Pride march arrests highlight systematic challenges for LGBTQ rights in Turkey
ANKARA — Since they began in 1970, Pride marches have brought colorful gatherings to city centers around the world. In Turkey, Pride marches tend to bring security lockdowns to urban areas, as in Istanbul’s Taksim Square this past weekend.
Authorities banned Pride marches in both Izmir and Istanbul, where Pride events have been prohibited every year since 2015. Despite the bans, small groups of LGBTQ rights activists organized several marches and were met with swift police interventions, resulting in about 60 detentions last week.
Among the detained were journalists covering the marches and lawyers documenting human rights violations.
Yet members of Turkey’s LGBTQ community said Pride march detentions are only the most visible examples of state repression, warning that beneath the symbolic protest images are lives marked by social exclusion, economic difficulties, unemployment and, at times, death.
Earlier last month, in Edirne, a young trans woman named Helin broadcasted her suicide live on TikTok.
"They don't give us the right to live. My family doesn't accept me. Bye,” she said, before jumping off the 13th floor of an apartment building.
Likewise, in February, a trans woman named Cansu committed suicide in Izmir. In January, a trans woman named Eylül Cansın ended her life by jumping from the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul.
Year of the Family program
Such events take place against the backdrop of the government’s “Year of the Family” program, in which Turkish Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pointed to LGBTQ culture as one of the reasons for the nation’s failing birth rates.
“The primary target of gender neutralization policies, in which LGBT is used as a battering ram, is the family and the sanctity of the family institution,” Erdoğan said in January.
The Turkish leader has previously called LGBTQ individuals “perverts”, and has also coupled the community with opposition parties in a pejorative manner during election campaigns.
In this current political landscape, human rights defender Marsel Tuğkan Gündoğdu said, “being able to breathe is resistance in itself.”
“The visibility of LGBTI+ individuals is systematically suppressed in many areas, from employment in the public sector to recruitment in the private sector, from the right to education to housing,” he told Turkey recap. “We are facing not just individual discrimination, but institutionalized exclusion."
E.I., a gay academic working at a private university in Ankara, said he conceals his identity to keep his job – and requested anonymity for the same reason. E.I. maintains he does not experience discrimination at his university, but has faced difficulties at universities outside of large cities.
"These universities constitute eighty percent of the universities in Turkey,” E.I. said. “So, as an LGBTI+ academic, I can only exist in perhaps 20 percent of them."
As a result, and despite his professional achievements, E.I. said he cannot be his true self in many public spaces, forcing him to self-isolate.
Mixing his professional and social life presents many hazards, he said, citing a recent embassy reception as an example. E.I. said he was dancing to music at the event when a man suddenly confronted him verbally in what he described as a “homophobic attack”.
He said he experiences such incidents frequently in public spaces.
Anti-LGBTQ pressure rising
In recent months, it has become increasingly likely that anti-LGBTQ political rhetoric may translate to new anti-LGBTQ policies.
HÜDA PAR, a conservative Kurdish party in the governing alliance with Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), reportedly submitted a law proposal targeting trans individuals and criminalizing “indecent acts” associated with LGBTQ individuals.
Some lawmakers expect the draft bill to be discussed in parliament in the coming days. While the legal implications remain unclear, initial reports suggest the bill would raise the minimum age for gender transition procedures from 18 to 21.
The draft bill would also amend the Turkish Penal Code to increase the jail sentences on LGBTQ associated acts such as “exhibitionism” and same-sex wedding or engagement ceremonies, according to reporting by KAOS GL, a prominent LGBTQ rights organization whose X account and website were blocked in Turkey by court orders last month.
Tuğkan Gündoğdu said the repression of various dissident and opposition groups has increased since the March 19 arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu.
"In this period, where security policies are reshaping society, LGBTI+ individuals face the threat of losing both their visibility and their fundamental rights even more,” he said. “The draft laws … [that] aim to criminalize LGBTI+ individuals by targeting them at the constitutional level, are a clear example of this process.”
E.I., the academic, said the current political climate is the culmination of a “very long” string of events and ideological movements that have produced an increasingly hostile environment for LGBTQ communities in Turkey and elsewhere.
"There is a very big regression at the level of governments, not only in Turkey, but all over the world regarding LGBTI+ rights,” E.I. told Turkey recap. “The clearest example of this is America!”
He added, “The rights struggles of LGBTI+ individuals since the 1970s, the significant gains they have achieved … are unfortunately being taken away one-by-one in such a period.”
Reflecting further, E.I. said the current moment is full of contradictions. He noted there are many high-profile LGBTQ celebrities in Turkey’s public sphere and listed them off.
"The biggest diva of this country is a transvestite,” he said, referring to Bülent Ersoy.
He then added, Turkey’s “most legendary artist”, Zeki Müren, is gay, and choreographer Mecnun Giasar danced in a dress at the Fenerbahçe basketball team’s championship celebration.
“Politics needs to leave the people of this country alone. Leave them alone, then you will see that society will find its own way,” E.I. said.
Asked if he sees a future for LGBTQ individuals in Turkey, E.I. says he does not want to live in another country. Responding to the same question, Tuğkan Gündoğdu said:
"The current political atmosphere in Turkey makes it almost impossible for LGBTI+ individuals to make long-term life plans. Instead of fostering hope or dreaming about the future, we are often trying to address the most basic security concerns. With the deepening of authoritarianism, the lives of LGBTI+ individuals have become not only insecure but also unpredictable."
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