Opinion

Opinion pieces on LGBTI issues in Turkey

A Review of Pride Across Turkey: Defiance and Resilience

The horizon looks bright in some regions of Turkey for future LGBTI+ Pride weeks and marches. New opportunities have emerged for Turkish LGBTI+ rights associations and activists to gain concessions from the police and the judiciary. This year’s pride events highlighted the strength, capacity and resilience of rights defenders, even in a hostile political environment. 

LGBTI+ Pride weeks took place across Turkey, despite state repression and bans on public gatherings. From Istanbul to Mersin, LGBTI+ rights organisations and individual activists marked Pride across the country with defiance in celebration of their identities. Chants echoed across the country with the cries, “we are here, we are queer” and “where are you my love? / I am here my love”.

In many cities across Turkey activists and lawyers were able to win concessions from the police and judiciary making some of this year’s pride events the largest in years. However, in Gaziantep, a city in southeastern Turkey, no improvements were seen in recent years for LGBTI+ rights activists and the situation has even deteriorated since the official lifting of the State of Emergency.

In this article we will look at many of the Pride celebrations across Turkey, reporting the challenges as well as the successes of this year. Looking at the accomplishments of activists can open up new opportunities for Prides in the future. 

Istanbul

The theme of this year’s Pride, EKONOMİ NE AYOL? (‘Economy? What’s that?’), focused on rising inflation in Turkey and the vulnerable position of LGBTI+ individuals in an economic crisis.

Between June 24-30 art exhibitions, picnics, film screenings, workshops and parties took place in 29 venues across the city. The variety of events set an inclusive atmosphere for people of all identities, with an emphasis on inclusion and peace building. 

Early in the week Istanbul Pride Week Committee met with the Governor, who declined their request to hold Pride Walk in Taksim and stated that the LGBTI+ community was regarded as a “socially dubious group”. The Governor also declined a petition to have the Pride march celebrated in Bakırköy, another part of the city designated for demonstrations but less politically symbolic than Taksim.

On Sunday, June 30 without state permission, people were to meet in Taksim for the Pride Walk. Heavy police presence around Taksim and along Istiklal Avenue prevented people meeting on Taksim Square. However, the police consented to negotiate with some of the organisers, allowing the Pride to take place until 17:30 on Mis Sokak, a street near Taksim famous for its LGBTI+ friendly bars. A press statement was read there to sounds of hundreds of people cheering. One quote from the press statement was,

“We do not give up our lives, our solidarity, nor our organized struggle! We are here, get used to it, we are not going.”

At almost exactly 17:30 the police marched down Mis Sokak spraying the few people who remained with tear gas, rubber bullets and chasing them with dogs. A bar on Mis Sokak where people were continuing to celebrate was also sprayed with tear gas. Before the police attack, people were able to meet in security for over an hour. The police did not use water cannons as they had in previous years and some people taking part in the celebrations described the police as more restrained than in previous years. 

As the Pride march was chased from Mis Sokak activists kept meeting in various neighborhoods of the central district of Beyoğlu, reading press statements and celebrating before eventually being dispersed again by the police. The defiance of the continual celebrations was in line with  the message of Pride: we are here, we are everywhere.

Metehan Ozkan from LISTAG, an association which works with the parents of LGBTI+ individuals described this year’s Pride: “We had parents from Ankara, Izmir and Antalya parents groups, we had new members who had a chance to experience Pride for the first time with their children. Though the Pride was ‘limited’ it was very emotional for them.”

Mustafa Sarıyılmaz from SPoD, an Istanbul-based association focusing on social and psychological support for LGBTI+ individuals, said:

“Police was less brutal than last year. I might easily comment that what we had this year was a small gathering that we all missed and longed for a very long time. And, we now have our hope that we might be able to have our parade back in two year’s time. Because, these are all the signs that the movement in Turkey is getting stronger day by day. We have developed a huge solidarity between us now, which wasn’t the case before.”

That night two parties closed the Istanbul Pride, one was put on by Gzone Mag magazine involving trans and drag performers, the other event was hosted by local LGBTI+ DJs. 

During the Istanbul Pride, six people were detained by police.

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Ankara

An indefinite blanket ban against all LGBTI+ events was declared in the capital Ankara under the state of emergency on November 2017. Kaos GL made an appeal which the 12th Administrative Court used to re-examine the ban and ruled that the city governor did not have the legal power to issue bans of that kind. Although the ban was officially lifted, in practice it continued to be in effect.

On May 10, students at the Middle Eastern Technical University staged a Pride celebration despite the rectorate forbidding it. The celebrations were also dispersed by the police using tear gas and rubber bullets. Twenty-five people were detained including an academic working at the university. In reaction students released a press statement calling for “a ban on the bans”. A party was also held afterwards by the students involving drag performances, with the names of those arrested read aloud and applauded.

Some of these arrested students have subsequently had their student loans and assistance revoked on the recommendation of the Security Directorate to the Credits and Dorms Authority. 

Izmir

The 7th İzmir Pride Week planned for June 17-23 was banned on June 14 by the Governorship of Izmir. However, an appeal by the association Genç LGBTİ+ (LGBTI+ Youth) repealed the ban allowing many of the planned events to take place. In the decision to prevent a ban on some of the Pride activities, one judge voted in favor of enforcing the ban and two votes were for the bans repeal. One of those two votes repealing the ban, commented that this decision should be applied to all Pride activities in İzmir.

However, the ban was not fully lifted for the Pride march nor for two events entitled “Bondage Workshop” and “Sex Toy Workshop”. Activists persisted in marching and negotiated with the police, winning the concession to read a press statement on Kıbrıs Şehitleri Avenue in the center of Izmir. However, after the press statement 17 activists were detained. 

Gaziantep 

In Gaziantep  a blanket ban for 20 days on LGBTI+ events prevented Pride events from taking place. During Pride week activists were prevented from putting up a Pride rainbow flag in Çınarlı Park and police prevented activists reading a press statement at Yeşilsu Square. Instead, the Human Rights Association, IHD (Insan Hakları Derneği) hosted a Pride event to read the Pride’s press release:

“As long as you view our existence as a threat, we continue to say, ‘Every step of ours is a Pride March.’

“If it is your tradition to declare those who strive for an honorable and just life immoral and terrorists to cover up your “sins,” it is our tradition to not stop speaking, not stop and not obey.

“We know that what fuels your aggression is our power. We know in our struggle since the 1980s that you are trying to exploit the beauty of our togetherness.”

ZeugMadi Lgbt, an Antep based LGBTI+ Rights association told LGBTI+ News Turkey that for them there was no improvement in how Prides were experienced in previous years. 

“In fact, the State of Emergency is still not over in Turkey. As LGBTI+ individuals we are still under martial law. Both socially and by the law. Harassment, incidents of rape, sexism, homophobia, transphobic rhetorics have all increased after the formal ending of the State of Emergency.”

Mersin

Despite a blanket ban on LGBTI+ events put into effect on June 25, the Mersin Pride still took place. Activists met in workshops and marched in small group unveiling Trans and LGBTI+ Pride flags in a few select spots across the city. Again, the defiance and determination of activists meant that few a short time in different parts of the city, LGBTI+ individuals were more visible. 

Municipalities’ Official Support

From across Turkey, municipalities controlled by the main opposition party, CHP sent out greetings and support to Pride over social media. This occurred in the past but a larger number of municipalities sent out posts  this year. 

