Ottomans to turks- understanding homophobia in contemporary turkey

- Episode 22- Transcript

Georgie Williams, voiceover: How, or from what, do you build a country? If we were to put a date on when the Republic of Turkey was established, we would likely choose October 29, 1923, when the republic was officially proclaimed in the new capital of Ankara. But this transcontinental country, straddling the divide between Europe and Asia, was not born from a cultural vacuum. Turkey’s foundations, both geographical and cultural, belong to the Ottoman Empire.

A country’s culture is the face it turns out to the world- and the culture of Turkey is rich and vibrant, as much as it is controversial in the global political arena. In 2022, the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association ranked Turkey as its second-lowest country for LGBTQ+ rights, citing the stark challenges faced by gender and sexuality diverse citizens. Marriage equality is a far-off dream for Turkey, as is bodily autonomy for intersex individuals or gender self-determination for transgender and nonbinary residents of the country. But no country is established with its cultural values and legal system emerging from a vacuum; we would therefore assume that the conservative nature of Turkey is a product, in part, of its predecessors. But what do we know of the cultural values and gendered & sexual practices of the Ottoman Empire? What can scholars of this field teach us, for example about the three gender social systems of the Ottoman people, or the masculine aesthetics once condoned amongst the women of these cultures? How does one trace the gendered and sexual undercurrents that pass from Ottomans to Turks? Welcome to Episode 22 of /Queer. You’re here with me, your host, Georgie Williams.

In our last episode we departed from Malta with sights set on heading across the Mediterranean for our next story. If you were listening to us back in Episodes 16 and 17 in Ireland, you may recall our conversations with Tonie Walsh, the Gay Godfather of Ireland. As luck would have it, Tonie is now settled in Antalya, Turkey and was more than happy to host whilst we worked on this episode. It was through Tonie that I began to make connections within the LGBTQ+ community of Antalya. Many of the connections I made were hesitant to talk on record about their experiences of being gender or sexuality diverse in Turkey- but they reported a plethora of different experiences of discrimination and prejudice, ranging from street harassment to being refused employment on the grounds of an HIV positive blood test. It became evident, early on into our time in Antalya, that investigating stories of Turkey’s gender and sexuality diversity would require more than a few conversations with locals. Doing the necessary research to better understand the history of Turkey seemed the next logical step.

Although homosexual activity has been legal in Turkey since 1858, heavy discrimination against LGBTQ+ identifying individuals perseveres here. The findings of a 2015 poll stated that only 27% of Turkish citizens supported same-sex marriage. But the progression of human rights movements isn’t always linear; and that early legalisation of homosexuality in 1858 begs the question- what was so different about Turkey in the 1800s? The answer is that it wasn’t Turkey. What existed in 1858 was the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire was one of the greatest Empires in history, an Empire that controlled large swathes of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. The cultural legacy of the Ottoman Empire is vast- known not only for its literature but also for their miniature paintings which captured the sexual diversity in the Empire- as well as the ever-changing political and socio-cultural scenes across the empire. A great deal of change happened within the time frame of the Ottoman Empire- notably, the industrialisation of the globe and the spread of Western imperialism. Western Imperialism is the term used to describe when European nations, mostly in the 1800s, acquired great wealth and power through slavery, forced labour and exploitation of invaded lands. Although many practices and values from Western Imperialism were resisted by the Ottomans, following the fall of the empire in 1922 the social norms and practices of modern-day Turkey absorbed many of the Western values of the 1800s and 1900s- particularly around gender roles & norms and sexuality. And as we have discovered multiple times throughout the course of this project, the impact of these imported Western values varies greatly. Regardless of how deeply we dove into the literature around this subject, the questions we had about how Ottoman values did or did not become Turkish values remained.

A crucial requirement for this project is that the voices who speak on the subjects at hand are the voices to whom these histories belong. Naturally, when the /Queer project tackles matters for which no first-hand witnesses remain, our methodology requires us to look next to those both belonging to what remains of a culture and/or those who have dedicated themselves to researching or preserving these histories. In our quest to put the right voice in the centre of this conversation, several months of searching and referrals led us to an academic whose speciality- in the female homoeroticisms of Ottoman and Turkish women- very much afforded them a place at centre of this conversation. I am very happy to let Dr Saritas lead us through this fascinating and complex subject.

Ezgi Sarıtaş, in interview: My name is Ezgi. I am from Ankara University. I am a research assistant here in Turkey. And my research is focused on late 19th, early 20th century sexuality and gender relations and also like, mid 20th century women's movement. I have, like, two parallel but separated research areas.

Georgie Williams, in interview: Brilliant. Well, I've been so excited to do this interview because I think your work is fascinating. So I'm going to bring up the questions I've got for you today. To start, I wanted to touch on that research by asking you've previously written on the subject of female homo eroticism in the late Ottoman and Turkish narratives, what did that homo eroticism look like and what historically and culturally appropriate language would we use to describe it?

