Tips for Gay and Lbian Travelers Turkey | Frommer's

Contents:

• PROVG YOU'RE GAY TO THE TURKISH ARMY
• EXPLORE VAST AND HIDN GAY TURKEY
• TIPS FOR GAY AND LBIAN TRAVELERS TURKEY

PROVG YOU'RE GAY TO THE TURKISH ARMY

From Istanbul to Izmir, thoands of Turkish activists took to the streets prott to memorate lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) Pri month June. In March 2021, after the ernment received wispread domtic and ternatnal cricism for whdrawg om the Council of Europe Conventn on Preventg and Combattg Vlence agast Women and Domtic Vlence (known as the Istanbul Conventn), officials rpond wh an anti-LGBT statement and clared that they whdrew om the nventn bee is beg hijacked by groups to normalize homosexualy. Homophobic ernment statements like the have reverberatg effects the public sphere, where LGBT rights groups have documented a dramatic rise anti-LGBT rhetoric the news.

Milary service is mandatory for all Turkish men - they n only pe if they are ill, disabled or homosexual.

But provg homosexualy is a huiatg oral. "Ahmet, a young man his 20s, told officials he was gay at the first opportuny after he was lled up, as he and other nscripts unrwent a health check.

EXPLORE VAST AND HIDN GAY TURKEY

''I had a few days' beard and I am a mascule guy - they told me I didn't look like a normal gay man.

'' Instead he gave them a photograph of himself kissg another hop this will give him what he needs - a "pk certifite", which will clare him homosexual and therefore exempt om ary the years, gay life has been beg more visible Turkey's big ci. Caf and clubs wh an openly gay clientele have been openg Istanbul, and last summer's gay pri march - unique the Mlim world - was the largt while there are no specific laws agast homosexualy Turkey, openly gay men are not wele the army. At the same time, they have to "prove" their homosexualy orr to avoid ary, nscripted the late 1990s, very quickly realised that he was not ma for the army.

''I had a fear of guns, '' he ptn, Last summer's gay pri march Istanbul was the largt ever held TurkeyAs a gay man he was also aaid of beg bullied, and after ltle more than a week he plucked up the urage to clare his sexual orientatn to his manr. ''Gay men say the precise nature of the evince mand pends on the whim of the ary doctor or manr.

TIPS FOR GAY AND LBIAN TRAVELERS TURKEY

Sometim, stead of photographs, doctors rely on a "personaly tt" Turkish army refed BBC requts for an terview, but a retired general, Armagan Kuloglu, agreed to gay men the army would e "disciplary problems", he says, and would be impractil creatg the need for "separate facili, separate dormori, showers, trag areas" says that if a gay man keeps his sexualy secret, he n serve - an echo of the US ary's recently dropped Don't Ask Don't Tell policy. "But when someone out and says he is gay, then the army needs to make sure that he is tly gay, and not simply lyg to eva his mandatory duty to serve the ary.

''The social stigma associated wh homosexualy Turkey is such that outsi the young and urbanised circl big ci like Istanbul and Ankara, is hard to image a man clarg that he's gay when he's not. "Doctors are g unr immense prsure om their manrs to diagnose homosexualy, and they obey, even though there really are no diagnostic tools to terme sexual orientatn, '' says one psychiatrist who formerly worked at a ary hospal. And next to that, brackets, ''homosexualy'''s ary hospals still fe homosexualy as an illns, takg a 1968 versn of a document by the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn as their people Turkey say wh rentment that gay men are actually lucky, as at least they have one possible route out of ary service - they don't have to spend months the barracks, or face the possibily of beg ployed to fight agast Kurdish for openly gay men, life n be far om is not unmon for employers Turkey to qutn job applints about their ary service - and a pk certifite n mean a job of Gokhan's employers found out about not by askg Gokhan himself but by askg the that, he says, he was bullied.