On this topic Mustafa Sarıyılmaz from SPoD reported to LGBTI+ News Turkey that 

“Thirty-five municipalities around the country celebrated Pride over Twitter, it seems the visibility of queer community in Turkey has grown, in a positive way. Well, on the other hand, …. the director of religious affairs made all imams around Turkey curse LGBTI+’s in Friday prayers. Yet, we’re hopeful.”

 

Words by George Winter

Photos by Bradley Secker in the İstanbul Pride 

29/07/2019 Correction: The article had previously stated that a Pride after party was put on by GQ magazine, this was incorrect. Gzone Mag put the party on.

How marginal can you get? On discrimination and how METU students stood their ground

Middle East Technical University in Ankara is famous for two things: academic success and a tradition of resistance to political power. Whether it is in reaction to the overnight decisions to bulldoze the forest in the campus or the attempts at changing the stadium’s name  (“Revolution”, as anointed by the legendary revolutionary student leader Deniz Gezmiş and his friends), students have always stood their ground and claimed their space collectively. The tradition remains untarnished, as students’ protests forced the rector to revert his decision to first cancel and then to move the annual spring festival from Revolution Stadium. Despite the rector’s attempts to marginalize LGBTI+ and leftist constituents of the student collectives, the students successfully stood their ground through their solidarity.

As some of our readers might remember, Ankara is still under a blanket ban against all LGBTI related activities, including film screenings and panels – despite the lifting of the state of emergency last year. Although the ban has struck a blow to the public meetings and collective spaces of LGBTI+ people of Ankara, the LGBTI+ student clubs and movement is committed to continuing their social and cultural activities. Such was the case in METU’s Spring Festival, until the rector suddenly decided to cancel the festival, claiming that the students’ demand were financially burdensome, that the students even requested a “tractor” – confusing the DJing software Traktor with the farmer’s favourite, tractors. The rector said the following words, when his decision caused huge uproar:

“First of all, we haven’t cancelled the festival. On the contrary, we have agreed with students from UGT (International Youth Collective) on all matters including the concerts at Revolution Stadium. Yet this group later changed its mind, after having a meeting with LGBT, Marxist, Extreme Leftist, HDP groups [sic]. Their requests cost over a million in total. They even asked for a tractor. We have never had a prohibitory approach as an administration. We are more METU than you. For example I’ve been in METU for 35 years. I know just as well what is what.”

Of course, the rector’s attempts to wag a finger at “good” students being tempted by the evil marginals like “LGBT, Marxist and Extreme Leftist and HDP groups” fell on deaf ears. But once again the official discourse blatantly discriminated against and others the politically active students with the usual tactics: Lumping together all “others” as a united front of villainy, using identity markers and political positions as if they were adjectives to stigmatize the students, reframing the legitimate requests of students to continue their traditional festival as irrational and greedy and as a cherry on the top, claiming to be more METU than “you”. Regardless of the rector’s claims to authenticity, a university is nothing without its students, who have chosen to use the weapon of humour against the misrepresentation of their intentions. The students gathered in front of the Rectorate, carrying a handmade tractor model painted in the colours of the trans flag, garbed in a rainbow flag, a license plate that says “extreme left” and with a hammer and sickle. Indeed this act of creative resistance reverts the power-holders’ attempt at the caricaturized representation of the diversity of the students, by turning the rector’s words into a concrete object shown below.

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Various artists have offered to play for free and supported the students. On April 16th, around a thousand students gathered in protest. On April 17th student collective UGT, in charge of the organization of the festival, had a meeting with the Rector for two hours: The festival is to be celebrated for the 33rd time, at Revolution Stadium on April 24-26. We hope to see the solidarity of students, with all their diversity of ethnicity, political opinion, gender identity and sexual orientation, continue and grow in all campuses around Turkey. Love will win!

*Photos are taken from İnadına Haber.

**This article is based on news from Gazete Duvar and sendika.org.

In memory of Hande Şeker: The gender of transgender killings

Hande Şeker was killed in her house on 9th of January, 2019 by a cop who was there as her client.* Her housemate who is a trans woman as well was wounded by the same person. Despite some improvements in the language of the media since the 90s thanks to the struggles of the LGBTI+ movement, this murder which is clearly a hate killing was presented in the news with transphobic and misogynistic language.

Source: In memory of Hande Şeker: The gender of transgender killings (Hande Şeker’in ardından: Trans cinayetlerinin cinsiyeti) February 5, 2019 http://www.5harfliler.com/hande-sekerin-ardindan/

After Hande Şeker was killed, many newspapers and news websites shared her name presented in her ID card. This was done even though there is no public benefit in sharing it and her approval cannot be given because she was murdered. In addition papers when mentioning Hande Şeker, referred to her as a “transvestite” and “trans person”. “Transvestite who uses the nickname Hande Şeker” (Milliyet), “Hande Şeker codenamed transvestite” (Habertürk), “Trans person who uses the nickname Hande Şeker” (Sabah). All these news articles show how trans women are considered in the newsrooms. The journalists’ refusal to recognize trans women as women leads them to use a misogynistic and violent language.

The first message which was delivered via these news articles is that Hande is not Hande, often using the phrase “in reality”.  In other words, Hande Şeker, a woman who was murdered by a security officer of the government, is actually “fooling” us. Despite the fact that a trans woman lives, socialises, and works with a name she picked herself; this identity is just a “code name” for the media. Because mentioning Hande Şeker as Hande Şeker means recognizing the murdered person as a woman, normalising this fact, and not making it the centre of the news. However, this doesn’t suit the mainstream media which has traditionally made use of victims “being trans” to cause a stir.

First, they get a photograph of the victim from her social media account, which shows her beautiful face, probably taken by herself, and in which she looks in the way she wanted to look; and they put this photograph into the news article. And they write her name as Hande Şeker at the headlines. But then, they attach her name at the Identity card to the spotlight or under the photograph; the name which is coded with “maleness” and clearly not used by her. In this way, the message of “don’t believe in Hande” is delivered to the reader who was reading an article about femicide. So, it causes the readers to feel sympathy towards the transphobic killings’ culprits who testify before the court and to empathise with murderers who say “I thought she was a woman, but she is a man”. If the victim is a trans woman, questioning her “femaleness” in the news article is an additional strategy of the presentation. So, the focus of the news article is taken from the killing and the victim and transferred into the femaleness of the murdered woman, her background, the names and genders which are assigned to her without her will. The purpose is to confuse the mind of the reader who didn’t question the femaleness of the victim, to make them say “So, A is actually Y”, and to present “being a trans woman” as something horrible. Making them question the femaleness of Hande; ensuring the readers to watch their step by unearthing “this secret fact”. Otherwise, the readers may see the case in the shoes of the murdered woman instead of the man who entered her house and killed her; God forbid! They may see Hande as a woman, as she is; God forbid! They may forget questioning the femaleness of trans women for a moment; God forbid!

Cumhuriyet

Horror in İzmir… Cop shot trans people: 1 was killed

9th of January, 2019 Turkey

At the quarrel at an apartment in Konak District of İzmir, trans person Hande Şeker died and 2 people were wounded by the bullets of the gun of police officer A.D.

The incident occurred on the second floor of a 4 floored apartment in the Alsancak Neighbourhood today around at 06:30. Hande Şeker and second-hand phone seller A.T.K. who is reported to have gone to her house in order to have sex with her for money had a quarrel. According to the claims, police officer A.D. (23), who was allegedly outside of the building and on his off day, entered into the house as thinking that the trans people were attacking to his friend A.T.K., then he pulled out his gun and shot up one after another. 2 bullets hit Hande Şeker; her friend Y.A. who is a trans woman too and A.T.K. were wounded.

