IGLYO HEARING - TURKEY REPORT (2002)
IGLYO (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth Organisation) organised a Hearing on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in the Accession Countries to the European Union, on Friday 18 January 2002 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Kaos GL handout and Turkey LGBT Report prepared and presented by Yeşim T. Başaran from Kaos GL.
GLBT Youth Situation in Turkey
There is not any regulation on queer citizens in state laws and constitution of Turkish Republic. Homosexuality isn't mentioned in terms of neither aiming to protect non-heterosexual citizens against discrimination or punishing homosexual act. However it is a common use to have an article that regulates "shameful offense" and to utilize this kind of articles for covering discrimination against both young and adult non-heterosexual people both in governmental and non-governmental institutions. The administration of student dormitories is one of the most striking examples of the usage of this "shameful offense" act.
Age of consent for heterosexual and so-called heterosexual citizens is 18.
General Public Opinion on Homosexuality
In general, people have usual kind of prejudices against non-heterosexuality and non-heterosexual people. Homosexuality is perceived as a perversion, at least an illness, in general. Some suppose that homosexuality can be a sexual fantasy especially for the upper class, not a sexual identity. They are a few, like just a kind of "lunatic in the neighborhood". Your butcher, the nurse in the hospital or "normal" looking neighbor cannot be a "faggot" or lesbian, but a fashion designer or a writer -people who are far away- may. For the extreme rightist people, homosexuals should be removed from society by expelling or in more bloody ways. For some people, they are also human and they can be accepted on condition that not being so much out about their homo-sexuality, because it's their private life. But the rising public coming out of lesbian and gay movement and the westernization politics as a whole increase the number of anti-heterosexist heterosexuals, also promotes the discussion on homosexuality in society, and sides are getting more evident.
Family
Traditional family values determine the whole social atmosphere dominantly in Turkey. Although the form of relations within family members and relatives are changing gradually in time, it would be easily concluded that the nuclear family dynamics influence and control the behaviors and the attitudes of individuals in Turkey. The controlling attitudes of nuclear family and relatives have great impact on social order, not just because of their social power but also their economical power over individuals.
Although there are parents who accept their daughter or son as a gay individual easily or hardly, the discriminatory and strict heterosexist families use several methods to "change", "heal", threaten and oppress their lesbian or gay child. Sometimes they prefer the method of "not to hear, not to talk about". The usual oppression methods of families are following:
§ They take him/her to psychiatrists in order to provide "treatment".
§ They isolate him/her away from "degenerated" social environment and friends. Because the younger is perceived as a victim, not an object, by society, in general. If their child is homosexual then some elements must have seduced him/her.
§ They punish him/her by threats, beating, limiting pocket money, limiting social support, etc.
§ They give him/her in marriage by using force.
§ They expel him away from home. Young gay male who is expelled from home sometimes meets with transgender subculture while seeking similar people like himself and then is exposed the whole difficulties of being an MTF transgender in Turkey, which are explained in "Transgender People" section below.
This dangerous risk of losing family support and confidence keeps individuals away from coming out to their families. There are lots of married closet gay people in Turkey. Since homosexuality is a secret issue, it is hard to drive the statistical data on discriminations which homosexuals face. Those inferences are based on personal witnesses in lesbian and gay subculture; LGBT organizing, meetings and our journal open a path to make those realities known in public.
Work Space
As a young queer you mostly have to choose to be open or to have a career. It is very difficult to have both social necessities because discrimination against non-heterosexual citizens is not legally punishable in the job space and heterosexism dominates public space. To be known as a lesbian or gay may easily result in not finding a job, being fired or not being promoted even in the case of deserving.
As in any sector of life in Turkey, family values and family legitimacy easily influence the work space. This reality forces employees to stay in closet. As obviously known, being in closet sometimes is more difficult than being open. Because you have to create an imaginary secondary life to talk about while socializing and follow all opinions and rumors about yourself. Labor unions are not paying any attention for the rights of their non-heterosexual members yet. But we are hopefull on this issue in the near future with the assistance of rising gay liberation movement.
