Trans women and the sins of the Turkish media

 
For years the media has viewed LGBTI-related stories as an inconvenience and a burden, and indeed news desks have very few journalists with a real command of the language of gender issues. Preparing news items on LGBTI issues requires real sensitivity, and language must be chosen with great care. Hate speech, particularly towards trans women, runs rampant through LGBTI-related news stories in the media today. Language used portrays trans women as evil and immoral, with headlines such as “transvestite terror”, “transvestites wreak havoc” or “transvestites clash with police”. In recent years, positive news reports by female journalists who are sensitive to the subject of LGBTI, women’s and gender issues have, to a limited extent, helped to break down this negative perception. 
 
Whenever the media publishes a report on trans women, a trans murder soon follows. Perhaps this is because trans women are targeted by the stories, or perhaps the hate speech used prepares the ground for hate crimes. 

Hypocritical morality 

For many years trans women have been relegated to the night and driven to sex work because of society's ridiculous concept of “traditional family structure and morality”, a concept that I will never understand. In other words, society’s unwritten rules made it impossible for a trans woman to live as part of that society. 

Trans women who refused to accept society’s hypocritical morality made their living as sex workers on the streets, in night clubs or in brothels. The moral and upright members of the society that treated these trans women as outcasts had no qualms coming to them at night and paying hefty sums to satisfy their sexual needs. In other words, trans women belonged to the night and should remain out of sight during the day. Those were the rules of the game. 

Over time, members of the LGBTI community joined together to fight for equality. They established associations and began to demand their constitutional rights and fundamental human rights. The media, which until then had always portrayed trans women as dangerous, was gradually learning to look at the other side of the coin. Journalists began to look into the reasons why trans women clashed with police or members of the public on the streets. 
 
 From hate speech to hate crime

Unfortunately the hate speech in the media has prepared the ground for hate crimes, a fact that we have seen not only in LGBTI or trans-related news stories but also in reports on the murders of women. As the language of the media is a masculine one, the expressions used in reports automatically defend the man. “Insane husband beat wife.” “Woman injured by husband for coming home late.” “Woman murdered by husband after fight with mother-in-law.” Such absurd statements in effect defend the crime and the perpetrator.  In other words the news reports in a media that bows down to the patriarchal society, male-dominated state and hegemonic system are written using masculine language. 
 
In this society being a man is very important, even something to be proud of. Fathers have always proudly shown their baby sons’ weenies to uncles and brothers. Circumcision ceremonies turn into celebrations. The same is not true, however, for girls. Indeed, having a daughter is sometimes considered shameful, a fact that is even reflected in our proverbs: “A real man will father a son.” 
 
Among these meaningless battles of ego, the greatest revolution has been carried out by trans women, who reject their “male” identity. They put aside their gender identity, entering a great struggle in order to freely live out their sexual orientation. 
 
As a result of the transphobia in the media and society's meaningless hatred, trans women are even subjected to the violence of 13-14 year old children in the street.
 
TV channel is accessory to murder

The media's patriarchal language, which is slowly beginning to change, has instigated many trans murders. Whenever the media publishes a trans-related news story, one more trans woman is lost. The first example that comes to mind is the incident in Avcılar, when a fascist, racist, fundamentalist and sexist group held demonstrations against the trans women in the area, chanting the slogan “we’re against prostitution, we don't want transvestites”, and forcing the trans women from their home. 

In reports on these demonstrations, the Kanal Türk television channel using biased and sexist language that targeted trans women. The then district governor of Avcılar took the demonstrations seriously and, with no legal basis, ordered the trans women’s house to be sealed for three months. With the hate speech that featured in its reporting on the incident over the following days, Kanal Türk prepared the ground for hate crimes. 
 
Left homeless, these trans women either moved to different cities or took refuge with other trans women. One of them however, a 25-year-old trans woman named Seda, was not so lucky. Struggling financially as a result of the incident, Seda was forced to live on the streets. Not long after the demonstrations her lifeless body was found in the courtyard of a mosque in Avcılar. Before she was murdered, Seda was raped, tortured and urinated upon. Her body was then cast aside in the mosque’s courtyard. Despite efforts of the police, those who committed the murder were never found. Following the criminal investigation, it was officially announced that there were five rapists. And among the accessories to this murder was Kanal Türk. 
 
