ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the recognition of LGBT people and their rights constitutes a significant issue of the democratization process in Turkey. Although LGBT people have started advocating for their rights since the beginning of the 1990s, their demands have been regarded as marginal issues in Turkey until very recently. The leaders of the LGBT movement in Turkey define the misrecognition of LGBT people as “the last denial of the Turkish Republic” (Erol, 2008). However, this situation has been slowly changing through the growing number of LGBT groups and organizations throughout the country and their increasingly powerful calls for recognition. Yet, until now, the Turkish government has rejected the demands of LGBT people, portraying rather a quite conservative attitude.
It seems that the political struggle for the recognition of LGBT people and their rights will increasingly become a topic of public and political debates in the near future. The chapter aims at an analysis of present competing discourses on the issue in the legal sphere. The data used includes decisions of courts and public prosecutors on the issue; press statements and publications of Turkish LGBT organizations, and media reports.