Transgender MTFs cannot find employment, and the only alternative for them is to perform sex work in order to earn money. This reality strongly defines the transgender subculture.
The most serious obstructions of being out are family and career as explained above.
Psychiatric Servicess
Parents generally take their child to youth or adult psychriatrists if they realize their child is homosexual or their child comes out to his or her family. In these clinics, international scientific standards are not taken as guides in a personal manner, even DSM 4 of American Psychiatry Association has been accepted by Turkish authorities. The common approach to LGBT youth in these clinics is to convince them that "they are heterosexual!". If the psychiatrist trys to convince the family that she/he is not ill or pervert, usually the family finds another psychiatrist.
Sexual Education
Although the necessity of sexual education in schools has been discussed a lot by governmental and civil organs, the content of such an educational program cannot be agreed upon. A reproduction centered education program, limited to the biological aspects of heterosexual sex, had been included in health lessons in recent years in the secondary and high school curriculae as a result of those discussions. While heterosexual students cannot find answers to their practical questions on sex, non-heterosexual students learn "how perverted they are". One of the most important parts of a sexual health education, STDs and AIDS education, is limited to a discussion of the diseases within a framework of heterosexual sex and excludes information on condoms and lubricants. It is even questionable whether this sex health education provides heterosexual students with the tools to have conscious, physiologically and psychologically healthier sex. In addition, it should be noted that there is no control meachanism by which one can be certain that a particular curriculum is being followed in the classroom. That is, application and content of this sexual health education strongly depends upon the environment and administration of the schools. There isn't any sexual consultation service for students, either.
Schools are one of the most important public spaces where heterosexism is reproduced ideologically and practically. Non-heterosexual students are constantly left alone to face the homophobic, degrading, and violent behaviour of friends, teachers and school administrators.
Universities
The situation in the universities is not much better. It's almost impossible for non-heterosexual students to be open about their sexual orientation in the universities. Fortunately, LGB organizing encourages the university students, especially in Ankara (the capital) and Istanbul (the biggest metropol). There were several public outreach activities, like public speechs, seminars, movie screenings, etc., in Middle East Technical University and Hacettepe University in between 1997 and 2000, by Kaos GL and unregistered LG organizing in these universities. Those students performed their activities by participating in other registered student organizations. With the aid of this experience and heritage, the uncontinued gay group GayAnkara had started a university project through internet for more than 30 universities by starting queer mailing lists for each of them under the name of LEGATO project. LEGATO was the name of the first unregistered student organization in METU. But those campus communication hasn't been evolved as LGB organizing yet. They are trying to be visible through internet and meet other LGB students in their universities by mailing lists and two web sites by Bogazici University and Istanbul University LGB students. But it is difficult to claim that those initiations have political ground.
We suppose the major reason for slowness of this process in the universities is related to identity development process. Most of the time people can discover and accept their queerness, develop a sexual identity consciousness and understand sexual politics when they are in the universities, especially if they get in touch with LGB organizing. But it's a time consuming process. When one is getting more experienced and more encouraged to undertake the role of being open and active in terms of anti-heterosexism politics, then he/she would graduate from university. We believe this reality makes difficult to provide a ground for LGBT university students to be organized. Another reason for this incapacity of student organizing is the overall believe on irrelevance of politics and homosexuality amoung young queers. Because political atmosphere amoung youth strongly depends upon the social ambience created after the army cue took place in 1980. Even the term of "politics" is a threat for most of the young people in Turkey.
In addition to organizing activities, there have been lots of papers and researchs conducted on homosexuals, LGBT organizing and heterosexism issues by students and professors in the universities of Ankara and Istanbul. LGBT organizations participate in those researches by providing theoretical and practical materials. Especially whole issues of Kaos GL journal supplies a lesbian and gay literature for those researchs since 1994.
