Man has had Turkish ID given to women his whole life 

ISTANBUL – Demirören News Agency

A 48-year-old man has been found to have lived his whole life with an orange-colored Turkish ID, given only to women, when he was taken to hospital after getting injured in a fight in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district. 

Turkey may be one of the few countries, if not the only, to have been granting gender-specific IDs to its citizens, with the blue-colored ones given to males and the orange/red-colored ones, which are more widely called the “pink card,” given to women.  

“It is understood that he has lived 48 years with this pink ID and has not changed it to a blue ID until now,” said police sources. 

Zeytin Aksun, a taxi driver, has not done his mandatory military service, which all men in the country must, and has registered his two children on his wife’s record, the sources added.  

Aksun recently got involved in a fight with taxi drivers from another taxi stand.  

 The fist fight turned into a bloody feud when a driver at the taxi stand opened fire with a pump rifle, killing three people and wounding four, including Aksun.  

Aksun’s ID surfaced in the hospital where he was dispatched to after sustaining injuries. 

The name Zeytin is commonly given to baby girls. “As he was named Zeytin, the officials in the birth registration office may have thought he was a girl and given his family the pink ID,” said the sources.
 
He was arrested after being discharged from the hospital. 

But how Zeytin got away with living with “pink card” is uncertain, as IDs are required in almost everything and everywhere in Turkey, including when receiving health services and enrolling in a school.  

Although there are still many in the country still using these gendered IDs, Turkey has switched to giving gender-free ID cards, which no longer indicate a citizen’s gender or religion, as of January 2017. The new cards are credit card sized.