Ezgi, in interview: Well, yeah, maybe I should first note that I've studied narratives on female homo eroticism, but the text I've studied were all written by men, which is something, I guess, which is a challenge that many of us face who try to study female homo eroticism. I don't think it's a rare problem, but I've noticed an increase in the number of texts dealing with female homo erotic relations at the turn of the century. These texts were different in different genres. Like, there are medical texts and literary ones and advice books and political commentary, popular history, and also plays and short stories and novellas. So that kind of intrigued me. Why all of a sudden that became so problematic for Turkish intellectuals at the turn of the century? And, yeah, this is a question that I tried to answer by looking into the tensions generated by the idea of a companionate marriage and heterosexual romantic love. I thought that it had something to do with it. I think it was a reflection of male anxieties about that that this was my reading of these texts, or this is my reading of these texts. But to start with, the second part of your question is that the culturally appropriate language is also challenging, I think, which is always tricky, of course, when it comes to erotic lives and experiences, as well as gendered expressions and identifications, embodiments, quote, unquote, before homosexuality. Right. Like, before these clinical or sexological terms emerged and popularized and translated and whatever. So, of course, the fact that we are talking about, again, like non-Western geography complicates this question, I think, a little further.

So they were Ottoman Turkish. Well, they were not really Turkish, but they were used in Ottoman Turkish. There were labels used to describe love, eroticism and sexual relations, sexual encounters between women. And two of them actually come from Arabic. This is why I say not Turkish. The sahaka/musahika/sihak and zurefa. And the other one is more Turkish sevici. So, yeah, looking at the cultural circulation of these two Arabic derived terms, is, I think, interesting. So these musahika, sihak, sahaka, they're all derived from the same root, which means to grind, to pound. And the sexual act is actually what is meant here. So the emphasis is not really on an attitude, a style, or emotions or desires or any kind of identification, but mostly on the sexual act itself. So, of course, Arabic speaking scholars worked on these terms. And for instance, Samar Habib notes that it is interesting to see how grinding actually provides a cross cultural, cross temporal identification for female homoeroticism as because it's used in contemporary, like, slang as well. So, yeah, there is this association with the act itself that is still going on. And it's really hard to say, like, the genealogy of these terms, like the current slang and stuff. It's really hard to trace them back. Maybe it's just that common knowledge, it becomes common knowledge or common usage at some point. Well, yeah, this is one of the terms and Samar Habib, but also other scholars such as Sahar Amer and Fedwa Malti-Douglas also they've written about this text by Ahmad al-Tifâshi's 13th century treatise, the name Nuzhat al-Albâb fimâ la Yujâd fi Kitâb. My Arabic is horrible, but Nuzhat al-Albâb. And so here, al-Tifâshi talks about a subculture of women who loved women. And he says they call themselves zürefa. So this time it indicates a way of life, an attitude, a style. So it's different from sahaka in that sense. Right. And what is interesting is that in the treaties, in this 13th century treaties, zürefa they are portrayed as a community of elegant women. The word zürefa means the elegants in plural.

These women are like, they enjoy beautiful, intoxicating smells and perfumes and luxurious food and extravagant furniture and accessories. So they seem to symbolize some kind of excessive indulgence in worldly pleasures and elegance and all that. And they are having parties at home where they invite others, other elegant women. And there is not much of an indication about their gender expression, not really an implication of masculinity. It seems to be a very feminine subculture or like, yeah, these extravagancies are associated with some kind of feminine indulgence, or at least in their 19th 20th century Ottoman Turkish adaptations, so to speak. Because it's interesting that I've talked about in the beginning that there are texts about the woman loving woman. There is an increase of text, and some of them are actually talking about this subculture with the same name, zurefa, and very similar characteristics, like, for instance, perfumes, intoxicating perfumes. They wear really strong lavender smells, for instance, or these parties where they invite others, and they always have çengis and dance and dance to music and stuff. So it seems that this 13th century figure somehow circulated through the Middle Eastern geography through centuries, and it was in the cultural repertoire of Turkish male intellectuals at the turn of the century. And when they decided to talk about female homo eroticism, which is something I, as I said, is also like a reflection of their anxieties about romantic love and like heterosexual romantic love and companionate marriage. They kind of found it in their cultural repertoire, this figure.

So in the earlier narratives you have these women who are again, they are not really masculine. For instance, it is significant to note that these women, the zürefa or sevici, which is also a Turkish word that is, the one who caresses, the one who loves and like, it can translate like that. But also it has a connotation of kind of the amateur, right? Also amateurs etymological, they have similar etymological kind of stories like the amateur and sevici. So you can use it for an amateur of anything. But of course, the association with this amateur of love and also the one who caresses is I think it also has a reference to the sexual acts as well. Well, yeah, this is also a common term used in the Ottoman Turkish texts. So in the earlier ones you really see how women are seduced by other women, especially younger girls are seduced by older women and they kind of resemble to them. So I think it's a reflection of how love and infatuation is kind of understood within the framework of this “like seeks like” doctrine. When you like someone, you kind of resemble to them or you seek someone who resembles yourself. So it's not like opposites attract each other in a classical heteronormative sense of love and attraction, but on the contrary, like you're attracted to someone who's like you. So you kind of have this kind of framework in the earlier narratives on female homeroticism. So when a girl is seduced by an older zürefa, she kind of starts to look like her and behave like her. She adopts this style, this subcultural style, and she starts resembling

But into the 20th century, this figure starts to transform. This is a very short span of time, so it's really hard to pinpoint the transformation, right? We are not talking about even not even a century or less than 50 years, but a more masculine figure starts to emerge and this time this masculine figure is rarely called zürefa, she's usually called sevici the term that kind of resembles to the amateur etymologically.

