Erdoğan's Folk Devils: Legal Persecution of the LGBTQ+ NGOs and activists in Turkey

April 1, 2026

A demonstrator holds a placard that reads "No to perversion" during an anti-LGBT rally organized by pro-Islamic NGOs in Istanbul, Sept. 18, 2022. [Image source: VOA News].

Introduction

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association (ILGA) produces a Rainbow Map which ranks countries on their legal and policy practices for LGBTQ+ people, from 0-100%. This ranking is produced by examining each country’s laws using criteria based on seven areas, including equality and non-discrimination, family, hate crime and hate speech, legal gender recognition, intersex bodily integrity, civil society space, and asylum. According to the ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map, Turkey’s ranking has declined from 39th to 47th among 49 countries since 2013, with the percentage score falling from an already meager 14% to 5%.

Despite being the first Muslim-majority country to hold pride marches, gay pride marches have been banned since 2015 in Istanbul. LGBTQ+ Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and networks established since the 90s recently started receiving attacks. Turkey has become an unsafe place for being queer or for LGBTQ+ activism due to increasing authoritarianism and strengthened far-right activists.

Since his re-election in 2023, President Erdoğan has been increasingly targeting the LGBTQ+ community of activists, NGOs, and artists. Erdoğan and other members of his party utilize legal and discursive tools to control queer expression and limit LGBTQ+ activism. The vague wording of certain sections of the Constitution and the Turkish Penal Code allows for the persecution of queer activists. Their main culprit is Article 226 of the Penal Code on “Obscenity,” which they use to restrict civil rights. 

Discourse 

The LGBTQ+ community and queer rights movement have been framed through different discussions by the ruling right-wing Islamist and nationalist-conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP). President Erdoğan has described the LGBTQ+ community as mixed types, perverted movements, enemies of the family, and evil, among other words. He has declared 2025 the “Year of the Family”, wrapping anti-LGBTQ sentiments in a children’s protection sentiment, in addition to encouraging the youth to get married and have at least three children. In his speech at the International Family Forum, held by the Ministry of Family and Social Services of Turkey, he declared the period of 2026-2035 the “Decade of Family and Population,” and went on a tangent about how human nature is under a global threat because of individualism “packaged as freedom.” He continued to explain how proponents of “gender-neutralisation” are exploiting children and how the LGBTQ+ community is the enemy of women. There have been skyrocketing femicide rates in Turkey, which Turkish officials are looking to pin on the LGBTQ+ community.

In the same speech, Erdoğan compares LGBTQ+ to fascist movements, and condemns the “lynching” of people who “criticise the LGBT torment.” Earlier in the Year of the Family event, he voiced that criticisms of LGBTQ+ are subjected to “heavy oppression” and “silencing.” With the possibility of a businessman or a politician being lynched for not being a queer ally in Turkey being close to zero, one questions what exactly he is referencing. 

2026 kicked off with a 6-part documentary called “Rainbow Fascism” that aired on tabii, the digital platform of The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation, as blatant queerphobic propaganda. Since 2025, the “Year of the Family,” the government has been ceaselessly attacking the LGBTQ+ community, especially the civil society activists. Since 2025, the Young LGBTI+ Association has been shut down after a lengthy court process. The Young Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans Intersex Youth Studies and Solidarity Association (Young LGBTI+ Association - Genç LGBTİ+ Derneği) was established in 2016 to research the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ youth. They were attempting to bring these issues to the public’s attention. They were also trying to form solutions to these issues and create safe spaces for LGBTQ+ persons.  In 2005, KaosGL became the first official LGBTQ+ association in Turkey, fighting for queer justice. Since 2025, access to KaosGL’s Instagram account has been blocked by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority of Turkey. The May 17th Association began in 2019 in Ankara. The May 17th Association aims to build the LGBTQ+ community and its activism in Turkey. Their Chair, Defne Güzel, is facing charges of up to 3 years in prison. Transgender activist Janset Kalan has been sentenced to 5 months of prison for a photo showing her legs and cleavage, shared from an account that does not belong to her.

