Sept. 12 is a solemn day for the people of Turkey. It is the anniversary of the 1980 coup d’état — when members of the National Security Council, along with the armed forces, dissolved the Turkish parliament, arrested hundreds of thousands of people, and entered a three-year period of martial law. 

On Sept 12, the 46th anniversary of the 1980 coup, the country faced another wave of arrests; this time they targeted the LGBTQ community. The government launched the national “My Family Is Safe” campaign, which triggered mass raids and arrests of LGBTQ organization leaders, advocates, academics, and sexual health treatment centers for people with HIV. (These include EU-funded organizations launched by the Turkish government in 2005.) Since the nation has seen a decline in birthrate and a swelling economic crisis, this has allowed authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and conservatives in Turkey to use the LGBTQ community as the ideal scapegoat. 

“This is the cruelest part. It was Erdoğan’s own party that made it easier to found NGOs in 2005 as an EU accession process, and that is how many LGBTI+ groups came to be officially registered.” Ali Yildiz, a linguistics graduate student at the University of Cologne in Germany, told the Washington Blade. “Everything was legal, transparent and official. Now those same registrations are being used as arrest lists. The state is basically punishing those who trusted it. It sounds very much like the Nazis. They also used member lists of associations to persecute them later.” 

Yildiz has witnessed the oppression of the Turkish government firsthand: in 2024, he moved to Germany. As one of the board members of a grassroots NGO that focuses on sexual health, Yildiz was at risk of arrest and prosecution. 

As part of the “My Family Is Safe” operation on Sept. 12, police raided Yildiz’s family’s former home to find him. 

In the aftermath of these raids in Turkey’s major cities, protestors have gathered at Turkish embassies across Europe and the U.S.

A critical discourse has also emerged as a response to the crackdown across international queer media: how should the West cover oppressive regimes abroad? 

“From what I see, the Western reading of Turkey’s crackdown on LGBTI+ people usually goes: it’s a conservative, Muslim country, so this is what you’d expect. I believe that framing is incomplete, and it lets the people responsible off the hook. The Erdoğan regime is also heavily relying on this contextualization,” said Yildiz. “The government is not simply reacting to existing conservatism but is actively shaping it. Look at how operations are presented: raids on LGBTI+ organizations and activists come packaged with claims about drugs, obscenity, sex work, or organized crime on other groups in the news. The evil strategy is to link LGBTI+ people with criminality in the public mind.”

The LGBTQ community is not the only group that has been under the weight of oppression. Political opponents and descendants whom Erdoğan deems criminals are also charged with treason. 

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who is the leading candidate for the upcoming 2028 presidential elections for the opposition center-left Republican People’s Party, was arrested on terrorism charges in 2024. On the same day, he was nominated as the CHP’s presidential candidate.

For a while, X served as a platform to express discontent with the government, but that changed recently when Elon Musk blocked nearly 500 accounts in Turkey. The Turkish government also banned Grok after the AI system responded to a user’s question about Erdoğan, which government leaders found offensive. 

The visibility of these pages has decreased. With a VPN, citizens can still access the pages because they were banned only in Turkey, not internationally. 

Discontent with the government is increasing, but so is government oppression. 

Not only have LGBTQ pages been shut down, but many journalists and academics have also had their pages banned.

The Blade spoke to an anonymous academic living in Ankara, the Turkish capital, who said Erdoğan, U.S. President Donald Trump, and other authoritarian leaders are constantly learning from each other.

“These anti LGBTQ+ policies are being created in the name of preserving traditional family values and are not only a threat to Türkiye,” they said. “It is also a global issue that threatens people everywhere. It should be perceived as an international problem. That is why we LGBTQ+ people need to act in solidarity internationally.” 

Because of the compounding human rights crisis happening simultaneously around the globe, visibility has been advocates in Turkey’s main challenge. 

Since 2022 there have been a series of crackdowns against opposition parties, academics, labor unions, student organizations, journalist and advocates. Another anonymous academic in Istanbul told the Blade that after the 2022 crackdown, “people were intimidated, and most people did not feel encouraged to organize.” 

In the weeks following this recent crackdown, discontent with the Erdoğan government has increased along with inflation and unemployment, not helped by the war in Iran.

“Our leaders do not say anything about the financial crisis,” said the Istanbul academic.

High inflation, high unemployment rates, many factories, and businesses have left Türkiye and transferred their businesses to other countries. And because of the timing of these recent crackdowns, during this financial crisis, many people haven’t been paying attention.

Though for many queer and transgender Turks, post-Sept. 12 life has been radically different. 

“I stopped doing drag in order to protect myself, and many queer performance artist friends of mine have also given up this part of their lives,” said one source who asked the Blade to remain anonymous.