Taking this news article into consideration, the press working outside of the mainstream media still haven’t internalised the practice of writing trans-friendly news and haven’t thought about it enough. Nil who was wounded in the same incident, was only presented as Nil in the news article of Kaos GL; however, at several different sources, her name in her Identity card was stated fully or partially; or initials were used by some other sources. The point which led us to think about the lack of the practice is that even a newspaper such as Evrensel which is usually attentive to this point and usually cites news from Kaos already used the initials of Nil’s name from the identity card after presenting her as Nil first. The reason for it is probably because some of the journalists are attentive about it while the others are extremely careless when benefiting from different sources. For instance, Gazete Duvar and Gazete Karınca mentioned Nil with the initials of her name from her identity card, while Birgün did a good job and chose to mention about her as N with the first letter of her name, not her name from the identity card.

Hürriyet

News from Konak: Police officer killed a trans person and wounded 2 people in İzmir

Police officer killed a trans person and wounded 2 people in İzmir

Halil İbrahim KARABIYIK-Davut CAN/İZMİR, (DHA)- The quarrel occurred at an apartment in Konak District of İZMİR, trans person died and 2 people were wounded by the bullets from the gun of police officer A.D.

The incident occurred on the second floor of a 4 floored apartment in Alsancak Neighbourhood, 1468 Street today around at 06:30. The trans person who uses the code name of “Hande Şeker” and second-hand phone seller A.T.K. who claimed to have gone to her house in order to have sex with her for money had a quarrel. Meanwhile, police officer A.D. (23) who is reported to have been outside of the building and on his off day.

Milliyet

09.01.2019

Horror in İzmir during the early hours of the day!

Shot by the gun, Hande is dead and 2 people are wounded

After the quarrel at an apartment in the Alsancak Neighbourhood of the Konak District in İzmir, Hande Şeker died and 2 people were wounded, after being shot with a gun by police officer A.D. who was not on duty, according to claims.

The incident occurred on the second floor of a 4 floored building in Alsancak today around 06.30. The transvestite who uses the code name of “Hande Şeker” had a quarrel with A.T.K. who allegedly went to her house in order to have sex with her.

Using the word transvestite, which was an indispensable part of presenting this news until quite recently and has only slightly diminished (I say “slightly” because it appears that news articles are often written as if we are still the 90s, depending on the channel and journalist), is heavily connected with the tradition of writing “transvestite terror” in the history of Turkish media. By typing “transvestite horror” in your search engine, you can view the language of the current news articles; the same language in these articles continues appearing with the word “horror” which is a replacement for the word “terror”. The media’s intention to omit the womanhood of the trans women from the news articles is highly rooted in this sense. On the other hand, using “trans person” as a tool to “sterilise” Hande Şeker and all trans women from their womanhood is the new method of the trans-misogynistic news language.

Since we are threatened with death and forced to accept having malaria, some people expect us to see that choosing the words “trans person” instead of “transvestite” is an improvement. However, these people are women. Moreover, they are women who are subjected to the violence of men and were murdered by men. These news articles are not about different identities which are outside of the binary gender system, nor about trans men. They are specifically about the trans women killings. But the journalists or editors are clearly not willing to write the word “woman” and they grab the word “person” which is apparently perceived as more hygienic and neutral by them. For those who are more or less aware of the wrong in the subtle meaning of the word “transvestite” but are not willing to present trans women as women, “trans person” is a new lifesaver. Have you ever read something like “cis person” in a news article? If you read this, is it possible to understand the gender of that person? However, just like all other femicides, Hande Şeker’s killing is connected with her gender which news articles deliberately tried to separated from the case.

Mitch Kellaway, a trans male editor researched the trans killings presented in the news mostly in USA and Brazil in 2015 and realized that the ratio of trans female victims to the number of trans male victims is approximately 200 to 1. Despite the fact that there isn’t any similar research for Turkey, it is possible to see from the news and in real life that trans women, especially those who work as a sex worker, are so vulnerable to violence.

Trans killings are a serious gender-based topic; moreover, eliminating their gender in the news articles about trans women killings is not only causing a will-breaking intervention to their existence but also objectifying them and pushing them to a distance where readers are unable to sympathise, by vanishing their identity. Additionally, eliminating femaleness from the readers’ eyes by using the name at the identity card many times is the news’ tactic to make the readers see the case in the shoes of the culprits of violence and therefore to cause an empathy towards these culprits. So, when writing these news articles, it is important to emphasise that victims and killings should not be eliminated from their gender, trans-misogynistic acts should not be separated from the picture, and many power dynamics among genders, which enable each of them to live, are important.

*Translator’s note: Hande Şeker was working as a sex worker. Read more about her in this Pembe Hayat article.

Illustration by Yayoi Kusama

Non-Binary

Source: Non-binary (Serkan Kasapoğlu, Gökkuşağı Forumu) Kaos GL, 28 January 2019 http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=27461

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Non-binary is used for gender identities that are not limited within the borders of masculine or feminine identities. It rejects the idea of binary gender. On the other hand, since the definition changes from person to person, it is useful to ask people who say they are non-binary, what the definition of non-binary is for them. Some may define their gender as both male and female, as well as calling themselves non-binary, and others can identify themselves as non-binary by saying they are neither male nor female. In addition, it can also be used as an umbrella term that covers all the genders outside of the binary gender framework.

Can a person be trans and non-binary at the same time?

Yes. There can be cases that a person does not define oneself with the gender assigned by birth and states as being out of the binary gender framework.

Non-binary pronouns and language

In almost everywhere in today’s world, people are defined according to their appearances. Discourses, which maintain and support the binary gender system by addressing to masses as “Ladies and Gentlemen”, are some of the unfavourable parts of daily life. How to address non-binary people is important for them and the correct manner of address is a way for these people to feel comfortable with their gender.

-Are you a girl or a boy?

-I AM NEITHER!

Makeup

I am going to Rome with one of my friends tomorrow. I am so excited; however, there is something bothering me for a while. I want to talk about it with my friend.

The last night before going to Rome

“I do not know, I thought a lot during the last few weeks when I was alone. I guess I am planning to resume taking hormones.”

“Why? You looked like you were sure that this was not the thing you wanted.”

“The change that I had during the time I took hormones was actually the one I wanted. Day by day, I started to look like the way I wished to be.

“Your appearance didn’t change much after you quit taking them.”

“I don’t think so. I feel like I am going back the long way I came. I feel less and less happy with my image in the mirror. No matter how confused I felt when I was taking hormones, I was happy for the things that I did to my appearance. I felt more free with a more feminine look.”

“The hormones won’t make you more feminine. Look at me, my oestrogen level is much higher than my testosterone level, but I define myself as masculine and express myself to the world in this way. Now, no one calls me a feminine woman. Everybody knows me as masculine. Because I see and define myself that way. If you want to be and look feminine, you don’t need any supplement. You can become feminine once you believe you are being one and then define yourself that way.

“I guess you are right.”

First day in Rome

“Humph, this suitcase is really heavy.”

“Come on, you are a guy, you can carry it.”

Third day in Rome

“You are a sweet boy.”

Fifth day in Rome

“Look, this old man is your future self. But you will be wearing makeup and be whinier.”