Legal Tools 

The common characteristic in many of these cases is the use of Article 226 as the basis for reasoning. The first and second subsections of Article 226 criminalize the distribution, display, sale, advertising, or publication of obscene written or audio-visual material, with stricter provisions when such material is made accessible to children. It covers acts ranging from showing or selling such content to broadcasting. Violations are punishable by prison sentences ranging from six months to three years, along with judicial fines.

The article is supposed to protect children from being exposed to pornography. However, casting a wide net over what the law defines as “obscene” content allows for a wide interpretation. The article has become a tool for selective enforcement and the targeting of the LGBTQ+ community.

Article 226 is usually invoked together with claims of violation of “public morals,” which has no real definition. The Young LGBTI+ Association was shut down for “violating public morals” and the incompatibility of their activities with Article 41 of the Turkish Constitution. Per Article 41 of the Constitution, the State has the obligation to protect “peace and welfare of the family, especially mother and children,” and “shall take measures for the protection of the children against all kinds of abuse and violence.” The activity in question that would supposedly cause the disruption of peace and welfare of the family and/or cause abuse against children was sharing “male and female genitalia, obscene images of people of different sexes, and transgender-themed content" in their social media accounts.

The vague words, such as public morality, obscenity, indecency, public values, and family values, are thrown around uncritically. The phrases either have sources in the Penal Code or the Constitution, or sometimes lack a legal basis altogether.

An amendment has been proposed to the Justice Commission of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT) in October of 2025, suggesting changes to Article 226. The amendment, proposed by a deputy from the pro-Kurdish and left-wing Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), suggests changing the word “obscenity” to “pornography” among other changes, in order to preserve the original intent of protecting children from exploitation. Yet, despite the DEM Party’s general support for LGBTQ+ rights, the proposal does not mention how the article infringes on the rights of queer people and activists, and instead focuses on artistic freedom and women’s bodily autonomy. 

The proposal is on the waitlist of the Justice Commission. It has not received a decision yet. If accepted, the decision could be a step toward improved queer rights, women’s empowerment, bodily autonomy, artistic freedom, and overall civil rights. However, it is unclear if it will pass. In February, at the “Human Rights and Family Summit” held by AKP, the chairman of the Justice Commission of GNAT, Cüneyt Yüksel, described the LGBTQ+ rights movement as “dynamite thrown at the future of our nation,” while others accused the community of planning a “genocide of humanity” at the same event.

The amendment will probably not pass, and even if it did, not much would change. The government has already openly proclaimed its desire to persecute the LGBTQ+ community, and it continues to find more ways to continue this mission. Article 226 on obscenity is not the only legal tool used to persecute the LGBTQ+ community. Article 225 on “indecent acts” has a history of being used for societal control as well. In February 2026, it was reported that the Justice Ministry is drafting legislation that includes an amendment to Article 225 of the penal code on “indecent acts” that criminalizes anyone who “publicly encourages, praises or promotes attitudes and behaviors contrary to innate biological sex and general morality” with a one to three-year sentence. If passed, the new amendment could potentially criminalize any expression of queerness, LGBTQ+ activism, and NGOs focusing on gay rights.

Prison terms also target people who hold informal same-sex engagement ceremonies. The changes proposed by the Justice Ministry also raise the minimum age for gender-affirming surgery from 18 to 25 and complicate the transition process overall. This bill was previously reported to be a part of the 11th Judicial package in October of 2025, yet it was not present when the package was presented to the GNAT in January. Many activist groups warned that the bill may have been simply postponed, which may prove true. 

Whose Morals are the Public Morals?

