SITUATION OF GAYS IN TURKISH ARMY
October 2006
Turkish military still uses DSM II (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) dating from 1968 whereas the medical community currently uses DSM IV-2000. According to DSM II homosexuality is a psychosexual disorder and those who have this “pathology” are considered “unfit to serve” in the Turkish Armed Forces. Exemption from military service on the grounds of homosexuality is an extremely difficult and humiliating process in Turkey: one is required to submit photographs or videos graphically displaying sexual intercourse with another man and/or submit to an anal examination that supposedly yields proof of passive anal sex. These are not guaranteed ways of being exempt from service; they are practiced arbitrarily at the whim of whatever military authority and are used more as a degrading strategy of systematic humiliation than anything else.
European Parliament might help Turkish gay people by raising the issue of forced physical examinations with the Turkish government and Parliament since reference to the DSMII constitutes discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
It is also important to encourage the Turkish government to put an end to discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation encountered by people working in the army. It has been reported that when found out to be gay, soldiers get fired from their position. This contravenes earlier decisions by the European Court of Human Rights.
Turkish military still uses DSM II (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) dating from 1968 whereas the medical community currently uses DSM IV-2000. According to DSM II homosexuality is a psychosexual disorder and those who have this “pathology” are considered “unfit to serve” in the Turkish Armed Forces. Exemption from military service on the grounds of homosexuality is an extremely difficult and humiliating process in Turkey: one is required to submit photographs or videos graphically displaying sexual intercourse with another man and/or submit to an anal examination that supposedly yields proof of passive anal sex. These are not guaranteed ways of being exempt from service; they are practiced arbitrarily at the whim of whatever military authority and are used more as a degrading strategy of systematic humiliation than anything else.
European Parliament might help Turkish gay people by raising the issue of forced physical examinations with the Turkish government and Parliament since reference to the DSMII constitutes discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
It is also important to encourage the Turkish government to put an end to discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation encountered by people working in the army. It has been reported that when found out to be gay, soldiers get fired from their position. This contravenes earlier decisions by the European Court of Human Rights.