Media
Most of the time media covers homosexuality as a magazine material that strengthens the current public opinion. Besides this magazine coverage, some newspapers and TVs have conducted several interviews with LGBT organizations. Mainstream media is not reliable in terms of reflecting the whole content of those interviews. They usually pick sentences out of context and change content as presenting them, while alternative media stays loyal to the interviews. It's interesting that popular magazines use homosexuality as cover subject frequently because of the increase in circulation.
Lesbians are not visible as gays in media. Actually lesbians are less visible than gays in all public reflections of non-heterosexuality.
The media discourse on sex worker transgender MTFs is totally outraging. The usual headline is "Transsexuals terrorized public again!" after any event. Actually public terrorizes them by attacks, after death of a friend of them or bad-treatment in hospitals after attacks, etc.
Social Life
In addition to lesbian and gay organizing, the common social athmosphere for non-heterosexual people is the entertainment industry in the big cities. Unfortunately, even if they are lucky to access people like themselves, when this takes place in such "entertainment" environments only, the costs are often a social life of high alcohol consumption and/or alienation.
There have been cruising areas for gays even before the LGBT organizing like parks, cinemas, public baths, etc. for years. They still exist in addition to the several bars, two cafes and the Kaos GL Cultural Center. After the increase of internet usage, it has created another way for LGB people in order to access LBG community. Not all of those paths are safe for people. Especially men often date with men whom they don't know. The number of known murders and theft gay males exposed has been increased recently, especially after internet.
The meeting places for youth and elders are common.
Transgender People
The drama of transgender people is one of the bleeding aspects of non-heterosexual people of Turkey. Transgender MTF usually work in the sex industry, facing violence every day. Murders or attacks targeting transgender MTFs in sex industry are familiar news in the media. Because of the deeply patriarchal society, more than 50 % of transgender MTFs in the sex industry are actually gay. Many of these prefer to have surgical intervention to their bodies as an investment in their own bodies as workers in the sex industry. They also feel that it is necessary to have the "correct" body in order to justifiably love other males, i.e., they need to be perceived as women and live in a woman's body in order to love men. Sociologist Pinar Selek has reached this conclusion based upon sociological research she conducted within the framework of her thesis work (later published in book form) on the expulsion of transgender people from Ulker Street where they had been inhabitants for years. According to her research, as gay subculture develops, the number of non-heterosexual males in the sex industry proportionately decreases because more and more of those sex workers, who are actually gay rather than MTF transgender, are able to find their space in the gay subculture.
Military Services
Since the army health unit follows DSM 2, which categorizes homosexuality as an ilness, a non-heterosexual male can apply to the army health service to be excluded from the obligatory military service. But army psychiatrists can ask him for any kind of documents (photos, etc.) as a proof of his queerness, as an arbitrary practice. Since non-heterosexual young males believe that if they don't perform their military service, it will affect their whole future in terms of job opportunities and social acceptibality -which is a reality-, a few people apply to army medical services in order to proove that they are "unfit for the service". Others have to spend 8 to 18 months in a strongly patriarchal and heterosexist military service environment.
Health Services
Health workers do not undergo education on homosexuality and their attitude toward non-heterosexual people is strongly affected by society's conservative and heterosexist athmosphere. Since non-heterosexual people naturally do not rely on the "secrecy principle" of health service and they face discriminatory behaviours in health offices, they cannot easily and healthily access health services.
