How Erdogan’s win makes Turkey a much more dangerous place to be LGBT+

Fresh off his re-election victory on Sunday evening, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan went through the motions of declaring the vote a win for all Turks who participated. “There will be no losers in such a victory,” he said, standing atop a bus in Istanbul’s Kagithane district.

But clearly there are losers, especially Turkey’s LGBT+ community. They have been systematically targeted by security forces for years, and demonised by the country’s right-wing political leadership in the weeks before the vote. And all signs suggest they will remain a punching bag for Turkey’s right-wing government.

Just minutes after Erdogan’s obligatory pablum on Sunday, his upbeat bus speech took a dark detour. He began accusing the opposition centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), the nationalist Iyi party and the Kurdish-led People’s Democratic Party (HDP) of being fronts for a nebulous LGBT+ agenda.

“This CHP, are they pro-LGBT?” Erdogan asked the crowd of cheering supporters. “The HDP, are they pro-LGBT? Iyi Party, are they pro-LGBT?” He then referred to his own Justice and Development Party (AKP) and his far-right coalition partner National Movement Party (MHP).

“Could LGBTs infiltrate the AKP? The MHP?” Erdogan roared, in rhetoric that was so clearly provocative that the translator on Al Jazeera International, owned by the president’s Qatari allies, stopped translating it into English. “For us, family is sacred. Nobody can insult the family.”

The post-election rhetoric prompted fears of an even more widespread targeting of a vulnerable minority, and possible violence against individual members of the community.

“The people who have to hide their identity and cannot socialise with people like themselves are much more vulnerable and feel more anxiety,” says Ogulcan Yediveren, of SPOD, an LGBT+ advocacy organisation. “I have a community. Somehow I find emotional support and I can reach safe places where I can be myself.”

Erdogan stayed aloof from Turkey’s once-tolerated LGBT+ community in his years as mayor of Istanbul and prime minister. But over the past decade, Erdogan has taken up a more intolerant stance. It was part of a rebranding of the leader. Over the years he has come to embrace the militaristic nationalism that had been Turkey’s dominant ideology for decades, infusing it with a heavy dose of religiously influenced family values.

In 2015, his security forces banned and began violently cracking down on an annual pride parade that had been one of the most celebrated and colourful in the Muslim world. Meanwhile, the government allowed thousands of people last year to march in a rally demanding that the government outlaw media with LGBT+ content.

The 2023 election campaign should have focused on ways to ameliorate the country’s economy and repair the damage from the cataclysmic 6 February earthquakes. Instead, Erdogan and his allies repeatedly accused their political rivals, led  by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, of homosexuality. “We know that Mr Kemal is an LGBT person,” Erdogan said at a 6 May rally. “We are against this.”

It is an ominous sign that he will continue to harp on about the LGBT+ matter after winning the vote. “It’s the worst time ever for LGBTI community,” says Yasemin Oz, a human rights lawyer based in Istanbul. “During the election campaign, they targeted the people. After the election in his first speech, he continued mentioning the LGBTI and targeting the community. We don’t know what will come next.”

Anxiety over their future status and rights has overwhelmed many people in the community. Yediveren says his organisation operates a hotline used by LGBT+ individuals around the country who need legal or emotional support. “They call us because they feel very isolated and lonely,” he says. “They don’t have any space where they can be themselves. The fear of being known by others is very stressful.”

Yediveren says he believes that Erdogan is a real homophobe and not just posturing for political gain. He and his conservative allies may feel hostility toward any sexuality or sexual orientation that does not lead to procreation. He speculates that the only reason Erdogan has not outright called for a ban on homosexuality is that it would prompt outrage in the West. Their aim for now is to silence and marginalise LGBT+ individuals.

“They are against us being political and demanding our rights,” Yediveren says. “The message is always to do whatever you want in your private space but don’t be visible in the public space. They are trying to oppress us and make us invisible without banning us.”

In recent weeks, investigators have descended on the offices of advocacy and rights groups, even social and psychological support services, rummaging through files with a possible eye towards shutting them down, handing them stiff fines or arresting activists.

Oz says she has traded words in the past with officials close to Erdogan’s AKP and always received the same message. “Stay in the closet and there won’t be a problem,” she says she has been told. “But don’t go into the street.”

But rather than stay hidden, leaders of the constellation of organisations advocating for LGBT+ rights plan to reach out. Yediveren says the groups should form partnerships with other women’s and minority rights and continue advocacy and lobbying work. Any halt in their efforts might mean more frightened individuals retreating into despair and isolation. As Aids activists decades ago used to declare, silence equals death.

“Worried is the word I would use to describe my feelings,” says Oz. “We are waiting and we will see what happens. But we will not stop our activities.”