Portrait Of A Young Gay Armenian Man
Meet Movses
Growing up in a conservative, first-generation, Armenian American household, Movses Shakarian never imagined that one day his parents would be sitting in the front row at his standup show while he joked about giving men head in the bathroom.
Movses (or as our family calls, Mosik) was always my favorite cousin. He was the cousin who didn’t care what anybody, including our family, thought of him. Although he joked and teased, he was never mean or condescending. As the eldest, he was given a traditional Armenian name, after his grandfather. And as the first-born male in his family, he is the only one who could carry on the family last name. He even became a lawyer, one of two options in an Armenian household (the other is a doctor). Movses had all the makings of being the pride and joy of his parents and an upstanding, respected member of the Armenian community. And then he came out as gay. His family’s road to acceptance was long and complicated, but Movses’ continually pushed to be the most authentic version of himself that he could be.
A (Very) Brief Armenian History Lesson
Queerness is a big deal and taboo in a lot of communities, but for first-generation Armenian-Americans, queerness is more than just an awkward coming out story or weird looks from distant relatives.
As descendants of the oldest Christian nation in the world, young Armenian Americans are expected to follow a different set of rules that govern their lives. A sense of pride, a certain moral code, and strong community ties run strong in Armenian American society. This can pressure the youth into living a life that may not be authentic, but complies with their family and their community’s expectations. The result is queer youth who live their lives with a constant struggle between their desire for authenticity, and the fear of disappointing what can feel like an entire nation breathing down their necks.
Both our great-grandparents were survivors of the Armenian Genocide, which took place in 1915 and wiped out 1.5 million Armenians (LINK). Though the massacre took place over a 100 years ago, it still plays a huge role in our current day perspectives, whether we’re conscious of it or not.
“There’s the idealization of the perfect Armenian couple, who has Armenian children. It’s our cultural duty and obligation to create more Armenians because 1.5 million of us died in the genocide,” explains Rosie Vartyver Aroush, an academic professional and researcher with a doctorate in Armenian studies.
As descendants of a culture almost wholly wiped off the map, our community developed an anxious obsession with survival through keeping the perceived ideal of Armenian identity and culture alive. A tangible fear can be felt in the community of not only have statistically less Armenians, but also having Armenians who have become more Americanized. of not only having fewer, but less Armenian Armenians.
Experts in Armenian culture believe that the roots of present-day homophobia in the Armenian community go back to the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Shushan Karapetyan, deputy director of Armenian Studies at the University of Southern California, explains the Armenian community’s inter-generational preoccupation with its own very existence. “Our culture has a tendency to transmit trauma,” Karapetian says. “Those who survived the Genocide’s attempt to eradicate the Armenians became entrenched in the idea of survival, both literally and culturally. There’s a focus on procreation as victory over the persecutor. So when it comes to homosexuality, there’s an idea that queer people cannot procreate, which therefore means that the persecutor has won.”
Because queer Armenians can’t procreate, they cannot create more Armenians, and are by default less able to proliferate the traditional Armenian culture.
Aroush explains that regardless of whether the persons family was directly affected by the Armenian Genocide, it didn’t actually make their coming out process any easier. She explains that this is because they grew up in LA which has such a large Armenian community, that trauma was basically being shared between those affected and those not.
“When you’re a part of a culture that has constantly been the victimized, at some point that community grows tired of being victimized, and finds a way to victimize another group, even if that subgroup is a part of your group,” says Aroush.
The Armenian community is growing and expanding. People like Movses are demanding space to not just survive but thrive.
Growing Up Gay and Armenian in the Shakarian Home
Movses Shakarian says he grew up assuming everyone was attracted to the same gender.
“I just thought that everyone felt what I did, that you’re attracted to the same sex, and when you grow up something switches and then you get married and have kids,” he says.”But I started getting older, and nothing was switching.”
He knew his expected role in the family and began to panic about not living up to it.
“I prayed to God every day to not be gay” he remembers.
Religion plays a huge role in the Armenian community, and it has become intertwined with the culture. Growing up in Armenian school, I was taught from a very early age that Christianity is what makes us Armenians, that our ancestors were massacred because they wouldn’t convert or hide their culture. To be anything less than a proud Christian Armenian would be a betrayal to their sacrifice.
Movses’ mother, Helen Shakarian, says, “Ninety-nine-point-nine percentof Armenians [in the United States] are very old-fashioned…For Armenians, a man is meant to be with a woman, period. That’s the Armenian mentality, my generation is very old school.”
Movses grappled with understanding his sexuality and his perceived betrayal of the Armenian community and its ideals. First, he told himself he was just bisexual.
“I tried real hard to make that work,” he chuckles. “It didn’t really last.”
He decided to hide his sexuality from his parents until he was about 20, when he finally called his mom. “I said ‘Mom, do you love me no matter what?’ and she said ‘Yes’, and then I said ‘Ok mom, I’m gay.’”
“Oh, when Mos told me, I was crying, nonstop. I couldn’t stop crying,” Helen explains. “I didn’t expect it at all. I blamed myself at first, thinking that I did something wrong.”
