TURKEY GAY GUIDE

Contents:

• GENR BENRS, GAY INS AND MEDIA: LBIAN AND GAY VISUAL RHETORIC TURKEY
• 40 BT GAY SGERS & MICIANS OF ALL TIME (LGBTQ+ SGERS)

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

Compared by foreigners to David Bowie and Liberace, he was Turkey's most famo sger for more than three was not only a powerful volist, but also a songwrer, poser, entertaer and master of Turkish classil mic, which has s roots the urt mic of the Ottoman was also the untry's first gay in, the first man ever to wear a miskirt on stage. The only time he directly addrsed homosexualy was a Robert Anrson play lled Tea and Sympathy played the part of a young man who was tryg to e to terms wh his own sexualy. 'Almost two s after his ath, Zeki Muren is still nsired a symbol for Turkey's gay (lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr) activist Cem Gutay says gay men livg Turkey always thk of Zeki Muren as a figurehead and aspire to beg accepted like him.

In 2007, Kaos GL, a bimonthly publitn of the Kaos Gay and Lbian Cultural Rearch and Solidary Associatn Ankara, Turkey, voted s November/December issue to “Turkiye’n Gay Ikonlari” (Turkey’s Gay Ins). “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).

The projects Turkey and India provi evince for the emergence and creasg importance of visual reprentatns, cludg gay ins, the formatn and bolsterg of ternatnal gay muni non-Wtern ntexts. 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.

40 BT GAY SGERS & MICIANS OF ALL TIME (LGBTQ+ SGERS)

E., fan magaze) of Legato, the acronym for Lezbiyen Gay Topluluğu (Lbian and Gay Associatn), a llegiate stunt group anized through the Inter g mailg lists and a webse. 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. For Turkish lbian and gay dividuals the 1980s and 1990s, this search often began wh the genr-bendg celebri Zeki Muren and Bulent Ersoy, who appeared extensively on stage and mastream Turkish media on televisn, films, and newspapers.

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. In Figure 2, Muren is also pictured on the ver of one of his albums (both Figure 1 and 2 were published Kaos GL‘s special issue on gay ins, which I discs the next sectn). To illtrate how Muren has bee a figure of genred cency, spe his genr bendg, Stok discs what he lls Muren’s “astute tactil mov” (310) terms of his overall public image, relign, and his homosexualy.

[4] Muren’s tactics to steer his public image clear of his homosexualy this manner, through his claim to ancient, allegedly heterosexual masculy, were also supported by other mass media reprentatns. 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. Kaos GL’s special issue was revolutnary that ma known the existence of gay ins, and by implitn, of a gay dience, Turkey through s labelg of celebri known by all Turks as “gay ins.

” 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.

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.