Harassment and Death Threats: Armenian-Americans gripe with homophobia and sexism from within their own community

By Shant Mirzaians

Los Angeles based online business Telo Jan faced a barrage of harassment and death threats for their artwork and vocal support for LGBTQ+ and women’s rights in late January.

Telo Jan owner and founder, Ani Khodaverdian, 31, posted screenshots over Instagram of threatening messages she received. 

The harassment she gets is overwhelmingly from other Armenians within her community. Many Armenians hold traditional and socially conservative values which makes women and LGBTQ+ Armenians a target for harassment from within their own ethnic community. 

Coming out to family and friends is that much more difficult when a part of their identity is so widely rejected, especially if there is a lack of safe and inclusive spaces available. Khodaverdian however, intends to continue to be vocal over these issues in a show of solidarity.

Khodaverdian is an artist from Burbank, California that prints her art on clothing and accessories and sells them online. The Wash reached out to her over the phone regarding her business and the recent threats she received. 

She said her artwork is just an expression of her thoughts and feelings and that she’s “not a corporate brand trying to manipulate people.” Her artwork includes themes of feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and Armenian influences.

Khodaverdian told the Wash how she’s always received backlash from conservative Armenians but “what was new was the level of violence in the messages and the frequency.”

She said that she was getting daily, if not multiple times a day of “extremely violent messages” threatening her with rape or death. She was getting messages from several Armenian men, some of which were “fake” or throwaway accounts without photos. 

“It was not the same as someone just saying something stupid,” she recalled, “I felt really targeted.”

Andy Kenareki, 32, is an Armenian actor and writer from Glendale, California and sympathizes with Khodaverdian with his own experiences of homophobia. 

Kenareki told the Wash over the phone how the Armenian community “still [has] a huge amount of sexism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, and unfortuantely anti-semitism, something I’ve discovered recently from my own experience.”

Kenareki has a comedy bit that he posts on social media where he wears a wig “kind of like Mrs. Doubtfire” and exaggerates an Armenian-girl-from-Glendale type character. 

In early February, Kenareki was publicly harassed by another Armenian Instagram user over the latest post he made in character, “He said that I was spreading HIV/AIDS to people, that I was not Armenian, that I was a secret Persian Jew, and that ‘real Armenians’ don't do that. And of course people called him out and then he started going after them.”

Kenareki said he expected to hear about people that think that way but continues to be surprised when “it gets that violent in terms of threats.”

He said “I think the Armenian community often likes to just sweep things under the rug, or not talk about it, and those types of things just fester and get worse and worse and worse.”

“I think there’s a culture of shame that we’re dealing with, when it comes to issues, like sexuality, especially if you’re not in the mainstream,” said Patrick Davarhanian, 35, a Glendale Unified School District teacher.

Davarhanian teaches history and AP psychology at Clark Magnet High School in Glendale. He also serves as the Director of Education-based Outreach for Equality Armenia, a non-profit that works to encourage and facilitate constructive dialogue in Armenian communities about LGBTQ+ inclusiveness, equal rights and equal protections under the law.

The Wash called Davarhanian to ask him about the role of educators and local schools in addressing homophobia and sexism. 

Davarhanian told the Wash how educators understand Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how important it is to foster an inclusive and safe environment in classrooms. If a child’s basic needs are not met, they’re not able to access higher levels of thinking or be receptive to new information.

“I think we’re doing a pretty good job of that in Glendale and many other districts,” he said. 

With the implementation of the FAIR Education Act in California, GUSD has adopted a new social justice framework. Textbooks are now aligned with this new framework that mandates the retelling of people’s stories.

He said how the previous framework faced criticism in that “people didn’t see themselves, whether you’re Armenian, or you’re part of the LGBT community, you didn’t see ourselves in those excerpts.”

“It was pretty white-washed and the history was not up to date,” he added. 

By fostering inclusivity in public schools, the hope is that the community will take a more progressive and inclusive stance on these issues.

In 2020, the Glendale City Council affirmed June as the city’s official pride month and held its first official pride event with support from GUSD. 

With Armenian-American city council and school board members in support of these events, Davarhanian said things are moving in the right direction and thinks “that's very positive.”