Community dissolution: Pursuing the absence of elder LGBTQ people in Turkey

Abstract

This research aims at comprehending two central issues. While attempting to understand transition mechanisms of the appearing LGBTQ movement in the 90’s, research also considers results of this alteration process along with re-reading modern history of Turkey and the lives of sexual minorities. In relation to this appearing transformation, it is argued that occurring movement in the 90’s could not keep ties with the previous generation, rather implemented symbolic violence, distanced themselves and contributed to the emergence of an internal logic of the field in a Bourdieusian sense. Thus, previously not necessarily identified unfix sexual identities of gacı, lubunya, and dönme had to transform modern identity categories of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. More importantly, such change generated new category of ‘invisibility’ because the emerging movement outpaced and left behind some of the subjectivities; these are subjects that can be articulated as the ‘lost’ elder members of the community. To point out internal logics and procedures of the transformation, research uses queer perspectives and Bourdieusian concepts of the ‘field’ and ‘capital’, in which circumstances these approaches empowered non normative understanding of sexuality, community and the aging. In addition to these two central questions that research raises, this thesis comprises consideration of the north-based, post-Stonewall LGBTQ aging theories, examines their practicability in Turkish society, and reflects the field-work conducted with the activists (middle-aged identified), who observed the early years of the LGBTQ movement in Turkey and their accounts of the upcoming future aging, widespread ageism practices within the community and society