Hope

Hevi, the name of Asya Elmas’ organization, means ‘hope’ in Kurmanji Kurdish. Before I spoke to her, I had heard the new Kurdish- LGBTQ activist group referred to once in a focus group, where some gay Turkish men were discussing the phenomenon of LGBTQ supporters of Erdoğan's conservative AKP government. The idea of a Kurdish queer consciousness grates at the majority's desire for an all-encompassing Turkish national identity – and some gays in the community itself share that desire. I wondered and still wonder about this phenomenon, wherein some minorities cheer fiercest for the majority that denies them (we certainly have this in the US with our Twinks for Trump). I sent a message to Hevi's Facebook page on 14 April 2014, telling whoever was on the other side that I was researching LGBTQ rights in Istanbul and asking if I could meet them for an interview. It was Asya who accepted, asking me to meet that Saturday.

I did not expect to end up in an Armenian cultural centre. At the time, I knew little about Armenians in Turkey, beyond the fact that the government is consistently reluctant to account for the Armenian Genocide. It became clear to me, however, that Armenians, like the Kurds, like the gays, like the Roma, like the Alevis, like the Circassians, like trans, like the Jews, like the environmentalists, and so many social, political, ethnic, and religious others find comfort in the collective discomfort they feel, together, among the other others.

This interview is different from the others. I don't understand Asya's Kurdish, so my plan was to rely on her friends to communicate my questions to her, record her responses, and then hire a translator to transcribe the interviews. The foreign words make no sense to me, so I am more focused on my other senses – sight and touch – and the room and my place in it. I can see that these people see something important in Asya by the energy they hold in their bodies, their responsiveness as they assist her, talk to her, tell me about her, alert eyes looking at me.