In such incidents we can clearly see that the language used and the stories published in the media incite people to crime. Indeed, in some cases related to hate crimes defendants have claimed that they were influenced by reports in the media. 

Targeted by the media 

In order to be exempt from completing military service, gay men have to prove to the Turkish Armed Forces that they are homosexual, both with a written report from a doctor and with images, i.e. photographs or videos shot during sexual intercourse. A film, “Zenne”, gave a detailed criticism of the issue, in a story that examined the struggle to avoid military service through the experiences of a gay man. 
 
The media immediately stepped in, because the military is a taboo that can never be criticised. Using strongly critical language against homosexuality and transsexuality in relation to the film, institutions close to the army or government targeted LGBTI people. Journalist Şebnem Bursalı even wrote an article on the topic, declaring that the content of the movie was an out and out lie. In the article Bursalı claimed that she had a friend who worked as a doctor for the Turkish Armed Forces, arguing that such a procedure had never been in place and that the film was attempting to give the system a bad name through the army.
 
Soon afterwards, and just before the opening of the Izmir International Fair, Hilmi Çınar, an experienced journalist who passed away a few years ago, wrote an article that targeted women who are obliged to work in the sex industry, thus preparing the ground for hate crimes. In the article Çınar stated that sex workers damaged the cultural structure of the city and that their presence was nothing but environmental pollution. 
 
Considering these articles to be an order, our esteemed state officials took immediate action, raiding the houses of trans women living in Izmir and preventing them from working. It was the time of the International Fair, an event that makes a significant contribution to the economy of Izmir, and the presence of trans women would be “a disgrace in the eyes of the world”. 
 
The publication of these articles was followed by brutal murders of trans women in Izmir and in Kuşadası. Not a word was said either by those who targeted trans women in their columns or by the state officials who believed they were obediently carrying out their duties. The accessories to these murders hid themselves away like naughty little children. But we haven’t forgotten; we remember it as though it happened yesterday. Those newspapers targeted trans women and prepared the ground for their murders. 
 
LGBTI associations escalated their work on the issue and made criminal complaints against those responsible, with particularly important work carried out by Ankara’s Pembe Hayat (Pink Life) LGBTT Association. 

Whether it is because of the masculine language of the media or the morality of society, trans women have always been – and continue to be – killed. Kanal Türk did not shy away from targeting trans women in its broadcasts. Using images from events held during the annual Pride week, the channel implied that [Pride] was part of a plot by foreign elements to divide and destroy both the Republic of Turkey and the Islamic religion, and that homosexual and transsexual people were terrorists who wanted to destroy the state. 
 
The “transvestite” discourse and the legitimisation of crime 

It is almost impossible to count how many trans women have fallen victim to hate. The language used in reports of murders is heart-rending. When reporting on the murder of Dora Özer, stabbed 35 times in broad daylight, the Kuşadası reporter for the Doğan News Agency used ridiculous statements such as “Transvestite Muhammet Özer, nicknamed Dora, murdered.” As this was a report from a news agency it featured everywhere in the media. Journalists who were ignorant of the language of gender helped to spread this error. Dora Özer was killed once again due to the error of a journalist. Reading between the lines, we see that a hidden message was being given to society. The story contains an accusatory and dogmatic tone that says, "Don’t forget: if you reject your identity as a man and become a transvestite, this is how you will be punished.”  

While trans murders continue to be committed and the masculine language of the media remains unchanged, trans women are successfully finding places for themselves in the male-dominated world of business. In many areas of life – from textiles to art and from the media to health – educated and competent trans women are fearlessly taking on transphobic perceptions and morality. It is now possible to see trans women acting in blockbuster films and popular TV shows, working in hospitals as doctors and nurses, and performing on stage or hosting shows at Istanbul’s most upscale venues. And then there is yours truly, working as a journalist in the male-dominated media in a humble attempt to make a contribution to this struggle. 

