Turkey’s anti-LGBTQ protest reflects the country’s political shift

• The Big Family Gathering march in the conservative heart of Istanbul attracted nationalists, hard-line Islamists and conspiracy theorists.
• Demonstrators demand a ban on what they consider gay propaganda and to outlaw LGBTQ organizations.
• Turkey ranked second to last, ahead of only Azerbaijan, in its most recent 49-country legal equality index.

When several thousand demonstrators gathered and marched in Turkey on Sunday. To demand a ban on what they consider gay propaganda and the outlawing of LGBTQ organisations, the 25-year-old translator by day and trans drag performer by night felt overwhelming panic and anxiety.

The Big Family Gathering march drew parents with children, nationalists, hard-line Islamists, and conspiracy theorists to Istanbul’s conservative heart. Turkey’s media watchdog gave the event the government’s blessing by including a promotional video in its list of public service announcements for broadcasters that called LGBTQ people a “virus.”

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“We must make every effort to defend ourselves against this LGBT. “We need to get rid of it,” said Mehmet Yalcin, 21, a construction worker who attended the event wearing a black headband printed with Islam’s testimony of faith. “We are sick of and deeply concerned that our children are being encouraged and drawn to this.”

Images from the gathering terrified Willie Ray, a nonbinary drag performer, and Willie Ray’s mother, who was in tears after speaking with her child. The fear was not unfounded. In its most recent 49-country legal equality index, the Europe branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association ranked Turkey second to last, ahead of only Azerbaijan, saying LGBTQ people faced “countless hate crimes.”

“I feel like I could be publicly lynched,” Willie Ray said, describing his daily fear of living in Istanbul. On New Year’s Eve, the performer recalls leaving a nightclub while still wearing makeup and rushing to catch a taxi as strangers on the street yelled slurs and “tried to hunt me, basically.”

The march on Sunday was the largest anti-LGBTQ protest of its kind in Turkey, where civil rights for the LGBTI+ community — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and other gender identities and sexual orientations — have been under attack in the years since an estimated 100,000 people celebrated Pride in Istanbul in 2014.

The anti-LGBTQ march went on without any police intervention, a clear indication of the shift. In contrast, LGBTQ groups’ freedom to assemble has been severely restricted since 2015, with officials citing both security and moral grounds.

Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the planned Pride march that year. The event has since been banned by government officials. Activists attempted to gather anyway, and over 370 people were arrested in Istanbul in June.

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s anti-LGBTQ views have also become more strident over time. Before the 2002 election that brought the Justice and Development Party (AKP) he co-founded to power, a younger Erdogan said at a televised campaign event that he found mistreatment of gay people inhumane and legal protections for them in Turkey a “must.”

“And now, 20 years into this, you have an entirely different president that seems to be mobilizing based on these dehumanizing, criminal approaches to the LGBTQ movement itself,” said Mine Eder, a political science professor at Bogazici University in Istanbul.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has called LGBTQ people “perverts.” In 2020, Erdogan defended the head of religious affairs after he claimed homosexuality “brings disease and causes the generation to decay.” While championing his long-held belief that the identities of women are rooted in motherhood and family, the Turkish leader last year urged people to dismiss what “lesbians schmesbians” say.

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