Turkey’s Gay Soldiers the Crosshairs

Contents:

• GAY DICTNARY TURKISH
• GENR BENRS, GAY INS AND MEDIA: LBIAN AND GAY VISUAL RHETORIC TURKEY
• TURKEY’S GAY SOLDIERS THE CROSSHAIRS
• GAYE NAME MEANG
• MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH
• DEFINITIONS FOR GAYGEɪGAY

GAY DICTNARY TURKISH

“Indian Gay Ins: Queers Like Us, A Tribute to Indian Gay Ins” was scribed by Bombay Dost, a lol LGBT magaze, as “an exhibn of Indian gay ins featurg some of the te lears of the queer stggle who also spell excellence their profsn” (The Bombay Dost Team). In this article’s discsn of the Turkish gay ins popular culture and the ntemporary lbian and gay practic of visual rhetoric Turkey, I analyze three sets of ntemporary reprentatns and the acpanyg practic of visual rhetoric: 1) two Turkish celebri who are wily visible genr transgrsors Turkey: the late Zeki Muren (1931-1996), a flamboyant queer male sger, [2] and Bulent Ersoy, a male-to-female transsexual sger, both of whom Kaos GL rears voted “gay ins”; 2) the gay ins issue of Kaos GL, a Turkish LGBT muny magaze prt, which adapted the Wtern ncept of gay ins to the needs of the Turkish LGBT muny through a cril engagement wh the ncept; and 3) the llegiate lbian and gay fliers, webse, and “fanz” (Turkish transleratn for “fanze, ” i. In this manner, I monstrate that while visual rhetoric n empower non-Wtern lbian and gay populatns to rist the domant lol reprentatns of homosexualy and produce and dissemate affirmg alternativ, the medium utilized and the uneven ndns of productn and circulatn om one medium to another terme the extent of the relative fluence of existg reprentatns.

Yet, paradoxilly, this visibily did not mean that Turkish society accepted non-normative sexual and genr inti, cludg homosexualy, and the knowledge about sexual subcultur still remaed “fugive” spe the mass-mediated queer visibily of the two celebri. From the perspective of the homosexual dience, however, as I discs the next sectn the ntext of Kaos GL‘s special issue on gay ins, Muren and Ersoy’s barga wh the heterosexist hegemony is seen as havg negative nsequenc for this particular segment of the Turkish dience, sce meant distancg, nial, and erasure of LGBT existence, fuelg heterosexism and homophobia Turkish society.

” However, this labelg of the Turkish ins on the top ten list piled by Kaos GL as “gay” refers to their fluence on the Turkish gay dience, pennt of whether or not they personally or publicly intify as beg gay or homosexual, or even profs any solidary wh the LGBT muny. In fact, only two (male thors and poets Murathan Mungan and Kuc Iskenr) out of the ten people listed are known the gay muny to intify as gay; the remag eight ver a broar range of the genr and sexual spectm: a heterosexual male, heterosexual femal, a queer male (Zeki Muren), and a male-to-female transsexual (Bulent Ersoy), wh Muren and Ersoy beg historilly the most visible genr transgrsors and wily promoted ins the Turkish mass media, as discsed the prev sectn.

GENR BENRS, GAY INS AND MEDIA: LBIAN AND GAY VISUAL RHETORIC TURKEY

While the (sometim multiple) pictur of the top four ins, Han Yener (female pop sger, seen Figure 3 on the ver of the issue), Ajda Pekkan (female pop sger), Murathan Mungan (gay male thor and poet), and Aysel Gurel (female pop songwrer), are promently featured as part of one-to-three-page articl about them, there are only two small (one ch by one ch) photos of Zeki Muren and Bulent Ersoy (the photos are the same imag I discsed the prev sectn).

The magaze’s edors published the photos next to the rears’ ments about why they view certa celebri, as opposed to others, as gay ins; the imag and the ments are prted a separate one-ch pk strip that ns across the bottom of the pag that clu the issue’s in-related articl. The paratively small size and the placement of the pictur of Muren and Ersoy downplays their importance visually, spe their beg historilly the most fluential and visible ins thanks to the mass media; some of the articl discs and cricize their ambivalence and ambiguy as “gay” ins tail.

As for Zeki Muren, Guner, the same Kaos GL lumnist, lls him “our homophobic in” (41) and lks Muren and Ersoy’s legacy of distancg themselv om the LGBT muny to Tarkan, a younger pop mic sger who was also clud on the list of the top-ten gay ins.

TURKEY’S GAY SOLDIERS THE CROSSHAIRS

Most recently, Tarkan, a self-proclaimed heterosexual— the face of qutns about his sexual orientatn, not to mentn his naked pictur wh another male on the beach—adopted the same strategy of nformg to the Turkish public’s genr expectatns through statg, for stance, that homosexualy uld be cured through psychoanalysis.

Consirg the issue’s troductn of the ncept of gay ins and s celebratn of the top ten ins (wh the notable exceptn of Muren and Ersoy), Ysel’s ments should not be viewed as the muny’s rejectn of the ncept self, or even of Muren and Ersoy for that matter, sce the rears who took the survey did vote for them.

GAYE NAME MEANG

What Ysel’s ments nvey is that wh the ntext of Turkey, where homosexualy as a public intifitn the Wtern sense is a new phenomenon, the applitn of the ncept of gay ins as a purely affirmative ncept is not yet possible, pecially when the most visible and fluential gay ins never intified as homosexual or transgenr, rpectively, and liberately distanced themselv om the muny. At the same time, however, Han Yener’s public self-alignment wh the gay muny uld be taken as a sign that thgs are changg, but is important to remember that Han Yener is heterosexual, while for other celebri, like Tarkan, is still risky to own their sexualy publicly. The discrepancy between the perceived queerns of Muren and Ersoy and their nial of the same queerns and cultivatn of a certa distance om the LGBT dience prevents Turkish lbians and gay men om pletely intifyg wh Muren and Ersoy as ins and role mols.