LGBT Organizing
The oldest LBGT organizations, which showed continuity, are Lambda Istanbul, since 1993 and Kaos GL, since 1994. They perform public outreach by several different methods and encourage other LGB people to have their local organizations, host the half-annually meeting of Turkey's LGBT people and organizations, etc. Both organizations (and others while they exist) also have a function of helping people for their sexual identity development process. Although the number of active and permanent people in those organizations increases gradually year to year, there have been thousands of LGBT people involved in the activities of them. Lambda Istanbul has an expression for this situation: "People who graduated from Lambda Istanbul". Besides some number of local groups had been formed from time to time, especially on account of the influence of Kaos GL journal, but they do not show continuity as a politically active organization. Kaos GL journal is currently distributing in 11 cities. Lambda Istanbul and Kaos GL are members of ILGA.
There had been a number of active groups, which don't exist anymore. They published leaflets, magazines, brochures, etc. Sisters of Venus, BET, Daughters of Sappho, GayAnkara, Spartakus are some of them. Besides, MTF transsexual and woman sex workers issued some numbers of magazine, called Gaci.
The lesbian and gay movement of Turkey are welcoming two new magazines recently. One is called "Pence" by Bear Anatolia, and the other one is called "Ote-ki Ben" by a lesbian feminist initiative. Both groups published their first issues in recent months, and they are working on their second issues nowadays.
Current LBGT Organizations in Turkey
Kaos GL (registered as a publisher)
http://www.kaosgl.com/
email: dergi@kaosgl.com
Address of Cultural Center and Library: Selanik Cd. 48/8 Kizilay/Ankara - TURKEY
Postal Address: Ali Ozbas, PK 53 Cebeci/Ankara - TURKEY
Tel/Fax: + 90 312 418 87 15
Lambda Istanbul (unregistered)
http://www.lambdaistanbul.org/
email: lambda@lambdaistanbul.org
Postal Address: PK 162 Beyoglu/Istanbul - TURKEY
Bear Anatolia (unregistered)
http://www.anadoluayilari.com/
Telefon: + 90 542 503 47 16
email: info@anadoluayilari.com
There is also another bear group that claims not to be politically active but a fetish group.
Bears of Turkey (unregistered)
http://www.ayilar.net/en/bearsofturkey.htm
Students from Bogazici University
http://www.legatoboun.org/ (a content hasn't been supplied yet)
Students from Istanbul University
http://www.geocities.com/legatoist/
Kaos GL handout and Turkey LGBT Report prepared and presented by Yeşim T. Başaran from Kaos GL.
GLBT Youth Situation in Turkey
There is not any regulation on queer citizens in state laws and constitution of Turkish Republic. Homosexuality isn't mentioned in terms of neither aiming to protect non-heterosexual citizens against discrimination or punishing homosexual act. However it is a common use to have an article that regulates "shameful offense" and to utilize this kind of articles for covering discrimination against both young and adult non-heterosexual people both in governmental and non-governmental institutions. The administration of student dormitories is one of the most striking examples of the usage of this "shameful offense" act.
Age of consent for heterosexual and so-called heterosexual citizens is 18.
General Public Opinion on Homosexuality
In general, people have usual kind of prejudices against non-heterosexuality and non-heterosexual people. Homosexuality is perceived as a perversion, at least an illness, in general. Some suppose that homosexuality can be a sexual fantasy especially for the upper class, not a sexual identity. They are a few, like just a kind of "lunatic in the neighborhood". Your butcher, the nurse in the hospital or "normal" looking neighbor cannot be a "faggot" or lesbian, but a fashion designer or a writer -people who are far away- may. For the extreme rightist people, homosexuals should be removed from society by expelling or in more bloody ways. For some people, they are also human and they can be accepted on condition that not being so much out about their homo-sexuality, because it's their private life. But the rising public coming out of lesbian and gay movement and the westernization politics as a whole increase the number of anti-heterosexist heterosexuals, also promotes the discussion on homosexuality in society, and sides are getting more evident.
Family
Traditional family values determine the whole social atmosphere dominantly in Turkey. Although the form of relations within family members and relatives are changing gradually in time, it would be easily concluded that the nuclear family dynamics influence and control the behaviors and the attitudes of individuals in Turkey. The controlling attitudes of nuclear family and relatives have great impact on social order, not just because of their social power but also their economical power over individuals.