Recently, I have been trying some ways to be the one I wanted to be. This was hormone, makeup, or clothes; but none of them made me feel, like enough. I wonder if I know who I want to be. I have always felt something missing on the road that I started to walk without knowing where I wanted to go. Whenever I felt like doing right, some barriers were created before me, and I stumbled. Why don’t they just allow me to look like and behave how I wish? Even my closest friends give me the things which I fear most. Why do they act like my appearance has to determine my gender? I want to be feminine most of the time, but I don’t want to be a woman. I want to be masculine sometimes, but I don’t want to be a man.

The fact that people call me a man when I look masculine prevents me from being masculine and the fact that they call me as a woman when I look feminine prevents me from being feminine. Even my friend, who said to me the previous day that your appearance does not define your gender, can easily tell me that they see me as a man when I step outside without wearing any makeup the next day. Then, they can say to me in the same moment “You don’t need to wear makeup or take hormones in order to be seen feminine.” Due to this contradiction, all the things they said earlier lose their significance. Now, I don’t know what I will do. I want to use makeup, not because other people can understand that I am not a man, but because I want to look like that way on that day.

Then, they ask me why I care how other people think. Because how they think does not allow me to be the way I want to be. They don’t allow me to be feminine or masculine. They do their best to shape me into how they perceive me. And I stumble whenever I try to step outside of their perceptions.  

*The articles at KaosGL.org Gökkuşağı Forumu (Rainbow Forum) are under the responsibility of their authors. The fact that the articles are published at KaosGL.org does not mean that the opinions at the articles reflect the opinions of KaosGL.org. As a translation of the KaosGL.org article, LGBTI News Turkey should also emphasise that the views seen here are those of the author and that the views expressed here don’t necessarily represent those of LGBTI News Turkey.

Arat: Two trans women or “sinners” in a Turkish prison

Diren is a trans woman who just entered her thirties. She will be subject to systematic torture inside an F-type prison cell coffin* for three more years. Buse, a trans woman in her forties, discovered her gender identity during her incarceration. She has been sentenced to life.

Source: Kıvılcım Arat, “Two sinners (!) at Tekirdağ No 2 [Prison] : Diren and Buse” (“Tekirdağ 2 Nolu’da İki Günahkar(!); Diren ve Buse”), Kıvılcım Arat, bianet, January 2, 2018, http://bianet.org/bianet/lgbti/192911-tekirdag-2-nolu-da-iki-gunahkar-diren-ve-buse

On the road to Istanbul from Tekirdağ, I kept thinking about the value and meaning of our lives. I reflected on the struggle against the multiple discriminations we face, as well as how  limited and narrow the spaces of solidarity meant for empowering ourselves are.

The system and social life is designed through a binary gender regime. The problems generated by and the lives sacrificed in the name of this regime entangle not only trans women but also those who do not define themselves with binaries  in an inescapable spiral of violence.

Even though the imposed stereotypes of ideal men and women are not the same across communities, binary gender models are cultivated, spread, and institutionalized through a disparate array of social groups ranging from Islamists to Liberals, from Social Democrats to Socialists.

While cursing this system and its founders, I think about the resistance of the two sinners staying in the coffins of Tekirdağ No 2. I think about their unheard, unknown, unwritten resistance… and how forlorn this resistance is…

As the wheel of history keeps turning, someone writes that history. This is the reason I’m writing this story to you. To document the resistance of these two sinner women and to render it known to the world, in spite of the power of those who miswrite the present and obfuscate history.

Diren is a trans woman who just entered her thirties and is child of a family from Dersim [Tunceli]. Until last August, she was trying to hold onto  life in Amed [Diyarbakir] with a public trans identity. She has such a kind heart that every cat, whether tortured, disabled or infirm has certainly stayed in her home. And hers is not just an ordinary love of animals… It’s a feeling molded with consciousness. She is a vegan who feels the cruelty of the human species as a personal conviction. Diren is an amazing human who has understood the connection between a slice of cheese she eats and slavery. She is also a brave woman who has declared her conscientious objection.

As Diren was trying to hold onto this life with all the sensitivity she carries inside her, she faced the accusation of spreading [terror] propaganda and, without any tangible evidence, was unfortunately convicted of this crime. As a result of this conviction, she will be subject to systematic torture and isolation in F-type coffins for three more years.

Buse is a trans woman in her forties who came to define her gender identity during her incarceration and is the child of a family from Ağrı. Convicted for life, Erzurum State Security Court** indicted Buse where she stood trial without a defense attorney present. She has been in prison for twenty years and has another seventeen more years to spend in that dark cell.

What brings Diren and Buse together in the same cell is that they were both sentenced based on charges related to the same crime. As one’s existence empowers the other’s, their unknown state casts them both into an endless abyss.

As a 30-year-old who has visited three different prisons forthree incarcerated women, I was aware of the violence I would be subjected to at the entrance to Tekirdağ No. 2. And, on my way, I decided not to complain. Thinking about what Diren went through at the hands of the soldiers and wardens, I tried to get used to the fact that I would be experiencing this violence for three more years. At the end of the day, I was a visitor and I was bound to go through the indignity they imposed on me once a month. My body was relatively freer than Diren’s.

Just like any other prison I saw, Tekirdağ No. 2 is also a structure built to break the human spirit. As I entered through its gate, I reminded myself not to let anything overshadow the joy of seeing Diren and I walked in. Those who have been there would know how it is–open visits are crowded, packed with many relatives, young or old, and children. I gave my passport to the officer, hoping that a passport not color-coded and gender neutral would allow for an insult-free, harassment-free passage.

After registration, I was able to pass through the first checkpoint with other women. Towards the second one, Diren’s brother warned me “Be careful, you won’t be seeing smiling faces after this point”. Not long after, the female warden asked loudly “Did you go through surgery?” in the middle of the crowd. And then she called the first checkpoint where I left my ID and asked what was written on my ID under the gender slot. After she hung up, pulling a wry face she ordered the male wardens: “I won’t search this. Take him to the other side”. Under the silence of tens of gazes the wardens touched every bit of my body from my breast to my hips, continuing their work with the joy of carrying out a patriotic duty.

As these events were happening at the gate, what were Buse and Diren going through?

Diren’s open visit takes place in a separate room. A policy of isolation within isolation. Two wardens hovering above us, listening to every word we utter. We can neither hug nor talk in peace.

As there are no vegan meals, Diren has been feeding on boiled potatoes and tomatoes for months. It is another trouble to get female clothes in. Her requests for bras and similar things have been denied. She talked about the indifference of the doctors at the infirmary. She said that the officers frequently refer to her with the name written on her ID and address her as “Sir”. This “Sir” title has become such a grave violence that she swallowed an entire box of hormone pills at once during past weeks. On the farewell note she wrote, she exposed the systematic violence she has experienced. After her stomach was pumped, she was handcuffed to the radiator at the public hospital in the state she was in. Fortunately, when her objections turned into a scream they brought her back to her cell. Even in this state, she thinks more about Buse than herself. What Buse has been going through for the last twenty years and what she will go through the next seventeen. Her operation has been denied in spite of permission for the surgery and this has made her psychological state deteriorate even more. Buse is planning to use the last weapon she has left, to starve her new body and to lay down to die.

We trans women, who are the decided sinners of society, try to exist through resistance. Our resistance is born out of an affront to humanity. This sin is deemed so great that even the mothers who carried the sinners for nine months stay away from their children.