“She kept asking me if I was sure,” Movses remembers. ”If I had ever even been with a woman. She told me maybe I just hadn’t met the right woman.” he continues, “She couldn’t accept it, and she asked me to not tell my father,” Movses explains.
Helen recalls exactly how she felt: “I kept thinking it can’t be, it’s not true, it’s not right, he’ll get over it, I’ll make him get over it.”
Helen didn’t tell her husband, Movses’s father, for about a year, and said it was tought keeping the secret from him.
“That first year was the hardest,” Helen says. “I just kept on hoping: Maybe he’ll change. Maybe he’ll change his mind.”
However, one person in Movses’s family immediately accepted his queerness: his younger sister, Monique Shakarian.
Monique recalls the moment she was certain that her big brother was gay, “He had come home from college for the weekend with some theater buddies—which I really feel like should have tipped my parents off in the first place,” she says laughing. She remembers watching Movses interact with one of the guys—whom she later found out he was secretly dating—and sensing something. “I just remember looking at him and thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure [Movses] is gay.”
When Movses came out to Monique a few months later, he started the conversation by saying, “I’ve only ever kept one thing from you, and I really need to tell you.” To which she replied, “Yeah, I think I know what you’re about to say…but continue.”
Their relationship never wavered, and though Monique was eight years younger than Movses, she found herself sticking up for him once he came out to their father.
“Eventually my mom told my dad, but they just kept trying to ignore it,” Monique explains. “For a while we just never talked about it, or when we did we argued about it. I had to keep telling them to just leave it, and let him develop.”
Movses' Venture Into Comedy
As Movses got older, he became more autonomous and became comfortable sharing parts of himself in a very public forum. Though the Armenian community had not caught up to him, he didn’t want to wait.
I deeply admire Movses’s sense of humor and how unafraid and unashamed he is to be himself. Movses never shrinks himself down to make others feel comfortable, and if you don’t believe me, you can go to one of his comedy shows.
He came into comedy later in life, at 32. He didn’t plan to do comedy about his culture or sexuality, but the topics kept finding their way into his routines. Finally he decided to lean into it. The first time he did was terrifying, but also freeing.
“I wasn’t out to my grandma or some of my family members, so I was terrified of word getting out,” Movses recalls, “I also just had no clue how people were going to react to my jokes.”
Though some of the audience walked out during his performances, “the vast majority really liked it and laughed,” he says.
After performing comedy for a little over a year, his parents were finally able to make it to one of his shows.
Helen, reminisces on that first show, says, “Actually it was fun, but I also was like, ‘Oh my god oh my god, why does your opening joke have to be Armenian and gay!” Helen laughs, “It was a little emotional at first, but then I felt OK.”
Movses laughs while reminiscing on the jokes he used to do while his parents sat in the front row of his shows, and he sounds surprised by his own boldness.
“I can’t believe I used to open with this joke with my parents there, but one of my jokes used to be, ‘I used to suck dick in the bathroom for coke, but now I don’t do coke anymore.’”
Monique says with a laugh, “The Armenian community definitely wasn’t happy about my brother making jokes about sucking dick in the bathroom.”
Despite all the laughs, the first few years after Movses came out were hard on his family. Helen reflects on their eventual acceptance: “After that it was like, ‘OK, this is my son, this is what it is, I don’t love him any less, he’s mine, so be it.’”
The Backlash From The Armenian Community
“One thing I can say about Mosik is that he’s got balls,” says his mother, Helen.
Even though Movses’ family was proud of his bravery on the stand-up stage, the Armenian community did not necessarily share the same sentiments.
Movses was faced with a barrage of hate and harassment from Armenians on social media. “For some reason, the hate comments I got [were] really sexual,” he says laughing. “People would say ‘I’m gonna cum on you’, or ‘fuck your mouth’, or ‘[your] mom is a whore.’” Others called him ‘disgusting,’ complained about how bold gay people are, told Movses that he was not a real Armenian and one comment even told him to take the Armenian flag emoji off of his Instagram profile.
But Movses didn’t care, he even incorporated the hate comments into his comedy shows by reading them aloud and responding to them.
He remembers laughing on stage, “Why do you keep saying how much you want to fuck my mouth? Are you some kind of homo?”
“Instead of offending me, they’re actually kinda turning me on,” he recalls.
Even though he got a lot of hate, he also got a lot of encouragement from the Armenian community.
“I’ve had people message me saying, ‘Thank you for doing what you do,’ or even telling me that I’m an inspiration for the Armenian community.”
His sister Monique agrees. “His comedy made his sexuality impossible to ignore, he destigmatized being gay, and made it easier for other gay Armenians to know they aren’t alone,” explains Monique.
“If you told me years ago that I would be in L.A. holding a microphone and telling jokes about being Armenian and gay to audiences that my family is sitting in, I would’ve told you that you’re crazy,” he says.
Since Movses moved to Las Vegas for a new job as a corporate attorney with a focus in the cannabis industry. So he hasn’t been able to do any stand up shows, but he wants to pick it back up when he moves back to Los Angeles.