Visibility Matters, Presence Troubles: Religious Politics, Homophobia, and Resilience among LGBT Groups in Turkey

Religious forms of homophobia and political-ideological homophobia come together and inform the recent state homophobia in Turkey. The LGBTI rights, queer bodies and lives, and forms of representation are framed as Western impositions on what’s local and authentic: A Turkish Islamism that is intensely against gender and sexual equality. The condemnation of homosexuality has become a part of Islamist politics in order to divert people’s criticism, complaints and dissent from the 20 years of uninterrupted AKP rule and the deepening socio-economic inequalities. As it was put in a public speech by a former interior minister, “Do we have LGBT kind of people in our history? This phenomenon can destroy our family structure. Foreign powers are supporting [it] in order to dislocate Turkey. In the language of Islamist politicians, homosexuality appears as one of the greatest threats to the welfare and independence of the nation, right after separatist terrorists and other Western-led traitors - if not lumped together with these categories. LGBTI citizens in Turkey increasingly have to deal with religion in their daily lives and find a satisfactory answer to the inescapable question of whether they have faith. The tacit agreement and mutual exclusion between sexual minorities and the devout Islamist institutions and groups was disrupted by the politicization of queers after the Gezi Resistance in 2013. What made queers bodies, lifestyles, and political actions so central to the current governmental crisis in Turkey? What were the conditions that made them so vulnerable and, from the point of view of the state so illegitimate and threatening now? After decades of mutual exclusion and political invisibility, why are queers in Turkey causing panic among Islamist cadres? Focusing on the Turkish case, this paper argues that despite the state's avowed (yet contested) secularism, religion can function as a defining element in the formation of discursive and embodied Others when ideological reinforcement is needed. This paper also aims to demonstrate the religious aspect of the increasingly authoritarian and oppressive state policies (state homophobia) and hostile cultural-political rhetoric (state-sponsored homophobia) against queer individuals and communities in Turkey.