Towards the end of my visit, Diren said that Buse got ready in the morning and put on makeup. When she asked her what she was getting ready for, Buse answered “You never know, maybe my brother will come”. A brother who was expected and who never arrived for years! Buse’s answer became a thorn in my flesh and invigorated my struggle. This sin which bars relatives from coming to open visit should be society’s cross to bear.

Buse has been trying to exist in incarceration without anyone by her side for twenty years. She thinks she has been forgotten. Fortunately, at the end of 20 years, IHD (Human Rights Association) Co-Chair and attorney Eren Keskin took charge of the entire judicial process and will follow up on the unlawful practices Buse has endured, including the right to operation she was denied. This Thursday, Keskin will go to Tekirdağ No.2 as Buse’s legal representative to clarify her demands for justice. The commission set up for Buse and Diren at İHD will share the rights violations with the public in a press statement released next week.*** The past twenty years of isolation will at least be subdued. Historians writing from their dignified perspectives may perhaps take little note of what’s happening, but this will be a thousand hopes for trans people to come.

As two sinners of Tekirdağ write their histories through resistance, the solitude we left them in will one day find us too. The only way out of the hell of a binary regime is not to participate in its norms but to dismantle the norm. What is imposed with the norm leads to darkness and the resistance of the trans women lead to light.

*Translator’s note: “Coffin” is an unofficial term which denotes isolation cells where many political prisoners stay in F-type prisons. 

**State Security Courts (Devlet Güvenlik Mahkemeleri): Designed after the State Security Courts of De Gaulle era in France, DGMs first originated after the military coup of 1971, equipped with extraordinary authority regarding the cases that “endangered the existence of the state”. Its judges and prosecutors were assigned by military authorities, which is why it was seen as a “martial law without the declaration of martial law”. DGMs were shut down in the mid 1970s, only to be resurrected after the military coup of 1980. They remained active until 2004.

***  İHD held a press conference on January 10, see bianet article for more info.

Which one of your houses will Hande Kader’s murderer come out of?

Men share your bed, your meal, your house after being with many trans sex workers like Hande Kader. While you keep believing that you are “cleaner”, “more innocent”, “more virtuous” than Hande Kader, the murderer lives in your house. Pray that they may be caught before they do one tenth of what they did to her, to you.

Source: Zeynep Akkuş, “Hande Kader’in katili hanginizin evinden çıkacak?”, kaosgl, August 17, 2016, http://www.kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=22102

It’s like I’m watching a horror movie. In its first scene, the car Hande Kader gets in disappears in the darkness of the night. Then everything gets blurry. The blur remains for a while. Next a flash lights up. New scene: Police gather around in a forest, they take away Hande Kader’s burnt body in a body bag.

I wish what I saw was really just a movie.

We had common friends but I didn’t know her. But then again, it turns out I saw her many times, unknowingly! She was one of our trans friends on those famous photos of last year’s Pride Walk on Istiklal Avenue, that they tried to cancel, on the first shot they are sitting against a water cannon, in the second one, they are soaked with pressurized water. The policemen that were taking her away last year, holding her arm harshly are now in the forest to take her burned body.

hande_kader_3

When I heard that her corpse was burned, I found myself thinking, I hope she wasn’t burned to death, I hope she was burned after she was murdered, to get rid of the evidence. Please don’t condemn me. The current order, the current morality made us prefer one death over another. Remember the words of Ali İsmail’s mother, who was beaten to death during Gezi; “I wish they shot my Aliş, my son suffered so much” and please don’t condemn me.

I was only beginning to digest the story of how Figen was dragged to death, my eyes tearing up as I looked at photos I took in the march in the memory of Dora. My anger together with my pain rise up, as I writhe with the pain of who knows how many victims that shared similar horrible ends, worst of all, not knowing which of my friends, my sisters are next. Among those we lost, which one’s news could reach all? Whose murderer received the sentence they deserved? No one should fool themselves. We can believe in the sincerity of a struggle only if we see a murdered trans sex worker’s photo on the posters of a struggle against hate crimes. No one should feel safe either, no one should ask “why doesn’t it happen to me then?”. You can never know who the hate will strike. And hate has many excuses. Therefore, there are no “but”s in the struggle against hate. The victims can not be divided into “innocents” or “pure ones” against “the ones who had it coming”.

One last remark goes out to the women who remain silent on Hande Kader’s murder: I’m sure you would curse her for being a trans, for being a sex worker, you would despise her for selling her body, had you known about her when she was alive.

This is the main reason for your silence anyway, do not fool yourself nor us. But remember, sales is a two-way street. Anything that is sold is on sale as long as there is a buyer. Those that drag Hande Kader and other trans workers to this life, those that do not leave any other path and those who profit from this with an insatiable greed, are your men, your husbands, your brothers, your sons, your fathers, do not look elsewhere. (I don’t know if you are aware but you are as guilty as them, with your prejudice, your false convictions, your cliches of morality and dignity.)

Men share your bed, your meal, your house after being with many trans sex workers like Hande Kader. While you keep believing that you are “cleaner”, “more innocent”, “more virtuous” than Hande Kader, the murderer lives in your house. Pray that they may be caught before they do one tenth of what they did to her, to you. I’m waiting with curiosity, let’s see which of one of your houses will he come out of.

 

To Amnesty International: Hate is not a Choice, it’s a Crime

Source: Tuna Erdem, “Nefret tercih değil suç olsun/bana haklarımı ver sevgin senin olsun #kaplumbağaları bizim meselelere karıştırmayın, almayın ve satmayın,” “Hate should not be a choice but a crime / give me back my rights and you can have your love do not involve #turtles in our issues, do not buy and sell them,” 20 April 2016, http://sloganbozan.blogspot.com.tr/2016/04/nefret-tercih-degil-suc-olsunbana.html?spref=fb&m=1

The slogan I will undo shows up at the end of Amnesty International’s video “Gay Turtle.” As I pick the slogan to pieces, I will occasionally write about the video as well but it is not the video but rather the slogan that defines the scope of this text:

 
loveislove

First, let’s begin with the slogan “hate is a choice.”

There is a crime called “hate crime.” Indeed, before this slogan appears in the video, the statement “in the last 5 years, hundreds of hate crimes due to homophobia and transphobia have been committed” indicates, albeit in an ambiguous fashion, that there is a crime called “hate crime.” Since 2014, hate crime has been included in the Turkish Penal Code and the work of LGBTI organizations have a significant role in its inclusion. However, in spite of this achievement, “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are not included within the scope of the hate crime law and at the moment hate is not a crime when directed at LGBTIs. In other words, the Turkish Penal Code has left it to individuals to choose to hate gay and trans individuals, just as this slogan suggests.

However, not only many countries do not give its citizens the right to choose to hate but also LGBTIs in Turkey have been arguing that hate is a crime and should be seen as a crime, and they continue to work for this a fact that Amnesty International cannot possibly be unaware of. From the perspective that posits hate to be seen as a crime, this slogan sounds exactly like what the statements “rape is a choice,” “murder is a choice”  sound like. Indeed, this slogan appears right after a sentence that gives hate crime statistics, therefore connecting the hate directly to the crime on its own, amplifying said tone. Just as saying “murder is a choice, do not choose to murder, change your choices” would be taking things lightly, the same goes for hate. If you write down the number of people killed by hate-motivated murders and then immediately say “hate is a choice,” you are basically saying “hate-motivated murder is a choice.” Briefly, a preferable slogan at most could be:

Hate is not a choice, it’s a crime.