Although there are parents who accept their daughter or son as a gay individual easily or hardly, the discriminatory and strict heterosexist families use several methods to "change", "heal", threaten and oppress their lesbian or gay child. Sometimes they prefer the method of "not to hear, not to talk about". The usual oppression methods of families are following:
§ They take him/her to psychiatrists in order to provide "treatment".
§ They isolate him/her away from "degenerated" social environment and friends. Because the younger is perceived as a victim, not an object, by society, in general. If their child is homosexual then some elements must have seduced him/her.
§ They punish him/her by threats, beating, limiting pocket money, limiting social support, etc.
§ They give him/her in marriage by using force.
§ They expel him away from home. Young gay male who is expelled from home sometimes meets with transgender subculture while seeking similar people like himself and then is exposed the whole difficulties of being an MTF transgender in Turkey, which are explained in "Transgender People" section below.
This dangerous risk of losing family support and confidence keeps individuals away from coming out to their families. There are lots of married closet gay people in Turkey. Since homosexuality is a secret issue, it is hard to drive the statistical data on discriminations which homosexuals face. Those inferences are based on personal witnesses in lesbian and gay subculture; LGBT organizing, meetings and our journal open a path to make those realities known in public.
Work Space
As a young queer you mostly have to choose to be open or to have a career. It is very difficult to have both social necessities because discrimination against non-heterosexual citizens is not legally punishable in the job space and heterosexism dominates public space. To be known as a lesbian or gay may easily result in not finding a job, being fired or not being promoted even in the case of deserving.
As in any sector of life in Turkey, family values and family legitimacy easily influence the work space. This reality forces employees to stay in closet. As obviously known, being in closet sometimes is more difficult than being open. Because you have to create an imaginary secondary life to talk about while socializing and follow all opinions and rumors about yourself. Labor unions are not paying any attention for the rights of their non-heterosexual members yet. But we are hopefull on this issue in the near future with the assistance of rising gay liberation movement.
Transgender MTFs cannot find employment, and the only alternative for them is to perform sex work in order to earn money. This reality strongly defines the transgender subculture.
The most serious obstructions of being out are family and career as explained above.
Psychiatric Servicess
Parents generally take their child to youth or adult psychriatrists if they realize their child is homosexual or their child comes out to his or her family. In these clinics, international scientific standards are not taken as guides in a personal manner, even DSM 4 of American Psychiatry Association has been accepted by Turkish authorities. The common approach to LGBT youth in these clinics is to convince them that "they are heterosexual!". If the psychiatrist trys to convince the family that she/he is not ill or pervert, usually the family finds another psychiatrist.
Sexual Education
Although the necessity of sexual education in schools has been discussed a lot by governmental and civil organs, the content of such an educational program cannot be agreed upon. A reproduction centered education program, limited to the biological aspects of heterosexual sex, had been included in health lessons in recent years in the secondary and high school curriculae as a result of those discussions. While heterosexual students cannot find answers to their practical questions on sex, non-heterosexual students learn "how perverted they are". One of the most important parts of a sexual health education, STDs and AIDS education, is limited to a discussion of the diseases within a framework of heterosexual sex and excludes information on condoms and lubricants. It is even questionable whether this sex health education provides heterosexual students with the tools to have conscious, physiologically and psychologically healthier sex. In addition, it should be noted that there is no control meachanism by which one can be certain that a particular curriculum is being followed in the classroom. That is, application and content of this sexual health education strongly depends upon the environment and administration of the schools. There isn't any sexual consultation service for students, either.
Schools are one of the most important public spaces where heterosexism is reproduced ideologically and practically. Non-heterosexual students are constantly left alone to face the homophobic, degrading, and violent behaviour of friends, teachers and school administrators.
