End of the rainbow: How Turkey is lagging behind on LGBTQ+ rights

What happens when an ever more visible LGBTQ+ community of activists and creatives comes up against an ever more repressive regime? For refugees in Turkey, queer or trans, life is becoming increasingly similar to the reality they chose to flee from in their homeland. Debbie Luxon reports

Istiklal Street, Istanbul’s main shopping area, is packed during the 2013 Trans Pride Parade (AFP/Getty)

The 2003 LGBTQ+ Pride march in Istanbul had roughly 20 people attend. People walked alongside the march on the pavements with sunglasses so they couldn’t be recognised. In 2014, 100,000 people took part – but that year, the marchers were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Istanbul is the queer capital of Turkey, and queer rights, like politics more widely, have had huge peaks and troughs there over the last 30 years.

The recent degradation of rights started in 2013 with the Gezi Park protests ending in police rioting. An attempted coup in 2016 left the country in a self-declared state of emergency lasting two years. Since then it has become harder to operate legitimately as anything that could be labelled anti-government, which effectively bars any form of “protest” including Pride. In some Turkish communities LGBTQ+ people are still seen to corrupt society.