On the other hand, hate is not a choice because there is no alternative to hate in the system, especially towards gay and trans individuals. The heteronormative order is the name of the order that does not give the choice or the right to choose anything other than hate. So much so that gays themselves hardly find a path other than hating themselves. Hating homosexuals is something that is inculcated from birth, taught, imposed. To say “there is a heteronormative order” is exactly this: People are constantly brainwashed in a systematic way, using every possible tool of the sovereign culture. The family, education and training curriculum, peer victimization and pressure teach and forcibly impose hate; hate is engraved in memory. Hate is constantly channelled on TV, in advertisements, in films, in media.

This is precisely why the target audience of the video can only be those who will rightfully feel proud to have made the right choice and carry the avarice of superiority. I do not think the target audience includes gays who have begun combatting the hate within or who continue to combat the hate within the nearest people to them. Rather, the video caters to those who believe that not remaining “ignorant” is fully a “choice,” who are blind to the fact that education is a privilege in the world, and who see the world wearing blinkers and say “noooo waaaaay.” In fact, if anyone could escape the sovereign culture’s education and be “ignorant,” hate would not be this widespread.

In the best-case scenario, the video invites the audience to belittle and to ridicule homophobes. (And of course, also to take pity on the cute turtle and to get all emotional through empathy.) Indeed, there are self-assured trolls in social media, who ask why this video is being taken so seriously, when it should have been laughed at. Such approaches pass over the fact that ridicule and belittling are the very tools of homophobia and it does not register that belittling homophobes belittles homophobia, a phenomenon with dire consequences. I would not step inside a pet shop (in my opinion, pet shops are another phenomena that should be considered a crime) but if I were told that the turtle I “chose” was gay, I would think that the clerk noticed that I’m gay and was saying this ridiculous thing to mock me, and I would storm out. So, you can add me to your so-called “social experiment,” as a homophobe to be ridiculed.

All in all, presenting systematic problems as individual choices can only warrant the continuity of the system that lies beneath. Mistaking the teachings of the hegemonic culture for “ignorance,” is flaring up the flames of the hegemon. Briefly: hate is not an individual choice, but the enforcement of the system. To belittle others’ hate in order to ignore the hate that lies within you, is a way of hate itself.  You cannot struggle by hating. The issue should not be to replace one type of hate for another.

Then there is this: The slogan “hate is a choice” is there to evoke another slogan. The most famous slogan of the LGBTI movement is “orientation, not choice.” So the slogan says, “homosexuality is not a choice, but it is a choice to hate homosexuals.” So it says, “you are born gay and you cannot change it, but hate is not congenital so just change it.” I can’t get enough of undoing the slogan “orientation, not choice” but I’m leaving that for another post, to give it the undoing it deserves. Without going deeper into my position on the matter, which is even more narrow-minded than the “even if it were a choice” position, I will point to a relevant aspect. There is no doubt that it is the belief that “if it is a choice, it can be changed easily” which brought the word “choice” to the point of becoming a signifier of homophobia. One feels like saying, I wish that change was so easy to have in life. Yet those who adopted the slogan “hate is a choice” obviously think that the problem goes away once you understand that it is a choice. You would think that knowing there can be change warrants change. That’s why a prominent organization could not come up with a better choice than to state the obvious, did not think it should introduce a proposal on the matter of “how to change hate.” Oh, actually they do, our video says “love instead of hating,” which brings us back to the first sentence of the slogan:

“Love comes from the heart”

Seriously, what does that even mean? Does it mean you love if you have a heart? Does it mean love is automatic like breathing? Does it mean love is natural and if you do not strain yourself, you will love anyway? You do not need the brain, the mind, consciousness, work; the heart produces love by itself? Does it mean that every living thing with a heart loves anyway? It’s up to you to decide how you want to understand it. Epic words about love is plentiful, just add on to them. Love is unconditional, let love win, etc. But the love the video presents is not unconditional. The turtles who are sold in the slave market, who are contained in a cell, are at best given love according to their cuteness. The price of love is to not be free, to be treated like property, to live and die for someone else’s enjoyment. If that’s the love, then hate could indeed be chosen.

Let’s agree on this: no one has to love gays. Gays do not expect love either. Gays are demanding their rights and that is why they say hate crime. But when you first say love comes from the heart and then say hate is a choice, you present hate as purely an emotion. If you are looking for a word outside of the terminology of rights and law, then gays are expecting respect, not love. Respect is not a choice, for example, in the face of laws and court decisions, no one has the right to say “I do not respect this.”

But there is also a difference between “love comes from the heart” and the sentence presented as the English version of the slogan. “Love is love” would be correctly translated into Turkish as “romantic love is romantic love” [literally “aşk aşktır” –Trans.]. That sentence is the slogan for gay rights, especially marriage equality. The slogan would mean “love is not gay or straight, love is love” and it would be about what remains in your head as it is tautological. And again we come upon a slogan that I cannot get enough of undoing. Though homosexuality can allow us to realize the many different kinds of love in the slogan “love is love,” the slogan instead becomes evidence for the transformation of romantic love into a single, unitary state. One language, one flag, one nation, one homeland, one love.

Sure there is also this: Do not see homosexuality as a sexual issue because love is love! Because sex is bad and it can only be cleansed with an epic love. Because it is unacceptable to defend sex without love but do not be scared, gays, who are in a position to notice the difference, will pretend that there is no sex without love, just like you. I want to say: No way! No, sex is not an evil that will be extolled with love, in need of taming with marriage, or otherwise lead to destruction. And gays do not have to go voluntarily into the prison of “no sex without love” just because they do not want you to hate them.

But the same sentence in Turkish does not say romantic love but love like endearment and therefore gets stuck early on before even getting to the issue. The Turkish version turns out not to be about the romantic love that gays feel for each other but about the love, the endearment felt towards gays: Let’s love animals, let’s love gays, let’s love our beautiful Turkish, let’s love our flag, let’s love our homeland.

Do not love me and do not hate me. I do not even know you, why should we have an emotional relationship? Can I not be your pet or a harmful creature? May I not be yours and only be mine and be independent? If possible, give the right to life to a difference that has nothing to do with you. Let’s create a respectful distance between ourselves and keep that distance.

Your love is as aggressive as your hate. Your stance against homophobia is as hurtful as homophobes.  

Now slowly release the turtle you are holding back into wild and leave before you make me love you too much.

The Campaign Against Homosexuality in Turkey’s Elections

Only days before Turkey’s upcoming parliamentary elections, unknown gunmen shot at the campaign office of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the early morning hours of June 2 in Eskisehir, a city in northwest Turkey. More than 100 attacks have been carried out against election offices of the HDP, a left-wing and pro-Kurdish party, during this campaign season, according to Dicle News Agency. [1] Though no one was hurt in the Eskisehir attack, the HDP’s openly gay candidate Baris Sulu, who runs his campaign from that office, left the city over safety concerns.

Sulu has been receiving threats since he declared his candidacy for the HDP nomination in February. A seasoned activist, Sulu says he joined the HDP because the party supported rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex (LGBTI) people even at its nascent stage as the Peoples’ Democratic Congress in 2011. Sulu’s candidacy is highly notable in a conservative country where prejudice and harassment against LGBTI people is a fact of daily life. The number of threats rose in April with his official nomination but the dramatic increase came in May when pro-government media outlets started targeting him.

