They are queens who have testicles. Big wigs, crazy makeup and shining costumes turn a man into a queen. They are very popular in the Western world but also exist in the East. They are everywhere, and Armenia is no exception.
The “Godmother” of many drag artists, RuPaul, once said, “We are born naked and the rest is a drag.” If we follow this definition, it means that everyone is in drag. However,
not everyone is doing drag performances.
Drag performances are primarily associated with LGBTQIA+ community members, but times have changed and now many straight and cisgender people present themselves on stage as drag performers. Armenia does not have a drag artists’ community because of deeply embedded Homophobia. Armenians who consider themselves drag artists emigrate from their homeland for security reasons and lack of opportunities. There are some young Armenians who secretly try on their mother’s makeup and clothes. They express their feelings and emotions only by looking at themselves in the mirror with the fear of being caught.
In October 2022, a short video was published on the internet where a drag artist, Sergejs Mikaeljans, also known as Belligerency, was lip-syncing Jamalas’s “1944” song and using posters which said “Armenia is under attack,” “remember her name, Anush Apetyan,” “gas = silence,” in Propaganda, a Western European queer bar.
Sergejs is part Latvian, part Armenian and now lives in Belgium. He is the President of the Collectif Les Bastards, co-founder and main co-organizer of the drag & queer show Propaganda, the co-host of the Queer Mongering podcast and a queer activist.
“After Azerbaijan’s last attack on Armenia, I decided to do this performance to spread information about what is happening in Armenia because no one knows what’s happening there,” he said. When Segejs did another drag show related to Armenia, the feedback was negative. However, for this specific show, Segejs described, “I got nothing but thank you and supporting messages, which was very heartwarming because I also get that kind of message from straight Armenians too.”
Before this performance, Sergejs had received multiple death threats from Armenians. However, this does not stop him from dreaming about performing one day in Armenia. In Armenia, there are no special and safe places for drag shows and many young Armenians first learn about drag artists from the top-rated Netflix reality TV show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Some of them are inspired by that show and discover their inner drag artists. One of them is 19-year-old Kelly Hovhannisian, who is planning to be a full-time drag performer.
For Kelly, a drag queen means an exaggerated expression of gender. “It’s like trying to break out of all the distractive construction that your parents have built in your head about gender,” he said. Kelly traveled to Berlin with three other Armenian drag artists for training and performances at the beginning of 2023. “If I stay in Armenia, I would not have resources or the opportunity to show my drag,” Kelly explained.
Kelly mentioned that nearly 50 people from Armenia applied for Berlin’s program. This means that at least 50 people are interested in doing drag performances. “In Armenia, there is no drag community,” Kelly said. “Drag queens’ community will be formed if there are active drag queens, but there are no bars in Armenia where drag queens can perform, and there are no shows about drag queens.”
In 2012, in Yerevan, a gay bar was bombed by Dashnak activists before the presidential elections. After that, the bar closed, and for ten years now, there have been no official gay bars in Armenia.
Armenian society doesn’t tolerate gay men wearing women’s clothes, makeup or wigs. However, they seem to be fine with a straight man wearing the same things and consider it funny. On Armenian television, there are many examples of straight men impersonating a woman. The former Mayor of Yerevan, Hayk Marutyan, often appeared on TV as a woman for his sitcoms as well as other Armenian male artists like Garik Papoyan, Mkrtich Arzumanyan, Sergey Danielyan used to impersonate females on TV and still be considered favorite artists of the Armenian audience.
If the Armenian audience is unaware that the individual portraying a woman is gay, they may appreciate and support without passing judgment. However, if they are aware that it’s a gay bar and the performer is a gay man, societal acceptance may diminish. This is a double standard that needs to change.