Being trans in the business world 

Trying to survive as a trans woman in the world of business is very difficult. Here too society, in all its hypocrisy, won’t leave us alone. What sense can we make of a society that treats trans women as outcasts because they are supposedly immoral for having been driven to sex work, but that again treats them as outcasts when they work in those acceptably “moral” and “normal” positions of the business world, the rules of which are set by society itself. In other words there is no place for trans women, neither on the street nor in the business world. What kind of pathetic, two-faced, immoral society is this?
 
Yes none of this, none of these meaningless games can or will destroy us:  “this is just the beginning; on with the struggle.” There will be end to our struggle until the constitution recognises our sexual orientation, gender identity and guarantees our equal rights. Each of the LGBTI people who were at the frontline of the Gezi protests in the fight against the system and police violence is a member of this country and of this society. In an environment where right- and left-wing parties alike are homophobic and transphobic, the LGBTI community has begun to develop its own policies. Gay, lesbian and trans people actively involved in politics are fighting for their most fundamental rights.  Yet unfortunately the system does not even guarantee them the most basic of rights, such as the right to housing and the right to work.

 “We don’t rent to trans people” 

To give an example from personal experience, I have been unable to find a place to rent for almost three years. Why? Because estate agents and landlords say that they don’t rent to trans people. As for employment opportunities, they tend to be limited to sex work.  I worked in a media organisation for little money and without social security for two years, before being summarily dismissed with the claim that I had not followed “professional ethics”. This was the start a very difficult time for me. I had been considered ethical when I was enjoying success in the world media, so what made them decide that I was no longer in line with professional ethics?  I'm not sure this is something I will ever understand. 
 
While writing this article I was shocked by the news of another murder. A trans woman who had had no choice but to work in the sex industry had been found dead in her home. Stabbed to death in the Istanbul district of Şişli, Çingene Gül had become the most recent victim of hate. The police opened an investigation into the murder, because one of the criteria of the progress report for EU accession is the topic of LGBTI. The state is therefore more sensitive to this issue now than it was in the past. 
 
Why did Damla Araz disappear?

As I reported in a recent article for T24, a trans woman sex worker has been missing for approximately one month. Damla Araz was beaten and tortured by three trans women and three men. Three weeks later she left her regular hairdresser and has not been heard from since. The media has either overlooked this serious incident or does not consider it important. Why? Because the person in question is a trans woman. So why did Damla Araz disappear? Was it a warning not to file a complaint against those who had beaten her, or was she kidnapped by Islamists? For the time being these questions remain unanswered, because no official investigation has been opened into Damla Araz’s disappearance. For this to happen the police say that a member of her immediate family must report her missing. Even though there is no law stating such a requirement, we are once again faced with the arbitrary practices of the police and the public prosecutor. 
 
Takvim’s “Trans-Mutt” headline 

Despite all of this, good things also happen. Trans women are featuring in the media in “pink news” stories.  The first trans beauty contest and trans fashion show saw trans women featured on the colourful pages of newspapers. Yet the male-dominated media stepped in here too. The newspaper Takvim plagiarised a T24 article, changing certain sections and using transphobic expressions that targeted trans women. With the headline “Trans-İt” [Trans-Mutt] the paper laid the foundation for hate crimes. The article openly and unashamedly targeted Boysan Yakar, advisor to the mayor of the municipality of Şişli, and even claimed that the Republican People’s Party (CHP) was not happy with this situation. The fact that the CHP has still not made any official statement regarding its position makes things worse. 
 
In spite of everything, gay, lesbian and transgender people who are constantly portrayed as outcasts by the collaborative efforts of the male-dominated system and media continue their daily struggle for their right to life. They continue their tireless struggle despite the marginalisation and violence that they face in the streets, at school, at work, in the metro, on the bus, in shops, at night and in clubs. 
This article is dedicated to all trans women murdered as a result of transphobia.
 
(English translation by KATE FERGUSON)

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