Pro-government Sabah and Star daily newspapers have called Sulu’s campaign “vile propaganda,” criticizing his tweets such as “recognize our sexual orientation” and for wanting “people to react normally to men kissing.” [23] The Turkish daily newspaper Yeni Akit, infamous for its attacks on LGBTI people, published blurred photographs of Sulu and his partner kissing under the title “Immoral prostitution images of the HDP’s perverted candidate revealed!” [4] The article was quickly reposted by other media outlets and social media users, which escalated the online threats.

In Turkey, media attacks often go hand-in-hand with similar statements from elected officials. President Erdogan, who has led the campaign for the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) despite the fact that his position calls for neutrality, lambasted the HDP on May 28 at a meeting in Ankara. “We don’t nominate so-called religious scholars in Diyarbakir [a pre-dominantly Kurdish city in Turkey’s southeast] and homosexuals in Eskisehir,” Erdogan said in reference to what he sees as the HDP’s pandering to opposing sensitivities of different regions of the country. [5]

Following Erdogan’s statements, two parliamentary hopefuls from the AKP, in an effort to garner votes from religiously conservative Kurds, have criticized the HDP for nominating an openly gay candidate, arguing that homosexuality cannot be reconciled with Islam.

At a campaign stop in the southeastern province of Siirt, AKP candidate Yasin Aktay criticized the HDP’s nominations and said, “You are the child of a Muslim. The Kurds are Muslim and if there are, excuse me, 3 homosexuals on the list of Muslims who defend man’s marriage to man, then I will ask you ‘who are you?’” Aktay concluded that “it is impossible for Muslim society to affirm a man’s marriage to a man.” [6]

Former Interior Minister and AKP candidate Efkan Ala expressed fear that the HDP would give gays and lesbians “all sorts of rights” such as the recognition of same-sex marriages. Speaking to his “Kurdish brothers” on a Turkish news channel, Ala said, “We are against such things that our morality and our traditions reject.” He warned his listeners “the tribe of Lot was destroyed because of this; this is the destruction of humanity,” referring to the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, a trope often used against LGBT communities in the Muslim world. [7]

Sulu says that after each public speech, he has received threats on Twitter from AK trolls, supporters of the AKP who launch large-scale smear campaigns on social media. They called him a pervert “who will burn in hell.” He blocks at least 10 accounts every day, but “systematic swearing, insults, and threats continue to come to all of my social media accounts,” Sulu said.

Sulu believes that Erdogan’s statement in 2002 that “homosexuals must also be given legal protection for their rights and freedoms” was only to appear sympathetic to the EU. [8] Now at the brink of losing a significant number of parliamentary seats to the HDP, “all their hidden fears, all the times they were being disingenuous, are coming out to the surface,” in the shape of homophobia. President Erdogan confirmed this at a June 3 rally in the eastern province of Bingol, when he said, “The Armenian lobby, homosexuals and those who believe in ‘Alevism without Ali’ – all these representatives of sedition are [the HDP’s] benefactors.” [9]

Sulu is last on the list of 6 HDP candidates in Eskisehir and, thus, unlikely to be elected into office. However, the nomination of an openly gay man for parliament is highly notable in Turkey, where 87 percent of respondents to Bahcesehir University’s 2012 survey, “Turkish Values Atlas,” said they do not want gay neighbors. [10] Since 2010, 47 individuals have been killed due to their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. [11] In May alone there were 5 assaults on transgender individuals in Istanbul. [12]

The HDP’s nomination of an openly gay candidate has created campaign fodder for the AKP. While singling out Sulu could prove dangerous for the candidate, he remains hopeful. “If we as LGBTIs are taken so seriously, then we must be succeeding in our twenty year rights struggle,” Sulu said.

Zeynep Bilginsoy is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul. She’s also the founder and project manager of LGBTI News Turkey, an English translation resource on LGBTI issues in Turkey.

Mehtap Cansın, Suicide or “I could not do it!”

Source: Derviş A. Akkoç, “Mehtap Cansın, İntihar ya da “Yapamadım!” (“Mehtap Cansın, Suicide or “I could not do it!”” )Birikimdergisi.com, 07 January 2015, http://www.birikimdergisi.com/guncel/mehtap-cansin-intihar-ya-da-yapamadim

Trans woman Mehtap [Eylül] Cansın committed suicide by jumping off the Bosphorus Bridge on January 5, 2015. Death has become so ordinary in this society that I have no doubt this suicide will be brushed aside like the other suicides. It will be completely forgotten since the person who is dead is not one of “us” due to her sexual preference. I do not know if I should either say “what a pity!” or “such a shame!” Mehtap Cansın was only 24 years old. She recorded a video right before she committed suicide. At her last moment and with her last breath she voiced her complaint, trying to explain her situation one last time and to reach out to others:

I’m sending kisses to all of you. Today is the best of my days, I am very happy. But today will be another beautiful day for me. I thank everyone. I love everyone. Many were my friends, but apparently not. I leave everyone to their conscience, I can’t do this anymore. This is what I figured out. I do the things everyone wants, the way they would like it. I kiss all of you. 2015! I was born in 1992. I should be 24 right now, but I am ending my age at 24 instead. I kiss everyone. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it, because people did not let me. I could not work. I wanted to do things, I couldn’t do them. Do you understand? They constantly stood in my way. They victimized me. I leave everyone to God. And right now I am going towards Bosphorus Bridge. You will hear my name on the pages of the newspapers tomorrow, it can be on the 3rd or 4th or maybe on the 1st page. I kiss all of you, may God protect you. May God protect you…

Most probably newspapers will have bigger and more important agendas tomorrow, Mehtap Cansın’s name will probably not be mentioned on the first page, but on the later pages. She knows it too: “it can be on the 3rd or 4th.” Worse is that her name may not be there at all.  People will think, “What was she worth when she was alive? What does it matter when she is dead?” If the act of suicide means the subject pronounces herself through death,  opening the existence itself to the world through death one last time, then it is that life that causes death that needs to be questioned, not the death itself. There is no doubt that this life was a living hell for Cansın. No wonder she repeats “I couldn’t do it” so many times: “I wanted to do things, I couldn’t do it, they stood in my way.” And right after she adds: “Do you understand?” Do we understand what? “Can’t do it” anymore, getting stuck at a certain point, to be held back, to have her life and soul devoured. Is it these things we are to understand? These are all results. A life depreciated, meanings and values scattered, the limit of “living another day just to spite the enemy” far passed. These are all results too.

(more…)

Gani Met on Trans Deaths: “This Piece is a Denunciation for Humanity”

Source: Gani Met,  “Bu Yazı İnsanlığa Suç Duyurusudur”, (“This Piece is a Denunciation for Humanity”), 5harfliler.com, 5 January 2015, http://www.5harfliler.com/bu-yazi-insanliga-suc-duyurusudur/

Here I am releasing a denunciation to all of humanity, over and over again: You are destroying us each day. You are massacring us systematically and politically. See this! Hear this!

I don’t understand how I was able to manage this situation in the past. Not a day goes by without someone dying, someone being kicked out of their house, someone in need of care at some hospital…These pieces of news make me so sad now. My resistance decreases. I don’t know how I would be able to survive if it weren’t for the well-intentioned people around me. What kind of an arena is this where if you fall, you are shattered? What is the struggle behind this hopelessness? Why? I don’t know…

The psychology of war that we are made to experience is always with me. There are dead bodies everywhere. I used to know that one. I used to love that one. That other one was a nice girl. The latter was my friend. There are dead bodies everywhere or bad memories. I don’t know who the enemy is anymore.

