Jailed LGBTI+ family activist Nedime Erdoğan: Family is not built on blood ties alone

In operations launched on Sep 12 under the name ‘Family is Safe’, LGBTI+ organizations, rights defenders, activists, and venues where LGBTI+s gather became the targets raids.

Eighty-two people, including LGBTI+ rights advocates, were formally arrested after operations across 15 provinces. Among those was Nedime Erdoğan, a board member of the Kaos GL Association and founder of the Rainbow Families Association (GALADER).

Erdoğan, who has worked for years to strengthen the ties between LGBTI+s and their families, answered bianet’s questions in writing from Sincan Women’s Closed Prison.

‘No pressure is strong enough to change existence’

As an LGBTI+ mother who was arrested under an operation named ‘Family is Safe’, what did you think when you first heard the name of the operation?

When I first heard the name of the operation, I just laughed. Because for years, I have been working for families to stay together, to understand their children, to support them, and to respect their existence. Without ever forgetting the reality that ‘family’ is a space of struggle for LGBTI+s, of course.

For LGBTI+s, who are forced to cope with various forms of discrimination and bullying as people try to render them invisible in the public sphere, it is very important that the institution of family stands in a protective, caring, and understanding place. Because we know that families can be perpetrators.

Over the years, I have witnessed many families rebuilding the balances within the family by grasping the scientific and existential reality of this. This change brought not only LGBTI+s but the entire family to a new, more open, and more authentic place. From here, because of my experiences as a witness, I have always maintained my belief that similar things can happen in the public sphere as well.

I have always trusted the common sense of society. LGBTI+s are part of the society, and no pressure is strong enough to change existence.

‘Family is not built on blood ties alone’

You have been fighting for years to strengthen the ties between LGBTI+ children and their families. How do you evaluate the concept of ‘family’ being pitted against LGBTI+s today?

We are facing a political agenda that tries to fit everyone into a single mold and targets those who remain outside it. As society changes, the family also changes and diversifies. They certainly see the reality that the family is not uniform, and that the definition of what is ‘acceptable’ fits no one. Families that are poor, refugees, disabled, and so on do not fit this definition either.

As for LGBTI+s, people refuse to accept the reality that they were once children, or that they are part of a family with mothers, fathers, siblings, relatives, and friends who love them. LGBTI+s were born to a mother and a father, and they are in every vein of the society. Your neighbor, your taxi driver, the supermarket worker, your local grocer, or your butcher could be LGBTI+.

The family experiences of LGBTI+s are often tragic and traumatic. Much of this happens due to ignorance and policies of hostilization that are wrongly imposed on society and not based on scientific knowledge. They are trying to portray LGBTI+s as anti-family.

Anyone who has experienced this much trauma and violence would criticize the family, and I do too. As someone who has experienced that a family can be built not only through blood ties, but through solidarity, love, and support, I have witnessed both the efforts of LGBTI+s for their families and their strong stance in ‘chosen families’ to experience this feeling.

There is no legal mechanism allowing LGBTI+s to officially form a family. If a law were passed, it is clear that LGBTI+s would be the ones getting married the most 🙂 We cannot know. LGBTI+s are not anti-family; they simply stand from a place where they have experienced that an environment free of violence, where understanding, solidarity, and respect are preserved, is possible, and that blood ties are not essential for this.

As parents, by transforming our own families, we say that ‘another’ family is possible.

‘Understanding and supporting your child saves lives’

What would you like to say to families who have learned that their child is LGBTI+ and are feeling fear due to what is happening today?

I am writing from the concept of ‘judicial crimes’, where the family concept is dragged as an example that fails to explain real lives entirely and offers no solution. This place could produce a thesis for the Müge Anlı show.

Every story I listen to is about people whose lives and problems are ignored in the society, who are rendered invisible. Looking from here, one feels like shouting, ‘Who is acceptable?’

We are fighting to keep our children from being pulled into this spiral. A family’s attitude plays a huge role in determining a child’s next step. This experience has made me realize once again that understanding and supporting your child, as we have done, saves lives.

We protect our children and our family. We must continue to do so. We will draw strength from one another, and together we will amplify our objections to what is happening in the public sphere.

A lot falls on us as parents so that our children know they are valuable in life and can protect this value. We must be parents not only for our own children, but for all LGBTI+s who lack family support; we must sustain this as a large family that is stronger than the blood ties between us.

I will not let our children be added to those young people forced onto the streets, among people with no hope or future. Our strength can overcome any form of bullying. We are mothers, fathers, and siblings.

The struggle we wage for the happiness and health of our children, without giving up on them, is honorable and strong. This strength is superior to all fears. I am so glad they exist.

(NÖ/VK)