Turkish gay

The Turkish authorities have used the COVID pandemic to selectively ban peaceful protests organized by LGBT groups, students, and political opposition parties. Censorship is another significant challenge for the LGBT community in Turkey. Discover Istanbul's top gay Turkish baths, hammams, and bathhouses. Check reviews, photos, opening hours, and more info on Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in Turkey face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBTQ residents, though the overall situation is considered to be less repressive when compared to most other Muslim-majority countries.

[2]. There are many LGBTQI+ organizations in Turkey that struggle with them, such as KaosGL in Ankara, Lambda Istanbul, or SPoD in Istanbul. Average Türk frowns upon foreign people. Gay Istanbul Complete Guide. Find new gay bars, clubs, saunas, gyms and gay-rated hotels in Istanbul. Real reviews, videos & map. Military service is mandatory for all Turkish men - they can only escape it if they are ill, disabled or homosexual.

But proving homosexuality is a humiliating ordeal. Ahmet, a young man in his 20s, told officials he was gay at the first opportunity after he was called up, as he and other conscripts underwent a health check. He was then asked to provide a picture of himself dressed as a woman. Ahmet hopes this will give him what he needs - a "pink certificate", which will declare him homosexual and therefore exempt from military service.

Over the years, gay life has been becoming more visible in Turkey's big cities. Cafes and clubs with an openly gay clientele have been opening in Istanbul, and last summer's gay pride march - unique in the Muslim world - was the largest ever. But while there are no specific laws against homosexuality in Turkey, openly gay men are not welcome in the army. At the same time, they have to "prove" their homosexuality in order to avoid military service.

Gokhan, conscripted in the late s, very quickly realised that he was not made for the army. Last summer's gay pride march in Istanbul was the largest ever held in Turkey. As a gay man he was also afraid of being bullied, and after little more than a week he plucked up the courage to declare his sexual orientation to his commander.

He had gone prepared with explicit photographs of himself having sex with another man, having heard that it would be impossible to get out of military service without them. The photographs satisfied the military doctors. Gokhan was handed his pink certificate and exempted from military service. But it was a terrible experience, he says,. Because somebody holds those photographs. They can show them at my village, to my parents, my relatives.

Gay men say the precise nature of the evidence demanded depends on the whim of the military doctor or commander. Sometimes, instead of photographs, doctors rely on a "personality test". Openly gay men in the army would cause "disciplinary problems", he says, and would be impractical creating the need for "separate facilities, separate dormitories, showers, training areas". He says that if a gay man keeps his sexuality secret, he can serve - an echo of the US military's recently dropped Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.

The social stigma associated with homosexuality in Turkey is such that outside the young and urbanised circles in big cities like Istanbul and Ankara, it is hard to imagine a man declaring that he's gay when he's not. However, the possibility causes the military a lot of anxiety. On Gokhan's pink certificate, his status reads: ''psychosexual disorder''.

is it safe to be gay in turkey

And next to that, in brackets, ''homosexuality''. Turkey's military hospitals still define homosexuality as an illness, taking a version of a document by the American Psychiatric Association as their guide. Some people in Turkey say with resentment that gay men are actually lucky, as at least they have one possible route out of military service - they don't have to spend months in the barracks, or face the possibility of being deployed to fight against Kurdish militants.

It is not uncommon for employers in Turkey to question job applicants about their military service - and a pink certificate can mean a job rejection. One of Gokhan's employers found out about it not by asking Gokhan himself but by asking the army. After that, he says, he was bullied. His co-workers made derogatory comments as he walked past, others refused to talk to him.