MEANG OF GAY ENGLISH

The upshot of this discrepancy is what is lled “Zeki Muren syndrome” the Turkish gay muny, which is the overwhelmg perceptn of and anxiety about the evabily of a life of secrecy punctuated by the predictable, seemgly irreversible pattern of “effemate” behavr that Zeki Muren me to exemplify for all mal who suffered om the “disease” of homosexualy. As Tarik, a gay male terviewee, remarked ncerng the media attentn given to Muren and Ersoy, “the mass media stereotyp homosexualy and everyone to thk that only men are homosexuals and that all male homosexuals want to have a sex-change operatn and bee a woman.

” While male homosexualy, therefore, is monly perceived as femized masculy Turkey, and as such, as an stance of genr versn, the full exprsn of which is seen as plete transn and “generatn” to womanhood, the lbian existence is altogether nied. Legato’s visual rhetoric rpond to the surroundg cultural fluenc regardg genr and sexualy, and the early stag of this procs—om 2000, when Legato first started g the Inter to publicize s missn and rec members; to 2002, when the Legato webse was first lnched; to the summer of 2003, when the Legato “fanze” (fan magaze) was published and dissemated prt—produced a new, “straight-lookg” set of lbian and gay imag that were employed to fy the public’s heterosexist genr expectatns and the associated view of homosexualy as genr versn and a strictly male phenomenon. Consirg their dience, which clud qutng and closeted stunts who grew up watchg Ersoy and Muren and ternalizg the notn that only men are homosexuals and that they always look and act like the other genr, this choice of imagery was strategic.

DEFINITIONS FOR GAYGEɪGAY

The rtoonish stick figur portrayed homosexuals as straight-lookg male and female dividuals, whout intifyg any specific characteristics other than genr, nveyed through hairstyle and drs, and sexual orientatn, nveyed through same-sex pairg the fliers.

On both pag, however, the people the imag are likely not Turkish; the image of the two men, for stance, was also—and probably origally—featured the ver of the book Between Men: Bt New Gay Fictn, eded by Richard Canng and published the Uned Stat 2007. Sce the webse is more accsible than fliers or other munal materials prt, s tend dience is also much broar and clus the heterosexual majory; this further unrl the importance of the photographic imag for both Legato members and the larger Turkish populatn who search for rmatn on homosexualy or happen to e across the Legato webse while on the Inter. The imag are inoclastic—not only bee they fy expected genr norms by portrayg same-sex sire, but also sce they reprent homosexuals—and th make them visible—as straight-lookg gay mal and lbians, once aga subvertg the heterosexist genr expectatns of Turkish society.

Much like the expensively produced punk fanz, the rultg visual alliance between an expensive stunt productn and artistic, albe plagiarized or imated, reprentatns, nstut an attempt to claim “an alternative cril [rhetoril] space” (Hebdige 111) for the Legato group to advance s earnt crique of the stat quo regardg homosexualy Turkey. While mass media and s natnal fom reprent homosexualy as genr versn, as the se of Muren and Ersoy, to ter to the expectatns of the heterosexual dience, the foms of Kaos GL and Legato, due to their smaller and specifilly LGBT and LGBT-iendly dience, are able to advance lbian and gay reprentatns.

The multiple forms of media, rangg om mass media to muny media, and fally to the llegiate media of Legato illtrate the creasg differentiatn wh the media landspe of Turkey, creatg opportuni for the LGBT populatn to self-reprent and beg to challenge heterosexism and homophobia. Turkey’s creasg tegratn to the global market enomy transformed s media landspe, creatg multiple venu that ntue to enable and enhance queer media productn, such as Kaos GL and Legato fanze, which gmented lol queer agency creatg alternativ to domant, mass media reprentatns of homosexualy. For example, their examatn of the practic of queer youth on e-z (electronic magaz) on the Inter, Comstock and Addison illtrate how groups of queer youth “[have] ed World Wi Web and the Inter technologi to nstct polil and social inti and muni, formg what we believe is an emergg l-bi-gay youth ‘cyberculture’” (247).

Comstock and Addison also pot out that this emergg queer cyberculture tak issue wh homophobia and ageism (both the culture at large and wh queer adult muni) through s manipulatn of Inter technology “to reproduce, appropriate, and subvert (or queer) ‘straight’ graphics, imag, and texts om popular culture” (250). [1] Kaos GL’s top ten Turkish gay ins (most intify as heterosexual, unls otherwise stated): 1) Han Yener (female pop sger); 2) Ajda Pekkan (female pop sger); 3) Murathan Mungan (gay male thor and poet); 4) Aysel Gurel (female pop songwrer); 5) Kuc Iskenr (gay male thor and poet); 6) Sezen Aksu (female pop sger); 7) Bulent Ersoy (classil and arabk sger who is a male-to-female transsexual).

[2] In Turkey, many terms of intifitn, such as lbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual have been directly translerated om English to Turkish (as lezbiyen, gay or gey, biseksuel, and transseksuel), and dividuals who self-intify as such equently e such words. Wing the spe of the Turkish LGBT e, this velopment ultimately led to the formatn of a gay stunt culture at universi across the natn, all lked through mailg lists, nnectg them wh pre-existg LGBT subcultur and wh Lambda Istanbul and Kaos GL (for more rmatn on Legato, please refer to Gorkemli).