We are closely monitoring with concern the repercussions of discrimination, hate speech, and nationalism fueled by the state on the LGBTI+ movement, especially after 2015. We believe that the reactions to slogans related to Kurdistan shouted at LGBTI+ events in recent years are not independent of the political context. We are issuing this statement to both speak out against this trend and emphasize that homonationalism will not prevail in Turkish LGBTI+ activism.
Externalization of the Problem and Denial of Existence
Similar to the exclusion methods of heterosexism against the LGBTI+ community, the official ideology also attempts to suppress and eliminate identities that are not Turkish and Muslim-Sunni through methods such as denial, assimilation, and neglect. Demands for the democratic resolution of the Kurdish issue and the LGBTI+ struggle for rights are considered as problems created and incited by external forces. The issues are externalized, and the demands for rights are ignored. Today, not only Kurds but also LGBTQ+ individuals are being discussed and debated within the framework of securitization. The ruling party and its allies, judiciary members, state institutions, and pro-government media position Kurds as a threat against the nation, while LGBTQ+ individuals are portrayed as a threat to the family. The president, who before coming to power visited various safe LGBTI+ spaces, saying “I ask for your vote, your heart, your support,” and emphasized the need to legally safeguard the rights and freedoms of homosexuals, stating, “We find the treatment they sometimes receive on certain television screens inhumane,” and who, as one of the actors in the resolution process, stated that the Kurdish issue is not the problem of just a part but of the entire nation, and explained his approach with the words “The Kurdish issue is my problem;” today, intervenes even in the act of LGBT+ individuals having tea and attempts to imprison Kurds.
Impunity Policies
Effective investigation processes are not conducted following hate crimes, and even if perpetrators are prosecuted, the absence of a law specifically aimed at preventing hate crimes allows discrimination to be legitimized in the punishment process by applying reductions such as “unjust provocation” or “good conduct,” often resulting in impunity in the trial process. In trans hate crimes, the individuals committing the crime are not identified. The state’s failure to consistently record, investigate, or punish violence against transgender individuals and trans murders contributes to an increase in trans crimes and the impunity of hate crimes. Failure to effectively investigate forced disappearances, torture, murder, deaths in custody, and extrajudicial executions against Kurds leads to perpetrators being rewarded with impunity or promotion. The bodies of people killed by the state are delivered to their relatives in cardboard boxes years later. Today, thousands of Kurds do not even have graves.
Right to Grieve
The state’s decision-making power on whose life is worth living, how one will live, how one will die, and how one will be mourned or not after death is a commonality in the practices against both groups. LGBTI+ individuals and Kurds are isolated and targeted by the state. The government seeks to discipline both groups through the treatment of the deceased. The bodies of the deceased, burial rights, and funeral procedures are used as a tool to punish the Kurdish people and LGBTI+ individuals. When the state-appointed imams refuse to perform funeral prayers for those deemed unacceptable, both groups seek to assert their mourning rights and to bury their dead.
Attempts of Gentrification
In Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, displacements of trans individuals on Purtelas, Baskurt Street, Kazanci Slope, Ulker Street, and Cihangir, and the forced displacement of Kurds in Alipasa and Lalebey neighborhoods in Diyarbakir’s Sur district are carried out with the aim of gentrification by a common perpetrator. These practices, which focus on homogenization, social-spatial engineering products, aim to push these groups out of the city, isolate them, erase cultural heritage and memory, obstruct organizational possibilities/opportunities, and enrich the state and capitalists through rent. The practices of Team A in Esat-Eryaman and the practices of security forces in Kurdistan are just a few examples of this.
Relationship Between Palestine and Kurdistan
The lack of effective confrontation with the past in Turkey, the reproduction of denial, the covering up of colonialism, and the normalization of impunity prevent the correct characterization of the policies pursued by Israel in Palestine and Turkey in Kurdistan. There are parallels between the settlements built by Israel as a result of occupation in Palestine and the Eastern Reform Plan, General Inspectorates, and state of emergency practices implemented in Turkey. The appointment of trustees to Kurdish provinces by the state is just one of the practices among occupation practices. These practices can be seen in the displacement of non-assimilated Kurds, the placement of Turks in vacant areas, the ban on Kurdish, and the removal of Kurdish geographical names.
Monopoly of Naming
When individuals subjected to discrimination express their demands for social change, dominant groups intentionally mislabel these segments to maintain existing inequalities. The insistence of groups holding the monopoly of naming on calling women “ladies,” homosexuals “faggots,” trans individuals “perverts,” and Kurds “Easterners” or “of Kurdish origin” is also related to this purpose.
Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Jews, Christians, Shi’ah, women, LGBTI+ individuals, disabled individuals, and animals are integral parts of society. We embrace all our identities against the official ideology of singularity! While forming partnerships among groups subjected to pressure may seem insufficient to resist similar forms of domination alone, it is essential to name the reasons and purposes behind oppression, violence, and discrimination, reveal practices stemming from the same root, and establish partnerships among these groups. We defend the right of the Kurdish people, who have strongly opposed assimilation for a century, to determine their own destiny. Additionally, we argue that the Kurdish issue, even if there is no common ground between the forms of violence, oppression, and discrimination directed at identities and communities we identify with, should be the agenda of all people living in Turkey. We remind those who ignore LGBTI+ individuals that we are always here and will always be here. Once again, we shout: “Kurdistan exists, LGBTI+ individuals exist!”
TRANS PRIDE İSTANBUL 