22/07/2024 | Writer: Kaos GL
The Transfeminist Collective made a press statement at the IHD Istanbul Branch on Friday, July 19. The collective addressed all the institutions and organizations saying “We urge all of them to face the structural criticism that is brought to them.”
Full text of the press statement is as follows:
“In recent times, we have witnessed that many lubunyas (queers), particularly trans people, have faced various forms of psychological violence and internalized transphobic isolation within numerous organizations. These range from anti-colonialist movements to women’s feminist organizations and NGOs in our geography. When survivors of this violence disclose their experiences, they are met with silence, they are ignored and they are left alone.
We regretfully observe that many of our friends who criticize structure of these organizations are often met with indifference, not taken seriously, and left in isolation. As trans individuals, we are essential allies in the fight against patriarchy, capitalism, totalitarianism, and fascism alongside all trans-friendly people in this region. We witness our friends being dismissed, removed from activism, restricted in their workspaces, and ousted from stages. The exclusion and isolation experienced by Arzu is part of this pattern.
We must establish a genuinely intersectional struggle, eliminate the fears instilled by patriarchy that divide us, reconnect, and stand united against patriarchy. We urge every organization and community fighting for freedom to address internalized transphobia and homophobia and engage more deeply with trans people and lubunyas.
Without this unity, our isolation makes us more vulnerable to violence from those in power. The totalitarian regime exploits this vulnerability, criminalizes us as threats, uses violence against us, and arrests us. We must never allow this violence to be trivialized.
We are also aware that some of our lubunya friends have been tracked and subjected to severe physical violence, such as beatings, injuries, and bone fractures, by plainclothes police officers over the past two years.
Additionally, we know that the life safety of some of our lubunya friends has been threatened by systematic cyberbullying that has been ongoing for years, and that our friends have been targeted.
In the current climate, our friends are detained arbitrarily due to their activism, and lubunyas are intimidated with the threat of arrest.
We understand that the only way to counter these attacks is through solidarity and unity. Our comrades, who have the privilege and appropriate conditions to voluntarily participate in our spaces of freedom, must never forget the importance of fostering truly sharing relationships that build collective bonds.
We must thwart patriarchy’s strategy of divide and conquer. The arrest of our comrade Iris Mozalar on July 11 and her subsequent release was not because of the alleged ‘provoking the public to hatred, hostility or degrading’ but was planned to eliminate trans people and lubunyas from the political arena.
The fact that the perpetrators of the pogrom were not even taken into custody or arrested, as Audre Lorde reminds us, ‘Master's tools will never dismantle the master’s house’, that is to say the law made by the master will not bring justice. We stand in solidarity with all our fellow strugglers who raise their voices against pogroms, fascism, and patriarchy.
Surely these dark days will be left behind, and we will never give up on a life that we can live freely and with our desires.
We announce to everyone: if this is a hell, we are the pieces of fire stubbornly burning in its embers. It will not be such easy to touch us.
In recent years, we have observed that many right-wing, conservative, and totalitarian regimes have turned to comprehensive transphobic and homophobic practices, oppression, and violence due to the crises faced by heterosexism itself.
In this context, we foresee that Turkey and neighboring countries will increasingly focus on these oppressive practices in the coming period. We already witness this violence in the forms of fascism that have been practiced in Turkey for years.
Therefore, we emphasize that leaving each other alone makes us more vulnerable to attacks by those in power.
We invite all organizations of struggle, whose freedom depends on the freedom of each of us, to address, agendize, keep up to date, and work on these issues.
In particular, we urge everyone to establish solidarity desks and to show moral and material solidarity with our comrades in prison.
We have recently witnessed the distressing situation of our trans feminist poet friend Arzu Bulut. In this process, we see that Arzu has been rendered unresponsive by women’s and feminist organizations, and that the ‘state of perpetrators’ of individuals and organizations has been whitewashed. This is unacceptable. We know that such loneliness and isolation pave the way for suicide.
We would also like to ask what those who cannot fix the heart of a trans woman and who make room for perpetrators of transphobic violence in our spaces can offer us and cisgender women.
We invite our comrades and all organizations to take a resolutive, peaceful, and re-establishing approach to relationships. Because we know and emphasize that the structural criticisms made by our friend Arzu for our struggle for freedom are valuable and should not be met with silence. We are honored to make this call and to be here today as independent transgender feminists on behalf of our comrade Arzu Bulut, and to express our desire to enhance our struggle with the structural criticisms she has brought to our fight for freedom.
If we are to be strong together, this will never be possible without trans people. Trans lives are much more than just the title of a book, the subject of a meeting, or the title of an event in the fields of freedom and struggle. Get in touch with us. Be friends with us. Be comrades with us. We are your allies.
As we look at the homes we cannot live in, the squares we cannot celebrate in, and the streets we cannot walk on, we see only the network of relations that you, as cisgender individuals, have established among yourselves. We do not accept this. Our lives have meanings beyond being mere images, and we are more than that. We are patriarchy’s greatest fearful dream. On this basis, we urge all organizations to address the structural criticisms brought to them, to engage in dialogue, to show empathy, and to develop solutions. We hope that this call of ours will be responded to and that all our trans feminist and queer comrades, especially our friend Arzu, whose hearts are broken and wounded, will be supported.
On the other hand, shaming suicide, labeling it as a psychological illness, and making it unaddressable by not bringing it to the agenda only activates the suicide paradigm and trivializes suicide.
In recent processes, we see the lack of problematization of suicide and the lack of addressing it among ourselves as a significant deficiency and a great danger for the future.
Under the deep fascism we are experiencing in Turkey, unfortunately, we are all closed in on ourselves. Many of us face economic problems. Many of us are homeless. Many of us sometimes, or mostly, completely alone in the world. In this sense, it cannot be expected that many of us are not already psychologically disturbed and unhealthy. We wish that those who expect reasonableness from us, those who tell us that we should behave as if we are reasonable, will abandon their attitude that is directed towards us like violence.
We need our burdens to be shared, our pains to be heard and listened to, and to be looked at and seen. While we strive to establish a relationship of equals among ourselves, we have to keep in mind that there are class differences, traumas, struggles for existence, and pains that differentiate us. Pretending these do not exist undermines our efforts for true equality.
We are not to be blamed for being souls that cry out and are angry, for showing the rough side of our tongue. The blame lies with patriarchy itself. Let’s make comradeship in every sense. Let’s transform the issues patriarchy uses to divide us into acts of great courage and throw them back at them. Let’s meet in an open forum to discuss how to strengthen our relationships and politics.
Long live our trans feminist struggle!”
Tags: human rights
