I decided to interview one of my friends who is studying at Trabzon University. All permission was provided and I made her aware of the project and I informed her about the aim of this interview. She accepted to answer these questions willingly.
- Can you tell me something about yourself?
- I am X. I am 23 years old and I am studying at Trabzon University in the department of English Language Teaching. I like looking at other perspectives and I want to be a voice for the other people.
- In Turkey, what do people do or say (or not do or say) if they want to be seen as gay [lesbian] [straight]?
- I do not think people in Turkey want to be seen as gay since the attitude towards gay people is not acceptable as we know. They even try to hide their identities in order not to take attention to themselves.
- How is this different in another country? How is it similar?
- In some Muslim and Muslim-majority countries, it is almost the same since they see this situation (I do not know the situation is a good word to use here) unacceptable. However, in other countries, even their laws allow them to get married to whom they want or they simply do not justify those people by taking their gender identities into consideration. Those countries just see those people as people, as supposed to be.
- Why do people sometimes want to be seen as straight [bisexual][lesbian]? Why do they sometimes not want to?
- In a place where homosexuals’ existence seems unacceptable, of course, homosexual people are going to hide their identities and do not want to be seen as lesbian, or simply gay. The only reason here is to be accepted by society. Even if the acceptance by society or family does not seem such a big deal, there are dozens of people commit suicide because of a lack of feeling safe. In addition, people sometimes want to be seen as bisexual in a place where they are for the very first time. The reason why they have treated like that can be the fact they are homosexual and just try to measure the people’s attitude, just after that, they can explain their own identities. In contrast to all these, I do not think some people want to be seen as a lesbian. Overall, I want to say that people want to be seen as how they are going to be accepted by the community.
- Is it easy to identify someone as gay [straight] [lesbian]? Why or why not?
- Why do we have to identify people as gay? Why don’t we try to accept people how they treat us? The important thing is to accept people with who they are. The identification just occurs after we meet someone.
- In Turkey/your university, which gender identities seem natural or acceptable? Which do not? How can you tell?
- Of course, homosexuality is the only natural one in my university since I am in Turkey. Once, when I was walking with one of my gay friends on the campus, one boy passed through and intentionally hit my friend to make him fall. How can someone do something like that to a living creature? I never pick flowers, for instance, since I do not make a creature suffer because of me. The anger in those people is patriarchy.
- After people move from Turkey, do they change how they think about gender identities? If so, how? If not, why not?
- They may change their hard thoughts but only a few of them. Since they are going to experience the fact that all those are just human beings as we are, they see their thoughts nonsense.
- How about when foreigners move to Turkey?
- They are going to be amazed by the thoughts we have. They are going to see the anger and I think it will make them stand for those LGBT people.
- How safe do you think your university or practicum school is for LGBT students? How do you know?
- There is no safe place at my university. In the first year, there was a community standing for female rights but I think they got closed. So now, as I said in the previous question, they are not.
- What do you think to be an ally to LGBT students mean?
- Even if you are a homosexual, you just stand for the LGBT students around you. That term defines me as who I am the most.
- Do you think it’s important to be an ally to LGBT students?
- Of course. Because of their emotional burnout or something else, LGBT students are not enough to stand for themselves, they just need people supporting them. So, having all around them will make them feel more comfortable and safer.