One thing that I find interesting is that the zurefa recognize each other from the white dresses and especially white neckties they wear. This is according to these popular narratives on this subculture of women. And there is this saying in Turkish which is thought to be related to this subculture. It is “zürefanın düşkünü, beyaz giyer kış günü” which is the one who's fond of zürefa wears white during winter. So obviously you do not wear something white during winter. You would wear dark clothes. But if you're fond of the zürefa, you wear white. We don't know if the saying is really about the subculture because also wearing white is always an indication of this elegance, right? Like cleanliness, especially when it was hard to clean clothes back then. Well, anyway, but then into the 20th century, 20, 1920s and so you start the emergence of a more masculine figure and this time this white necktie turns into kind of a cravat, into like a more masculine kind of accessory. Which is funny. I think this is a transformation, as I said, that happened like in less than 50 years or something like that. And what caused it. Of course, the translation of the sexological terms and the sexological literature, especially by the Ottoman Turkish neuropsychiatrists, started to translate. I mean, Krafft-Ebing himself is translated in 1940s like Psychopathia Sexualis is translated in the 1940s. But in the 1910s, in the 1900s, they were using it in their books, Krafft-Ebing’s terminology. So they were trying to translate homosexual and sevici and all these terms. So this kind of thinking of the invert right, like the gender identity and sexual orientation being kind of like there is a paradigmatic shift in terms of that, right? Because yeah, this I will talk about later maybe, but I can just you know, it will suffice to say that this figure of the sevici started to become more masculine into 20th century. But of course, these are like texts, published written texts. We do not know how much they influenced the popular knowledge or the everyday perceptions. It's really hard to know that. And I wish there were more popular sources. And maybe over time with more historical research, we will have some more popular sources and maybe even sources by women themselves, which will change a lot, hopefully at some point.

Georgie Williams, in interview: Wow. No, that is fascinating. I have so many questions. But I love that you've mentioned the fact that these are narratives that we only hear through a male voice as well. And that does bring me on to my next question. I know you mentioned kind of male anxieties around some of these relationships between women and I wanted to ask what were the cultural attitudes around these romantic and sexual relationships between any same sex couples?

Ezgi, in interview: Yeah, as I said, it's really hard to say the everyday encounters and what these women experienced. Right. We have almost no evidence right now, but we can talk about different narratives and how they transformed at the turn of the century. This is something that was obvious, especially of course, male homoeroticism perceptions and cultural attitudes toward male homoeroticism transformed drastically. This transition and way like academic literature had dealt with it up to that point actually led me in my doctoral research to examine this cultural and social changes that shaped love and eroticism in late 19th and early 20th centuries. Because when I started reading about that period. I realized that late 18th century, early 19th century, you can still have more open expressions about boy love or like the love and adoration of youthful beautiful boys, especially in literature. And this was really not that acceptable anymore by mid 19th century. So I was like what happened? What was the cause? And so there was the shame argument that I encountered at that point, which is something Ottoman historian Dror Ze’evi talks about. He's not only talking about homo eroticism, but he says with the Ottomans becoming aware of the Western perception of their sexual and erotic experiences and expressions, they were ashamed of it. And also he agrees with Foucault and says yes, there was an explosion of discourse in Europe that is true, but that didn't happen in the Middle East. On the contrary, the Middle East silenced its existing discourses of sex and love and eroticism. So this is not only Dror Ze’evi but he just articulates it very well. And also I've seen this was a popular argument like the Ottomans were ashamed of their homo erotism, so they silenced it and they start to kind of rebuke kind of any expressions of boy love. So even if you wanted to write a poetry about that in late 19th century, you would find it difficult.

There is a poet, Muallim Nâci, who wanted to continue to write classical Ottoman poetry that praises the beauty of mabhûb the male beloved. And this caused a lot of controversy in the literary circles. It was found degenerate kind of the literary circles didn't appreciate that kind of poetry anymore. So yeah, the question was what happened? Is the shame argument really enough? Right. And how did the Ottomans start to feel shame all of a sudden? Does it happen like that? You become aware of something and you were ashamed of it? So I don't know. There is much evidence actually I was talking about how they felt real ashamed of their European friends reading that kind of classical poetry and stuff. That is true. But there must have something happened that leads to that. Right? So I thought the answer could be in the preceding centuries and how actually male homo eroticism is kind of divorced from its more... from erotopolitical hierarchy as I named it in my dissertation, which is both political and spiritual. Right. And the boy Beloved kind of becomes a figure that the poet can talk about is love, but also is talking about his love for the sultan and also for the divine beauty. Right. Because this divine beauty finds its reflection in the boy. That kind of a more spiritual aspect to it was there. But as love and sexuality becomes more mundane, so to speak, it is divorced from this aspect and then it could become an object of shame as it became more mundane and it became more worldly and less divine and spiritual.

