Queer Istanbul: Attitude meets the LGBTQ freedom fighters of Turkey

Saint Yule [left], and young people drinking in Istanbul, the largest city of Turkey (ImagesL AYYUR/Üzüm Derin Solak)

“Drag queens are an endangered species here. Our community is dying — well, it’s being killed really.” These words from Florence Delight (Flo) — a pillar of Istanbul’s drag scene — have stayed with me after meeting them at one of Istanbul’s coffee houses in October. Due to escalating police action, government discrimination and numerous inequalities, Istanbul’s visibly queer population is shrinking.  

It wasn’t always this way. It is legal to be gay in Turkey — the nation’s predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, decriminalised sodomy back in 1858. The Ottomans were notorious for not discriminating based on a partner’s gender. There are well-documented accounts of male dancers — koçek —entertaining Sultans in their

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