We killed Nalan Bayar

When are we going to give up otherizing, externalizing and giving a hard time to people because of their sexual orientation? 

Nalan Bayar is dead. Among the causes that led to her death are those who judged her because she chose to be with women. People, including her family, were ashamed of her, externalized her, trapped her in a corner, threatened her, were violent to her, tried to make her “normal,” which is their “own normal.” 

You still cannot get it, can you? This is not a choice; it is an orientation.

You are all the murderers of Nalan Bayar. You should be ashamed, not that your sister was a lesbian but because you are not human. 

Nalan Bayar committed suicide the other day; I read it in the papers and felt her desperateness in my heart. 
We are a society that considers that lesbian, gay and trans individuals, in short the LGBTI community, are not humans. We are such a country. Our majority is like this. We do not like them. If it were possible, we would send all of them to an island to live there.   

I was so sorry for Nalan Bayar. She was extremely externalized by her family. Her sisters were ashamed of her; her brother battered her. By the way, the family is not an ignorant one. They are all very well educated. But this “otherizing tendency” has nothing to do with a person’s education level.  

She was born in 1970 and was a graduate of Bosphorus University. After a working life for 15 years, she was back to school at Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ). She went to Germany in 2012 and 2013. She learned to speak German in one year. She was back in 2013 when her student visa expired. 

She told her sisters about her girlfriend with whom she had a serious relationship. Her doctor sister threatened her with death. Her other sister, who is a teacher, also threatened her together with her husband. She went into depression and had to fight suicidal thoughts. She was in therapy and medication for two years. Her brother learned about her homosexuality from the sisters and beat her up in July 2014. She had medical reports from Hacettepe Hospital. She wanted to report her brother to the police but because he would lose his license as a lawyer, she decided not to. 

She then decided to go to Germany because she thought her life was in danger in Turkey. 
“I was accepted by five universities. I decided on one. I enjoy studying… I want to graduate from my school…”

Her girlfriend of two years visited her in Germany. The girlfriend’s daughters found out about their relationship; her situation in Turkey also deteriorated. Her elder daughter threatened to beat her. 

She wanted her girlfriend to join her in Germany because her life and mental health were also at risk in Turkey. “We were not given the right to live in Turkey. Up until this age, we either had to hide our homosexuality, this was dictated to us, or we could have chosen the second option which was to lie about our homosexuality. In either case, we had to suffer,” Nalan wrote to her counselor. 

“I and my girlfriend wanted to seek asylum from Germany where we could live a human life, where we would not be threatened and insulted, a place where LGTBI individuals are accepted as equal with other people, where democratic rights and order prevail. We have no chance of survival in Turkey…”

Nalan Bayar wrote these but unfortunately, she did not have the opportunity to live her life elsewhere. 
She killed herself on Aug. 29 because she could not stand any more the externalization.