Universities
The situation in the universities is not much better. It's almost impossible for non-heterosexual students to be open about their sexual orientation in the universities. Fortunately, LGB organizing encourages the university students, especially in Ankara (the capital) and Istanbul (the biggest metropol). There were several public outreach activities, like public speechs, seminars, movie screenings, etc., in Middle East Technical University and Hacettepe University in between 1997 and 2000, by Kaos GL and unregistered LG organizing in these universities. Those students performed their activities by participating in other registered student organizations. With the aid of this experience and heritage, the uncontinued gay group GayAnkara had started a university project through internet for more than 30 universities by starting queer mailing lists for each of them under the name of LEGATO project. LEGATO was the name of the first unregistered student organization in METU. But those campus communication hasn't been evolved as LGB organizing yet. They are trying to be visible through internet and meet other LGB students in their universities by mailing lists and two web sites by Bogazici University and Istanbul University LGB students. But it is difficult to claim that those initiations have political ground.
We suppose the major reason for slowness of this process in the universities is related to identity development process. Most of the time people can discover and accept their queerness, develop a sexual identity consciousness and understand sexual politics when they are in the universities, especially if they get in touch with LGB organizing. But it's a time consuming process. When one is getting more experienced and more encouraged to undertake the role of being open and active in terms of anti-heterosexism politics, then he/she would graduate from university. We believe this reality makes difficult to provide a ground for LGBT university students to be organized. Another reason for this incapacity of student organizing is the overall believe on irrelevance of politics and homosexuality amoung young queers. Because political atmosphere amoung youth strongly depends upon the social ambience created after the army cue took place in 1980. Even the term of "politics" is a threat for most of the young people in Turkey.
In addition to organizing activities, there have been lots of papers and researchs conducted on homosexuals, LGBT organizing and heterosexism issues by students and professors in the universities of Ankara and Istanbul. LGBT organizations participate in those researches by providing theoretical and practical materials. Especially whole issues of Kaos GL journal supplies a lesbian and gay literature for those researchs since 1994.
Media
Most of the time media covers homosexuality as a magazine material that strengthens the current public opinion. Besides this magazine coverage, some newspapers and TVs have conducted several interviews with LGBT organizations. Mainstream media is not reliable in terms of reflecting the whole content of those interviews. They usually pick sentences out of context and change content as presenting them, while alternative media stays loyal to the interviews. It's interesting that popular magazines use homosexuality as cover subject frequently because of the increase in circulation.
Lesbians are not visible as gays in media. Actually lesbians are less visible than gays in all public reflections of non-heterosexuality.
The media discourse on sex worker transgender MTFs is totally outraging. The usual headline is "Transsexuals terrorized public again!" after any event. Actually public terrorizes them by attacks, after death of a friend of them or bad-treatment in hospitals after attacks, etc.
Social Life
In addition to lesbian and gay organizing, the common social athmosphere for non-heterosexual people is the entertainment industry in the big cities. Unfortunately, even if they are lucky to access people like themselves, when this takes place in such "entertainment" environments only, the costs are often a social life of high alcohol consumption and/or alienation.
There have been cruising areas for gays even before the LGBT organizing like parks, cinemas, public baths, etc. for years. They still exist in addition to the several bars, two cafes and the Kaos GL Cultural Center. After the increase of internet usage, it has created another way for LGB people in order to access LBG community. Not all of those paths are safe for people. Especially men often date with men whom they don't know. The number of known murders and theft gay males exposed has been increased recently, especially after internet.
The meeting places for youth and elders are common.