Anti-queer and anti-gender sentiments are not unique to Turkey, but are in fact part of a global rise in far-right movements all over the world. The framing of the issue in Turkey and the rest of the world is similar. Intolerance toward queerness is repackaged as freedom of opinion, protection of religious values, children, and/or family structure. Erdoğan and the state-sponsored documentary are not the first phenomenon that claims infringement upon their rights for not being able to openly discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community or claim that everyone in society must stay within the undefined boundaries of public morality.

The far-right movements construct LGBTQ+ people as folk devils through exaggerated accounts of real or imagined behaviors, in order to cause general moral panic. Public outcry and general fear then create opportunities to pass harsher restrictions and laws, most of which are also applied to the entire population to tighten control over society. For example, when the Turkish government sponsors a 6-part documentary about how queer rights movement harbors fascism and is going to take away people’s rights to express their opinions and hurt their children, they hope to obtain the consent of the wider society to take away some of their rights, to “protect” them from the LGBTQ+ community. By scapegoating the LGBTQ+ community, Turkey also pulled out of the Istanbul Convention in 2021, even though the convention's sole purpose is to oppose violence against women and domestic violence. AKP’s queerphobia is affecting everyone at all levels of society.

The dominant Islamist-conservative class shows no signs of stopping the persecution of the LGBTQ+ community. Turkey becomes more authoritarian every year, as does the rest of the world. Twisted discourse and framing of topics are indispensable to attempts at restricting civil rights. Therefore, it is important to notice the framing of these issues by politicians and avoid falling into moral panic, in order to resist being manipulated into accepting unacceptable breaches of freedom and democracy. 

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Glossary

• Article 41 (of the Turkish Constitution): A provision in Turkey’s Constitution that states the government must protect the family, especially mothers and children, and protect children from abuse and violence.

• AKP (Justice and Development Party): Turkey’s conservative, nationalist, and Islamist ruling party since 2002. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a leading figure in the party.

• Authoritarianism: A political system in which power is concentrated in the hands of one leader or a small group, with limited political freedoms and reduced checks on government authority.

• Civil Society: a dense network of groups, communities, networks, and ties that stand between the individual and the modern state. These may include NGOs, associations, and advocacy groups.

• Discourse: The way an issue is talked about publicly, including the language, narratives, and ideas used to describe it. Discourse shapes how people understand and react to certain topics.

• Far-right movements: Political movements that promote strong nationalism, traditional social values, and often oppose immigration, minority rights, and LGBTQ+ rights.

• Femicide: killing of a woman because of her gender, often linked to domestic violence.

• Framing: presentation of an issue in a particular way to influence how people view it.

• Gender affirming surgery: medical procedure(s) that alter a person’s body to match their gender identity.

• Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT/TBMM): Turkey’s national parliament

• Indecent acts (Article 225 of the Turkish Penal Code): A legal term in Turkey’s Penal Code that criminalizes acts considered “indecent.” The law does not clearly define what counts as indecent, allowing broad interpretation.

• Justice Commission: A parliamentary committee within the Grand National Assembly that reviews proposed legal changes, especially those related to criminal law.

• Moral panic: A situation where public fear and concern about a group or issue are amplified, often by political actors or media, leading to demands for stricter laws or control.

• Obscenity (Article 226 of the Turkish Penal Code): A legal term in Turkey’s Penal Code that criminalizes the distribution or display of material considered “obscene.” The law does not clearly define what counts as obscene, allowing broad interpretation.

• Penal Code: Turkey’s criminal law.

• Public morals: A vague legal concept referring to the moral values of society. It is not clearly defined in law, which allows it to be interpreted broadly.

• Queer: An umbrella term for people whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from heterosexual and cisgender norms. 

• Queerphobia: Hostility, fear, discrimination, or prejudice directed at people who are LGBTQ+ or perceived to be LGBTQ+. 

• Scapegoating: Blaming a particular group for wider social problems in order to shift attention away from other causes or responsibilities.

• Selective enforcement: When laws are applied unevenly, targeting certain groups more than others.

• State-sponsored media: Media platforms funded or controlled by the government.

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