“Everybody is not scared, but they simply bring their fear with them to the march and march courageously, because they believe they are on the right side of history,” they added. “However, I think it is important that people in Turkey are not represented only through their experiences of victimization. There should also be spaces where artists, activists, journalists, and other queer people can express themselves in their own words.”

The justification for this crackdown has been preserving “traditional family and conservative values.” The Turkish government has persecuted these offenses with raids, trials, and arrests that have gone beyond just the LGBTQ community. It targeted last year musicians, performers, and artists whom they deemed obscene or offensive.

In September 2025, the K-pop-inspired girl band Manifest was investigated for three months. Footage from their shows was banned from the internet, and the remainder of their tour was canceled. All seven members of the group faced 3 1/2 months prison sentences before the charges were ultimately dropped. 

“I believe there is no pride for only some of us. Governments that attack LGBTQ+ rights learn from each other.” Yildiz tells the Blade, “Erdoğan borrows from Putin’s playbook, and parts of the Western right eagerly adopt the same rhetoric. This is a call for our community to see how important international solidarity is. People show up every single year for the Pride March, even though they know the police are going to attack. What I see in our community is pure courage.”

More than 60 House Democrats on Thursday called upon the Trump-Vance administration to confront the Turkish government over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.

Turkish authorities last month detained dozens of people during raids that targeted the country’s LGBTQ community, advocacy groups, and HIV/AIDS service organizations. Journalists were among those taken into custody outside an Istanbul courthouse on Sept. 15 during a protest against the raids that are part of the government’s “My Family Is Safe” campaign.

Council for Global Equality is among the groups that organized a protest outside the Turkish Embassy in D.C. on Sept. 18.

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U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Sept. 21 during a U.N. LGBTI Core Group event that took place on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly specifically referenced Turkey.

The Core Group is a group of U.N. member states that have pledged to support LGBTQ and intersex rights.

The U.S. withdrew from the Core Group after the Trump-Vance administration took office. The White House has not publicly commented on Turkey’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.

“These developments warrant an urgent diplomatic response from the United States to protect the rights of freedom of expression, association, and assembly for all Turkish citizens, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” reads the letter the lawmakers sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “We therefore urge you to use all available channels to raise these concerns directly with the Turkish government; press for the immediate release of those arrested and detained for their legitimate human rights activities; and ensure that the U.S. Embassy in Ankara closely monitors related judicial proceedings.”

“We further urge the Department to press Turkish authorities to cease efforts to criminalize LGBTQI+ organizations and advocacy and to affirm the right of all people to peacefully assemble,” it adds.

Arizona Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari and U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) spearheaded the letter. House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); House Foreign Affairs Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.); Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.); Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride, and U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, are among the 65 House Democrats who signed the letter.

“The United States must be a leader in defending human rights and what is happening in Turkey demands an urgent diplomatic response. It’s absolutely appalling to see LGBTQI+ people and the organizations that stand up for their rights be targeted by the (President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan regime,” said Ansari in a press release. “I stand proudly with the LGBTQI+ community here and abroad and will continue to fight for their right to live openly, freely, and without fear, anywhere and everywhere.”

The press release notes the Human Rights Campaign, the Council for Global Equality, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America support the letter.

“Turkey’s attacks on its LGBTQI+ community are a disturbing reminder that the fight for equality and human rights does not stop at our borders. No one should be silenced or detained for simply being who they are or peacefully demanding dignity and freedom,” said HRC Government Affairs Senior Director Jennifer Pike Bailey. “We are grateful to Representatives Ansari and Titus for recognizing that the fight for LGBTQI+ equality is global and that, even amid the many challenges facing our community here at home, we cannot turn our backs on LGBTQI+ people facing persecution abroad.”

A State Department spokesperson on Friday told the Washington Blade that “as a matter of policy, we do not comment on congressional correspondence.”

A group of activists on Friday gathered in front of the Turkish Embassy in D.C. to protest the country’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.

The protest — which the Council for Global Equality, Amnesty International USA, Outright International, and Health GAP organized — took place less than a week after Turkish authorities detained dozens of people during raids that targeted the country’s LGBTQ community and advocacy groups and HIV/AIDS service organizations.

Authorities in Istanbul on Sept. 15 detained more than 150 people who gathered outside a courthouse to protest the raids that are part of the government’s “My Family Is Safe” campaign. Journalists are among those who were taken into custody.

“This crackdown is not making families safer,” said Amnesty International USA Executive Director Nadia Daar, speaking in front of the Turkish Embassy.

Council for Global Equality Managing Director Keifer Buckingham stressed that “homosexuality is not a crime in Turkey.” Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell and Outright International Senior Director of Law, Policy, and Research Neela Ghoshal also spoke.

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Activists in Madrid and in other cities around the world held similar protests on Friday.