It was a long process and I'll not get deep into that, but I can just say that it also became a feature of certain subcultures like the hammam and, kahvehane, coffee shops and, meyhane, taverns. It became a part of this semi criminal subculture of men and an interesting figure... You can also find some... Joseph Allen Boone and Rüstem Altınay have written about Reşad Ekrem Koçu, a popular historian of the mid-twentieth century who talks about this Istanbul subculture a lot which is very homo erotic. So the attitudes towards boy love or male homoeroticism is, like an intricate question because it is also shaped by attitudes toward classical Ottoman poetry, which was very much criticized at the time. Also, because of his literary characteristics, these kind of criticisms were not really taking Ottoman poetry seriously anymore. So it was intermingled with that. So they were also intermingled with attitudes towards this kind of semi criminal Istanbul subcultures. Right.

And also, of course, an Ottoman past that is tried to be denied by a new heterosexual republic with the foundation of the republic. So the Ottomans were criticized because they were being with degenerate. They were being indulgent in pleasures and stuff, and they kind of degenerated the state and the people and all that. And, boylove, in the court in court, poetry was seen as kind of a continuation of this degenerate Ottoman culture. So that was, of course, it's always a very politically charged question, right. How you approach non-conforming genders and sexualities. And, of course, in 19th and 20th century, this was like that for the Ottoman Turks intellectuals and the founders of the republic.

Georgie Williams, in interview: The next question I wanted to go on to was how did relationships between people of the same sex inform late Ottoman and Turkish perspectives on gender identity?

Ezgi, in interview: Yeah, it's an important question. Thank you. So, yeah, actually, I think it also has something to do with all this bigger or wider transformation. As I said, during the late Ottoman Empire, love and marriage became a very much heated topic of debate. So I'll start from something that seems a little bit irrelevant, but I think I will reach to your point, I hope. polygony, for instance, was on the agenda of intellectuals from different parts of the political spectrum. And also arranged marriages and marrying younger girls with older men were problems identified by the literate middle classes and prose literature that was becoming popular while poetry was losing its popularity. Suppose literature became a field where these problems and the idea of, again, companionate marriage is introduced, debated and discussed. Then one of the earliest novels, for instance, is called The Love Between Talat and Fitnat. It's about the tragedy that arranged marriages cause. So the protagonists, Talat and Fitnat, are in love. But Fitnat's stepfather is a very conservative man. And we understand it because his name is called as a hacı baba. He's an old man who went to hajj the pilgrimage. So we understand he's a conservative man from that name and he doesn't let Fitnat to socialize or like, she is very isolated and then marries. He marries off her, off to an old man without her consent. And later, this man turns out to be Fitnat's biological father. So this conservative arranged marriage kind of causes that horrible scenario where you marry your own daughter and in the end, the lovers die, both of them, one just like Fitnat suicides. And Talat sees that and who was already very sick, dies. Well, the interesting part is when Talat is about to die, she's actually named as Ragıbe Hanım, which is Talat's name in their cross dresser name. So this is how actually Talat found a way to spend some time with Fitnat. So because she's very secluded, because she cannot go out Talat, decides, oh, okay, I'm going to dress as a woman and I will become a student of her and we will do embroidery together and I'll get to know to her. And then Talat meets Fitnat for the first time as Ragıbe, as a woman. And then they become very good friends and they just enjoy their time so much. So this idea of love and marriage combining it together could be done through same sex friendship. This is how it looks.

We're just seeing that, oh, then they could be friends. House and husband and wife can become also good friends like that, like Ragıbe. And but it is interesting how gender nonconformity is actually becomes an area of, like, negotiating the anxieties aroused by this new idea of romantic love. But here in the narrative of Talat and Fitnat. It's not really a story of anxieties aroused by it. But I think usually the other stories where you have a cross dressing protagonist, you see that this idea is much more laden with anxiety. Anxiety is aroused by this triggered by this process. And you usually have a female assigned person dressed as a male. So this was a common team in folk stories of a female assigned protagonist dressed as a boy plunges into adventures because that's the only way she can do it or they can do it. Right. Because there's gender segregation. But I mean also you have it in European folk stories as well. Right. This is a common theme. So when prose literature was introduced or becoming popular, these folk stories were written down. The earlier novels, the earliest novels or so called novels were kind of this folk stories being put down on paper. So there were many narratives of cross dressing because of that reason. But also this was later on this was taken by some more popular novel writers or authors. They used this idea of a female assigned person like dressing as a man and just having different adventures. It's a trope that is full of excitement and action. Right. But it also became a narrative that kind of eased the anxiety of being too much infatuated by a female object of desire, as I said. So the one sex model the like seeks like doctrine was there. So I think a feminine object of desire was triggering this anxiety that this object of desire might actually make you feminine too. You might start resembling that to that love object. Right. This is why I think hetero erotic plots like romantic love was triggering a demasculinization or emasculinization. Right, yeah, I think both work. Emasculated. Right?

Yeah. Emasculate. This kind of anxiety was triggered by a feminine object of desire. So that is why I think a female assigned protagonist with a male dress, male attitude, a more masculine woman, was something that was kind of appreciated in the earlier prose literature because it actually kind of eased the anxieties of heterosexual romance, so to speak. But as it progressed into 20th century like, masculine female assigned people were started to be associated with homoeroticism. So this was like the figure of an invert was becoming more popular towards mid 20th century. Then a masculine looking woman started to be seen as more dangerous male assigned people dressing or having feminine gender expression was always problematic. Of course I don't think it's very unique to the Ottoman Turkish culture. Right. It is like misogyny and the hatred of the feminine expression, gender expression is of course very widespread. So in that sense I don't think it was very exceptional. But also gender nonconformity was not really seen as very much pathological until the sexological terminology and that kind of pathologizing approach was translated in 20th century.