Transgender People
The drama of transgender people is one of the bleeding aspects of non-heterosexual people of Turkey. Transgender MTF usually work in the sex industry, facing violence every day. Murders or attacks targeting transgender MTFs in sex industry are familiar news in the media. Because of the deeply patriarchal society, more than 50 % of transgender MTFs in the sex industry are actually gay. Many of these prefer to have surgical intervention to their bodies as an investment in their own bodies as workers in the sex industry. They also feel that it is necessary to have the "correct" body in order to justifiably love other males, i.e., they need to be perceived as women and live in a woman's body in order to love men. Sociologist Pinar Selek has reached this conclusion based upon sociological research she conducted within the framework of her thesis work (later published in book form) on the expulsion of transgender people from Ulker Street where they had been inhabitants for years. According to her research, as gay subculture develops, the number of non-heterosexual males in the sex industry proportionately decreases because more and more of those sex workers, who are actually gay rather than MTF transgender, are able to find their space in the gay subculture.
Military Services
Since the army health unit follows DSM 2, which categorizes homosexuality as an ilness, a non-heterosexual male can apply to the army health service to be excluded from the obligatory military service. But army psychiatrists can ask him for any kind of documents (photos, etc.) as a proof of his queerness, as an arbitrary practice. Since non-heterosexual young males believe that if they don't perform their military service, it will affect their whole future in terms of job opportunities and social acceptibality -which is a reality-, a few people apply to army medical services in order to proove that they are "unfit for the service". Others have to spend 8 to 18 months in a strongly patriarchal and heterosexist military service environment.
Health Services
Health workers do not undergo education on homosexuality and their attitude toward non-heterosexual people is strongly affected by society's conservative and heterosexist athmosphere. Since non-heterosexual people naturally do not rely on the "secrecy principle" of health service and they face discriminatory behaviours in health offices, they cannot easily and healthily access health services.
LGBT Organizing
The oldest LBGT organizations, which showed continuity, are Lambda Istanbul, since 1993 and Kaos GL, since 1994. They perform public outreach by several different methods and encourage other LGB people to have their local organizations, host the half-annually meeting of Turkey's LGBT people and organizations, etc. Both organizations (and others while they exist) also have a function of helping people for their sexual identity development process. Although the number of active and permanent people in those organizations increases gradually year to year, there have been thousands of LGBT people involved in the activities of them. Lambda Istanbul has an expression for this situation: "People who graduated from Lambda Istanbul". Besides some number of local groups had been formed from time to time, especially on account of the influence of Kaos GL journal, but they do not show continuity as a politically active organization. Kaos GL journal is currently distributing in 11 cities. Lambda Istanbul and Kaos GL are members of ILGA.
There had been a number of active groups, which don't exist anymore. They published leaflets, magazines, brochures, etc. Sisters of Venus, BET, Daughters of Sappho, GayAnkara, Spartakus are some of them. Besides, MTF transsexual and woman sex workers issued some numbers of magazine, called Gaci.
The lesbian and gay movement of Turkey are welcoming two new magazines recently. One is called "Pence" by Bear Anatolia, and the other one is called "Ote-ki Ben" by a lesbian feminist initiative. Both groups published their first issues in recent months, and they are working on their second issues nowadays.
Current LBGT Organizations in Turkey
Kaos GL (registered as a publisher)
http://www.kaosgl.com/
email: dergi@kaosgl.com
Address of Cultural Center and Library: Selanik Cd. 48/8 Kizilay/Ankara - TURKEY
Postal Address: Ali Ozbas, PK 53 Cebeci/Ankara - TURKEY
Tel/Fax: + 90 312 418 87 15
Lambda Istanbul (unregistered)
http://www.lambdaistanbul.org/
email: lambda@lambdaistanbul.org
Postal Address: PK 162 Beyoglu/Istanbul - TURKEY
Bear Anatolia (unregistered)
http://www.anadoluayilari.com/
Telefon: + 90 542 503 47 16
email: info@anadoluayilari.com
There is also another bear group that claims not to be politically active but a fetish group.
Bears of Turkey (unregistered)
http://www.ayilar.net/en/bearsofturkey.htm
Students from Bogazici University
http://www.legatoboun.org/ (a content hasn't been supplied yet)
Students from Istanbul University
http://www.geocities.com/legatoist/