(more…)

The New Domestic Security Bill and its Potential Implications for LGBTI Individuals

Source: İdil Su, “Yeni Güvenlik Yasası ve LGBTİ bireyleri için olası sonuçları”, (“The New Domestic Security Bill and Its Potential Implications for LGBTI Individuals”,) Cark, 4 December 2014, http://www.carkmag.com/yeni-guvenlik-yasasi-ve-lgbti-bireyler-icin-olasi-sonuclari/

The new legal measures are a clear sign of Turkey moving completely in the direction of a police state. This is because the authorities delegated to the police are the same ones given to security units in countries ruled by dictatorship and monarchy. There are perilous aspects that should be of concern to everyone in this new legislation. The following are the most striking regulations that would impact LGBTI individuals, particularly those who do sex work, as well as those individuals criticizing the government:

1- Police can search any vehicle and person they deem suspicious; the 24 hour detention period is being raised to 48 hours. Detainment in mass events may be increased up to four days through prosecutorial order.

In other words, the police can stop anyone on the road and detain them on the basis of “reasonable doubt” and the prosecutor can extend the detention period. This means the police can take into custody if they want a sex worker on the street or any individual out with their friends and family under “reasonable doubt” and can prolong their detention up to 48 hours.

2- The scope of crimes for asset forfeiture is expanding

They may seize our property which, in their definition, may be seen as illegally acquired. In other words, property acquired through actions legally defined as criminal can be seized by the state. But at this point, the law concerns only catalog crimes. Its scope may be expanded, though. For example, prosecutors and courts can seize the property of people who join protests if they are accused of upsetting the constitutional order through their participation in anti-government mass protests. In other words, anyone who criticizes the government can be classified as a gang member and their property seized by a court order.

3- Our homes will be searched more easily, our phones will be tapped more easily.

They will make life more difficult for sex workers. They will keep track of all our communication information. It sounds like phone records alone will constitute evidence, therefore the government will track all telephone and internet communications.

4- The law requires the notary to share with and report to the police all of our transactions.

5- Lawyers may not be able to examine their clients’ files during investigation; they may not be able to find out the charges and their bases.

In other words, prosecutors may choose not to show the files of people who will be tried while in custody to their lawyers. They will try to prolong detention.

6- Finally, the bill proposes a new crime, that of “threatening” civil servants.

This article paves the way for anyone who criticizes the government to be seen as a potential criminal. If we bear in mind that courts frequently convict people by charging them with the crime of “insult,” it is inevitable that the crime of “threat” will be used to silence oppositional voices. In other words, the government will track social media and will be able to prosecute people for threatening government. We will either have to show support for government’s every action or like in North Korea, we will all shed fake tears. It is truly very grim. Everything the government does will be seen as right. In short, we will say, “Oh Sultan, Long Live!” Or else, it is prison.

Evaluating Hate Murders based on SOGI in Turkey: Shortcomings and Proposals

Between January 2010 and November 2014, 47 individuals have been killed due to their real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. These deaths are represented in the infographic below (pdf, source, license), with data collected by LGBTI News Turkey volunteers from various online news media and LGBTI associations.

LGBTI hate murders in Turkey 2010-2014

LGBTI hate murders in Turkey 2010-2014

It is important to note that these figures point to the lack of information regarding a significant part of Turkey. This scarcity of data may be caused by the intersection of several factors:

a) Issues of visibility in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) in Turkey,
b) Lack of official data (the Republic of Turkey does not recognise SOGI as categories pertaining to discrimination and hate crimes),
c) Systematic lack of attention and reach by Turkish mainstream media sources to regions populated by religious and ethnic [Kurdish] minorities.

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News Media Analysis: “One less trans following each trans-related news”

Source: Michelle Demishevich, “Her trans haberinde bir trans eksildi,” (“One less trans with each trans-related news,”) P24, 13 October 2014, http://www.platform24.org/guncel/514/her-trans-haberinde-trans-kadinlar-bir-eksildi

The media has a direct responsibility for the discrimination and violence that target trans individuals.

For years, the media perceived news and updates on the LGBTI as if they were an undesirable workload. There are already very few journalists at news desks who have a mastery on the language of gender [as a social construct]. The making of LGBTI news requires significant sensitivity. Sentences should be carefully chosen. Yet a discourse of hatred, deployed through trans women, has been rampant in LGBTI news stories that appear in the media. Trans women have been represented as mean and wicked in news headings such as “transvestite terror,” “transvestites have spread horror,” “transvestites have entered into armed conflict with the police,” and so on. In the last few years, positive news stories by women who are sensitive to LGBTI, women, and gender have been effective, to a limited degree, in undoing this perception.

Whenever media published a story on trans women, a trans murder happened the very next day. Perhaps trans women were targeted by the news stories, or perhaps it was the deployment of the discourse of hatred that set the stage for hate crimes.

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A social selfie as reflected in Seda Sayan

Source: Birgül Demirtaş, “Seda Sayan aynasında sosyal selfie, (“A social selfie as reflected in Seda Sayan,”) Birgün, September 14, 2014,  http://www.birgun.net/news/view/seda-sayan-aynasinda-toplumsal-selfie/5467

Seda Sayan drew significant and rightfully widespread anger by hosting Sefer Çalınak, who murdered his two spouses, on her TV show and by presenting and advertising him as a killer with a smile[1]. However, we should approach this not as an individual issue but as part of the social hysteria that we live in. To treat the events as a case of calculated social hysteria that worships power and authority and that believes whoever holds power will provide us with clues about the bigger picture.

Indeed, the case of the police officer who took selfies[2] while a civilian was attempting suicide on the Bosphorus bridge on September 1st2 is directly related to the Seda Sayan phenomenon. Both [incidents] involve actors who are inured to death and who try to find fame and reputation even in an atmosphere of death. To try to get higher ratings while normalizing women’s murders by men is quite equivalent to the situation of the police officer who tried to increase his popularity by advertising to the world that he was witnessing a suicide.

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Tolga Yalçın On Figen’s Death: What if She Called?

Source: Tolga Yalçın, “Ya aradıysa?”, (“What if she called?”), kaosGL.org, 6 September 2014, http://kaosgl.org/sayfa.php?id=17469

What if she called?

She was my friend. She had told me so. “You are my friend,” she had said. I was interning at [LGBTI association] Kaos. I was excited. A little nervous as well. I had been sent to [LGBTT association] Pink Life, with the words, “Go, have a look, let me know what you find” to follow up on Umut G.’s Case.* (Case? Is that a social service term? Would that make me a case worker? I was actually Umut’s friend) We arranged meetings that lasted hours. She felt helpless. So much so that she was ready to like even the pigeons on that balcony. She was in shock. I am in shock now. The colonel-militarism had abducted her love, we knew this, we knew this, we knew this, but no one would listen. The colonel had abducted her Umut from her, the colonel had abducted the man she loved.

“I love him very much, I cannot bear him gone,” she had told me, on that balcony. She used to smoke long Marlboros. She would offer me those cigarettes of hers’ too. I wouldn’t accept, for she would smoke a lot and I feared that she would run out if I did. I wish now that her pack hadn’t run out. I was hungry then. Unemployed, or at any rate, about to be unemployed in a few months. I was in love, as deeply as she was in love with her Umut. Her lover had been abducted by his colonel father, heterosexism had claimed mine. “You will recover, you are my friend, I am here for you,” she told me then. I had smiled. This woman, who was undergoing great tumult herself, smoking long Marlboros to calm herself, was able to concern herself with my lover. But she was telling me that it would pass, looking at the pigeons. I came to know her then.

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