Georgie, in interview: I find it fascinating what you are saying about masculine presenting women as objects of desire, easing anxieties in men, because you're right, that doesn't really exist in the same way now at all because of that assumption of masculinity in women being inherently homosexual. So that is so novel and so interesting. And it brings me perfectly to my last question, which was compared to the perceptions of gender and sexuality that existed in the Ottoman Empire, what do you think has changed and what remains the same in modern day Turkey? Which is a big question.

Ezgi, in interview: Yeah, it is a big question. And, you know, comparisons are always difficult because they just force you to make some simplifications in order to find similarities and differences. And simplifications also inevitably mean emphasizing one attitude or perception for the sake of another when we know that they were multiple and diverse. So it's also so difficult to speak of the Ottoman Empire as a single social, political, cultural entity. It was geographically vast and lasted for 600 years. And so attitudes and perceptions in the Arabic speaking, for example, 16th 15th century is different from, say, the Balkans in 17th 18th century. Also, besides, I hardly consider myself an expert on the early modern Ottoman Empire. But a more recent trend, of course, is like in Turkey. These states sponsored homophobic and transphobic movements and discourses. Well, they take LGBTI political mobilization as a Western imposition, right? So they claim that they are defending national values and local morality and values against this Western intrusion into the Muslim Turkish family and values.

But again, despite being very local and national, these movements are, of course, part of a global network of anti-gender mobilizations and homophobic movements I know that you are familiar to. And slogans such as this stops the global war and the family or Gender is a crime against humanity or homosexuality is a crime against humanity are actually global slogans. They're very much translated almost literally from other anti gender movements in Eastern Europe and America and Central Europe and so on. So everywhere as we know it. But of course, they are very localized. So it was a few years ago, in response to this ongoing protests at the Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. These protests were against a university rector appointed by Erdoğan, who was not from Boğaziçi University. It was just completely undemocratic appointment. And there were also LGBTI students involved in the protest. And then there was an art piece that caused a lot of controversy. And somehow all this debate about Boğaziçi University also became a debate about LGBTI movement. And the Ministry of Interior declared that this is something that didn't exist in our culture. So the question of Ottoman sexuality, this actually brought the question of Ottoman sexuality to the agenda. And of course, it's a politically charged issue in the context of these discourses, right? Because some respond to ministry, this Minister of interior, by saying or showing this obscene miniatures of male same sex acts or the poetry form the Ottoman Empire and so on. So these miniatures or poems of same sex acts or dedicated to a beloved boy, this is a perplexing issue for the male optimists, right? This current government is also, of course, neo-Ottomanist, but it's not only like something that is promoted by the government. It's a style, also an everyday attitude or a political perspective that reappropriates the cultural history of the Ottomans, especially before the 19th century. And during 19th century, there's this conservative Sultan Abdul Hamid II the remember selectively, right? They kind of reappropriate this culture. And in this process of reappropriation and reevaluation, some elements of social life or cultural narratives are, of course, left out. And the Ottomans are imagined as this idealized civilization or the past, where there is no space for any non confirming to non CIS heteronormative desire, experience or attachment or gender expression is a very homogeneous history, right? It seeks to raise not only the differences in erotic experiences or gender expression, but all religious minorities, geographical differences and temporal differences in different centuries. These things that I talked about that make it difficult to talk about the Ottomans as a single entity.

This is what they try to do, though. The neo-Ottomanist discourse is just trying to erase this history of homo eroticism in the Ottoman Empire. But of course, it would be equally wrong to imagine the Ottoman as an fantasy land of tolerance. Or this is something this kind of portrayal of the empire is also product of an orientalist, perhaps even homo orientalist, as Joseph Allen Boone puts it, representation of the empire in which homoeroticism was widespread because of gender segregation and less vicious nature of the Orient in general. I guess. And it is perhaps unnecessary to delve into this Orientalist tropes about the Ottoman lens, as geography is of alterity and sexual permissiveness. But we can say that it plays a great role in this homo erotic representations of homo Orientalist representations of the Empire. Of course, same sexual relations were considered reprehensible, if not legally criminal by many. I mean, first of all, it was zina, an unlawful sexual act according to Islamic law? It was not in Islamic law. It was not in but not within a marriage, and it was considered as a crime, not always persecuted, but it was and again, I'm not really an expert, but also, there seems to be no legal agreement, no agreement on how to legally approach same sex relations. As I said, it was not always persecuted. And although there were many depictions of boy love in literature, most of the time it was supposed to be non-carnal spiritual love. I don't mean that it was always spiritual, as some claim. In defence of the Ottomans, of course, th ere were carnal relations, and we have evidence of that, too. But again, it was something to be avoided, at least in the spiritual kind of poetry. It was always kept at bay. But it was to be like the self discipline should be exercised to avoid it. Another Western centred argument is about claims that with Westernization, the Ottomans decriminalised homosexuality because the adoption of the French criminal law, it was no more a crime to be legally defined. And Elif Ceylan Özsoy published a recent article about how this formulation is also based on the universalization of a Western model. But it also relies on another Orientalist trope, which is the trope of the despotic East Right, which seems to contradict the first. But as we know, such contradictory tropes and figures, coexist in Orientalist discourses. So why I'm talking about these is just because even today, this homo-nationalist approach might see the increasing homophobic movements of the east through that perspective, but that wouldn't be true. I think they should be considered within much more in relation not to Islam or to Eastern despotism, but this global, transnational movement of anti gender, populist, new right discourses. Yeah. And within that framework, as I said, like the Ottoman as a homogeneous political, social, cultural entity without paying a respect to geographical, temporal, religious differences, it's also a pitfall that you can find on both sides of the political spectrum. You can find it in neo denialist kind of neo-Ottomanist or sometimes in LGBTI politics. Sometimes they long for this non heteronormative past and romanticise it. But yeah, what I could say is that these are the pitfalls that we should kind of avoid in approaching

