We will hold the 11th Trans Pride Week on June 16-22 and will be culminating with the march on Sunday. This year, we come together with the theme that symbolizes resistance and the search for freedom: REBELLION

Lubunya,

We know, you just wanted to be yourself. First they told you to “change”, then “shut up”, and finally “disappear”.

Despite all this, you continued to whisper your own name against every identity imposed on you. This is the real rebellion. Because rebellion is not just about shouting, sometimes it is about continuing to speak with your own voice, sometimes in fear, but still.

Those who find you lovable within the molds they find reasonable and reject you the moment you overflow from there, let them display their hypocrisy under the guise of the “Year of Family”. Your loyalty to yourself has proven stronger than all the suppression efforts. We admire you.

The state mobilizes its resources and institutions to establish control over our bodies. You are faced with a state that is hostile even to your hormones. As if you are a stranger to your body. As if a board should decide on your life, not you. We have never fit into the boundaries they are trying to confine our bodies to, and we never will!

We are rebelling against the year of the family and defending our lives. The family model sanctified by the state is the gilded face of a cisheterosexist, misogynist and male-dominated order. While this order condemns women to give birth to workers or soldiers for the interests of capital and the state, it also serves as the moral glue of society with its policies of antagonizing LGBTI+ individuals. Squeezing the concept of “family” into a cis hetero-patriarchal mold means ignoring trans existences, making us invisible and usurping our rights.

In these days when detentions, house raids have increased, torture and attempts are being made to ban going out, our flags and banners,our existence has been targeted and constituted as a crime. If our existence is a threat, our body is on the agenda and our words are still subject to censorship, then we REBEL.

In a world surrounded by massacre laws, bans, bombs, occupations, blockades and hatred, we, trans people, are advocates of peace. We cry out for freedom, equality, and peace not only for ourselves but also for the people of Palestine, Kurdistan and Turkey. Peace is not just the absence of war; it is justice, honor and equal life.

And we dedicate our rebellion to captive queers and those who continue the resistance inside. Greetings to all captive queers who continue to resist despite isolation, torture, strip searches, visit bans, and all kinds of intimidation efforts and whose freedoms have been taken away! We will continue to carry on the rebellions of all captive LGBTI+ individuals on the streets. WE REBEL against dungeons, oppression, torture, well-type prisons and isolation!

We are sex workers whose homes were sealed and evicted and thus were displaced from their homes and work places, women who struggle with the violence of their husbands, fathers, and lovers; we are lesbians schmesbians, we are sissies; we are the queers who do not fit into your binary gender regime, who cannot be digested by state violence and who have a head and ass that do not play by the rules. We are recreating our bodies that have been exposed to violence and exploitation with our struggle and solidarity. WE REBELLED against all your prohibitions. We did not give up the streets, squares or nights; we continued to be each other’s breath with our slogans and flags. We found a way to overcome the bans on actions and police blockades, we leaked through the cracks even if you blockaded the entire city. Now, despite all the prohibitions, we are waving our queer flags everywhere,even inside the universities. This year, let’s Rebel with our joy, our humor, and our bravery!

We are no longer coming to be seen, but to demand an account of those you have made invisible. We are coming to be the nightmare of those who see us and cannot digest us. Because we are not new to these streets. We are just walking without bowing anymore

We are not silent, we are not afraid, we rebel!

We don’t obey, we rebel!

We are rebelling against the family, the state, the trustee, the perpetrator of violence, the lover, the boss, male violence, whorephobia, transphobia, racism, hivphobia, hostility towards refugees and lgbti+phobia!

We are not disciplined, we are not reprimanded, we are rebelling against bigotry!

Let’s meet at the 11th Istanbul Trans Pride Week and the 11th Istanbul Trans Pride March.

#rebellion