programmes and debates on the issue of homosexuality.

22

Despite the lack of community feelings, some gay and lesbian advocacy groups have

emerged in Mongolia. Tavilan (Mongolian for ‘destiny’), created in 1999, established
contacts with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) groups abroad, namely in
Europe and the United States. In the last few years some non-governmental organisations
(NGOs), as well as public and private groups such as the Global Fund (www.theglobalfun-
d.org), have funded campaigns for the prevention of HIV/AIDS (HDHV/DOH) and
tuberculosis (su¨r’yee). Is it usually through such channels that parties are organised and
that informative brochures are distributed. For more information on the work carried out by
the Global Fund in Mongolia, see www.aids.mn (in Mongolian).

23

The inclusion of Chinese men in the pool of potential partners is not necessarily to be

construed as a preference and in fact none of my interlocutors ever made a claim to this
effect.

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