Georgie, in interview: This is incredibly useful.

Ezgi, in interview: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Georgie, in interview: What I really enjoyed there as well is the addressing of the romanticization as well, because I think that's really important is that in acknowledging these histories, we don't put them on a pedestal, especially when many of the scenarios that we're talking about involved individuals who we would not consider of consenting age now. But it's so important to also acknowledge how especially that kind of far right movement is arguing that the ideas that we have about gender and sexuality have always been here, that the modern conceptions are the norm when in actual fact. There is a litany of writing out there to prove that our ideas about gender and sexuality now are thoroughly modern and very different to what people used to perceive. So, yeah, thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it. I will finish off by asking, is there anything else that you want to include? Any misconceptions you want to dispel or anything you want to raise awareness to right now?

Ezgi, in interview: No. Maybe I can just add something about what you said. Well, of course we can talk about the differences, but also there are similarities, too. And you can see how in popular terms or perceptions of gender and sexuality. These ideas kind of still live there, and the everyday knowledge and perception as sexuality and gender is always an amalgamation of various discourses. This is why it's always so contradictory, and this is why always you can find a way out of heteronormative ones. The heteronormativity, because it's never coherent, right? There's always contradictions. And the remnants of the earlier discourses and narratives are actually one of the things that destabilize the current discourses and narratives, I think.

Yeah, this is something I can add. And I also would like to say, I don't know when this will be released, but I guess still the devastating effects of the earthquake will be there. It will be there for a long time. Unfortunately, in Turkey and also LGBTI people, especially trans people, are suffering because they have little access to resources and help, like any kind of solidarity efforts, and they are systematically discriminated against. Already, they have been facing many problems, but with the earthquake, the situation is really dire for all minorities, like for, I don't know, refugees, asylum seekers, and LGBTI people and women. So I just wanted to draw attention to that that is going on.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: It was evident from my conversation with Dr Saritas that the language of these gendered and sexual practices was crucial in allowing an outsider to better understand this facet of Ottoman culture. If you were listening all the way back in Episode 5 when we learned about relationships in Edo Period Japan, you’ll remember how we learned of how inappropriate ‘homosexuality’ was as a label for sexual relationships between men during this section of Japanese history. As a Western, 19th Century term, homosexuality was both an inaccurate and inappropriate descriptor for relationships between men where the prefix of ‘homo’, denoting sameness, did not reflect the dynamics of these relationships in Japan. In order to better conceive these relationships outside of the ineffective lens of European languages, I decided to bring more voices into the fold.

Irvin Schick, in interview: So my name is Erwin or Irvin Schick in Turkish pronunciation. I was born in Istanbul a long time ago and I have taught in the United States and in Turkey. I'm back in the United States now and I've always been very interested in the intersection of sexuality and power, and therefore I've been very interested in the instrumentalization of sexuality in politics. And so I suppose we'll be discussing that in greater detail shortly.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Dr Schick was an informed and enthusiastic voice during the development of this episode- who, on the grounds of this project being an oral histories archive of gender and sexuality diversity, initially resisted being interviewed. Schick described himself, quite charmingly, as “straight, but not narrow”- but given that this project requires expertise, sensitivity and community-led guidance, I was very grateful to have another Turkish voice speak so eloquently on such a delicate and nuanced subject. We started, as I’d hoped, with language- with Dr Schick addressing how appropriate the use of ‘homosexuality’ may or may not be to describe same-sex encounters in Ottoman culture.

Irvin, in interview: Well, actually it's not at all appropriate. It's worth remembering that the term homosexuality was only coined in the German-speaking domain in the late 1860s. So, in other words, it is quite historically specific. Although it is commonly used nowadays, Homosexuality is not a trans-historical, geographically universal term. And indeed, in Ottoman culture, although there were very many terms for sexual relations between people of the same sex, there was no single term that applied to both men and women, both active and passive, both young and old. Rather, there was an extremely rich vocabulary that referred to specific roles played by specific people in specific circumstances.

Georgie, in interview: Fantastic. That's so fascinating. And obviously opens us up to so many questions, but I'm going to follow on by what you were saying about the vocabulary and ask you how does Ottoman language for sexual and gendered roles vary from English language conceptualizations?

