[E.O.M.S.]

This is a guest post by a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous.

The status of transgender people has improved radically in many countries around the world in recent years. Unfortunately, even in a global context, progress is still patchy and every positive change in one country seems to be countered with retrograde activity in another.

Across Europe, there has been an increase in violent attacks by far-right protesters and these are occuring at the same time as countries such as Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine are adopting national and regional laws to forbid the public expression of support for LGBT people's human rights.

This disturbing trend has come to the attention of the European Parliament; in May this year, Dennis de Jong MEP, Vice-President of the LGBT Intergroup in the European Parliament, said:

The Commission and the External Action Service must take note of these bans and condemn them without hesitation. These are clear breaches of universally-agreed human rights, and we will work to ensure free speech remains a reality everywhere in Europe, including for LGBT people. [Source]

However, there is no room for celebration or complacency in Turkey. Three years ago the LGBTT Rights Platform - an informal alliance of transgender and LGB advocacy and support groups - called for an end to what it called "an undeclared war" against LGBT people in Turkey [Source] - yet the situation for transgender people especially seems to be getting worse, not better.

In 2009, the Trans Murder Monitoring Project (TMM) was set up jointly by Transgender Europe (TGEU) and the academic online magazine Liminalis with the aim of collecting and analyzing published reports of the homicides of transgender people worldwide. The figures for Turkey are both alarming and dispiriting, showing a year-on-year increase in the murders of transgender people.

While this violence is to be condemned in the strongest possible terms, it is believed to be only the tip of the iceberg. As well as the reported murders, many other hate crimes against transgender people (transphobic crimes) go unreported, ranging from verbal abuse in the street and the workplace through muggings, beatings and rape. Perhaps worst of all is the attitude of many government agencies, many of which seem unconcerned at the extent of transphobic crimes. This has the result of enabling the rates of these crimes to escalate, because they send the message to the general population that it's acceptable to display such prejudices - even against members of the authorities themselves.

For example, earlier this week, Khaber reported on an operation against against an Istanbul police officer, known only as F.B., which bears the hallmarks of an undercover 'sting' action (a deceptive operation designed to catch a person thought to be committing a crime).

The officer, based in the Güngören district of Istanbul, was named in an anomyous email in which it was claimed that, out of working hours, she "dressed like a woman and prostituted". Posing as potential clients, police officers arranged to meet F.B. at a prearranged location, where they detained her then extracted a confession later at the police station. F.B. has been discharged from the police force and faces four years' imprisonment on charges of "soliciting and accomodation for prostitution."

The police action raises questions in several areas. First of all, there is an ethical concern over whether a sting operation in fact comprises entrapment. It may be that F.B. had committed no crime, but the actions of the police officers had the effect of provoking a crime by someone who might not otherwise have done so. And, if it should prove that F.B. was indeed engaged in paid sex work, then it may perhaps be counter-argued that the police officers engaged in the crime of soliciting.

There is also the wider question of society's attitudes to paid sex work, and many experts have suggested that pursuing individuals is ultimately counter-productive, attacking the symptom rather than the cause, and that the energies of the authorities might be better focused on tackling the root issues around the sex industry. From this perspective, it could be argued that issues around coercion, trafficking and the spread of HIV/AIDS on a national scale deserve greater attention than the alleged activities of one person.

While it's true that some transgender people are sex workers, there may be good reasons for this. Transgender people are stigmatised, marginalised and generally demonised by swathes of society; as a consequence obtaining necessary medical supplies such as hormones will always be difficult. Additionally, for those who wish to transition fully, the costs of such things as sex reassignment surgery (SRS) - often requiring travel to another country - and building a new life may be prohibitively expensive. Unemployment rates amongst transgender people are universally far higher than in corresponding sections of society as a whole and for some transgender people, sex work may be the only option left open to them.

However, it isn't always so straightforward. This quote from the Khaber article is particularly telling:

I have felt like a woman since an early age," F.B. reportedly said. "I always did it secretly to avoid destroying the responsibility of my job ... I am doing this not for money but for pleasure.

Many transgender people are aware at a very young age that the bodies in which they find themselves are not the bodies their brains were expecting. This incongruence is known by medical specialists as "gender dysphoria"; its effects are severely debilitating and may lead to depression, despair and suicide. Over many years, various methods of alleviating this distress have evolved with a proven success rate; from occasional cross-dressing, through hormone therapies and surgery.

While some are fortunate enough to transition fully and live completely in their preferred gender, for others this solution may not be desirable. F.B.'s comment above suggests that she is in this latter category. That being so, then the actions of the police would seem to be an unnecessarily heavy-handed and entirely inappropriate response to a member of one of the most vulnerable sections of society.

Given that, only a day after F.B.'s arrest, TGEU reported the violent murder of a transgender woman in Antalya to add to other transphobic and homophobic murders and hate crimes known to have been carried out this year alone in Gaziantep, Pendik, Istanbul, Izmir, Maltepe, Kusadasi and Kocaeli, surely an attitudinal change amongst the majority of Turkish society is long overdue and the undeclared war against transgender people brought to an immediate end.

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Turkey - TG symbol made by Helen from images found at Wikipedia (here and here). Both original images are public domain and so is this one. If using elsewhere, please ensure correct attribution.

Cross-posted from Bird of Paradox