Irvin, in interview: Well, for example, there are different words for a mature man who penetrates, a mature man who is penetrated, and a young boy who is penetrated. In other words, the terms are age and role differentiated. And this is a very important feature of the sexual vocabulary that does not, or perhaps no longer does, I'm not sure, exist in English. Of course, in gay slang, you will find terms like top, bottom, versatile, you know, son, daddy, and so forth. But this is community-specific slang. Mainstream English today does not have, as far as I know, nuanced terms similar to those in Arabic, in Persian, and of course in Ottoman. And this suggests that sexual relations were not conceptualized along the lines of homosexual versus heterosexual. A man who penetrated a man and a man who was penetrated by a man were conceptualised as differently sexed, rather than as just two participants in a single common homosexual experience. I think that's a very, very fundamental difference.

Georgie, in interview: Yeah, that's huge. And it does actually bring up some of what I was reading in your work regarding that age differentiation, that role differentiation, because of course you've previously written about Ottoman culture having had these, am I right in thinking, distinctly three different genders? So men, women and boys. I wanted to ask about that. Why do you think this distinction was created between men and boys, but not women and girls?

Irvin, in interview: Well, I mean, you have to remember that gender relations were not symmetrical in Ottoman society. Small children of both sexes were by and large considered genderless until they reached a certain age. But once they became gendered by virtue of age, they lived very, very different lives. In particular, female access to public space was limited and very carefully controlled, and sexual relations out of wedlock were not socially sanctioned in the case of women. Now, as you know, gender, of course, is not something you are born with, it is attributed by society in the form of behavior and status and functions and so forth. And in that sense, as girls grew up to be women, and in that process certainly did acquire greater authority, no fundamental change occurred in their place within society. Perhaps we can qualify that statement a little bit by pointing out that women once again became genderless as they aged out of their reproductive years.

In her book on the Ottoman Imperial Harem, Leslie Pierce showed how generation could sometimes trump gender, so that old women often exercised considerable authority over the young men in their household. But I wouldn't go as far as claiming that this was a gender change. Women did not, in many ways, well, let me give you another example. Well, boys cry, right? As they grow up to become men, they're not supposed to cry anymore. There are certain very fundamental changes that are expected of male individuals as they grow up. That is not the case with female individuals. And so, in that sense, the gender of the female person does not change as appreciably as the one for, in the case of a male individual.

Georgie, in interview: That's incredible. It's absolutely fascinating, especially the idea of ageing out of the gender. That's so far from what I've done in research. I haven't come across that before. So that's incredible. So to bring a slightly more contemporary perspective into this, with regards to the very much English language concept of homophobia, transphobia, misogyny. How and why do perspectives on gender and sexuality in contemporary Turkish culture vary compared to Ottoman perspectives?

Irvin, in interview: Well, misogyny was always there and remains alive and well in Turkey today, so we can set that aside. But as for homophobia, I don't want to suggest, of course, that Ottoman society was a permissive paradise. But while sensuous and worldly pursuits of all kinds were certainly frowned upon in contrast to abstinence and piety and devotion, a specifically negative attitude was limited to adult men who were penetrated. You know, that was a infavourably viewed because that was viewed as transgressive of accepted roles. But as long as the adult man was the penetrator, whom he penetrated was viewed as basically a matter of personal taste. And the homophobia that currently exists in Turkey is the result of two separate but related factors. The arrival and consolidation of European heteronormativity during the 19th century and the amoral, cynical instrumentalization of sexuality and of otherness of every variety, actually, by the present government in an effort to drum up political support as they face economic ruin. And of course, with the earthquake, I'm sure that ruin will be even accelerated.

Now, transphobia is a very different issue. For example, in Ottoman society, cross-dressing was a serious problem, with a huge exception of the entertainment sector, because there, as in many other pre and early modern societies, you wear what you wore. For a Muslim to dress like a Christian, or for a man to dress like a woman, these were severely punishable transgressions of social norms. Today, of course, things are different. You know, your attire is no longer that important. But many men who view themselves as quote unquote straight patronize trans sex workers in Turkey, especially in a city like Istanbul. And the violence that they frequently visit upon them is, I believe, nothing more than a projection of the self-hatred that society's hypocrisy induces in them. When society hates who you are, you may come to hate yourself too, and one way of dealing with that hatred is to beat other people up. So, I think a lot of transphobia is due to this pressure on men who patronize trans sex workers on the part of society.

Georgie, in interview: That's absolutely fascinating. Wow, thank you so much for this. Before we stop recording, is there anything else that you want to share as part of this to dispel any rumours or address any misconceptions about what you study?

Irvin, in interview: Well, for people who are not following what's going on in Turkey very closely, I should mention that the current government and especially the Minister of the Interior, Suleyman Soylu, have made anti-LGBT a big issue. And they have been cited in the press as saying things like, they will make, you know, homosexuals of all of us, or they want to make us into homosexuals, and other such nonsensical statements. Now, I very much doubt that they believe what they are saying. I think that, as I said, that this is a very cynical ploy to essentially mobilize part of society against another part in order to create common enemies and gain support. And in this respect, I think that the LGBT community in Turkey really needs support from the world. And the world should be aware. I mean, we are all aware of what's been going on in Uganda and in you know, Poland and so forth. I don't think Turkey has been getting quite as much coverage in this respect. And it would be good for people to be aware that there is a lot of pressure building up on the LGBT community in Turkey. And once you start creating enemies, where that will end is never quite clear. So this is something that I think deserves some degree of attention.

Georgie Williams, voiceover: Dr Shick’s closing statements, addressing the ill-informed conceptualisation of common enemies to bolster political power within the Turkish government, draw not insignificant parallels with other sites of political contestation in Turkey. In both Turkey and Malta I made connections with members of the Kurdish community- a large, predominantly Muslim ethnic group. Half of all 30 million Kurds are estimated to live in Turkey- and this residency is contingent on an assimilation of Kurds into Turkish identity. One of the Kurdish associates I made explained to me how Kurdish names were banned for a period of the 20th Century in Turkey, and even now this individual does not have any formal travel documentation with their Kurdish name on it. Educational instruction in the Kurdish language is banned in Turkish schools and alongside this censoring of Kurdish culture, a significant social taboo around Kurdish identity persists. I also met a young Kurdish woman who told me that given her experiences, she was more hesitant to tell me that she was Kurdish than tell me that she was a lesbian. Between the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community in Turkey and the persecution of the Kurdish community, it seems apparent that what it means to be Turkish, according to the current Turkish government, may very much be contingent on a cultural homogenisation- the ignoring or even destruction of communities whose existence does not align with pre-determined Turkish values. To be Turkish- or even to be safe in Turkey- requires existing within a definition so narrowed, we must ask the question, at what point does the narrowing stop? And which vulnerable groups may become the next state-endorsed common enemy?

In The Transformation of Turkey by sociologist Fatma Müge Göçek, Göçek writes on the subject of the mistreatment of the Armenian people by the Turks throughout and following their many decades of conflict. On this subject, she states that “it is evident that the Turkish state’s conception of just people needs to be challenged by the community of independent scholars. And that challenge is under way.” The question of what makes a person ‘just’ is at the core of the debate around cultural preservation vs progressivism. Very often, the people of a country- its politicians, businesspeople and general citizens- may calibrate their morality on and justify their actions around the cultural values of a bygone era of their country; an era often historically whitewashed and easier to romanticise. But the roots of homophobia, transphobia and queerphobia in Turkey- at least, as we recognise these concepts now- cannot be explained through the preservation of the cultural values of the Ottoman empire. For many Turks, this history has, at least in a formal sense, been inaccessible- through, we may speculate, educational blockades or cultural taboo. Undoubtedly, values can be passed through generations of families without a more academic understanding of their origins. But the resistance of xenophobia in Turkey is a matter far reaching far beyond the importance of from where these hostilities sprung.

As Göçek states, scholars are well-positioned to challenge the norms around what is ‘just’ behaviour, when it comes to those around us most vulnerable to harm and ostracism. But there is so much that can be done, outside of the seat of academia, to take knowledge of the history of Turkey and utilise it to explain how easily, radically, a country’s practices and values can change, when the cause is just. The cultural pathway that tracks from Ottomans to Turks is a complex one, the shift between the values of the two not unremarkable, but it is a history that demonstrates how a society can choose the face they present to the world- and, when revolutionary action necessitates it, that face can be radically changed for the better.

There is much in Turkey’s rich history that, in its proliferation, could benefit not only the movement seeking to protect the LGBTQ+ Turkish community, but a host of communities at risk of discrimination and dehumanisation. In recognising the shifts in power dynamics between genders, sexualities and even racial and ethnic groups throughout history, we very often begin to see repeating themes- that not just in Turkey but throughout much of the recorded world, enemies of society are conceptualised for the sake of blaming discord and disharmony upon an othered group. And, as Dr Schick stated, once you start creating enemies, where that will end is never quite clear. The parallels evident between the treatment of ethnic, gendered and sexual minorities in Turkey are impossible to ignore.

Justice for the marginalised people of Turkey is an abstract concept, still- and the crisis following the earthquake which rocked this country earlier this year will almost certainly slow down this necessary progress. But the fight is far from over- and perhaps with the global support called for by voices inside the Turkish community, hope for an inclusive Turkey may remain, even now, in reach.

This episode of the /Queer Podcast was edited by Dan Stubbs, transcribed by Bronya Smith, co-scripted by myself and Taha Atayist and produced and hosted as always by me, Georgie Williams. A very special thanks to Dr Irvin Schick and Dr Ezgi Sarıtaş for their insightful and informative contributions to this episode. Many thanks also to Tonie Walsh for his support and accommodation during our time in Antalya.

Many thanks also to our fantastic Patreon subscribers- your contributions are now fully supporting the upkeep of our website and helping with payments for some of the software we use, which makes a huge difference. This month, all of our Patreon donations are being donated to the British Red Cross Turkey-Syria Earthquake appeal. That means all donors, new and old, will be directly supporting the continued efforts to manage the impact of the Turkey-Syria crisis.

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This episode was recorded on location in Turkey and virtually between South Africa and Boston, USA. Music in this episode was composed by our resident audio king, Sam Clay. If you enjoyed this episode or have any feedback, please get in touch on Instagram or Twitter at @SlashQueer or email us at info@slashqueer.com. Until you join us next- stay kind, stay radical and stay queer.