The second “Big Family Gathering”, one of the reflections of the anti-gender movement in Turkey, took place on September 17th at Saraçhane Square in Istanbul, organized by the Big Family Platform. The meeting, which was announced with the slogans “For our children, for our family, for humanity” and “LGBT propaganda should be banned”, once again had plenty of anti-LGBTI+ and anti-women’s rights banners, all of which seemed to have come from a single pen and printer. Attendance was lower than expected, but the conspiracy theory-like claims made by the participants in their interviews were quite interesting.

You can find a more detailed examination and analysis of the history of the anti-gender movement, its development in Turkey and organizations such as the “Big Family Gathering” on the Purple Line blogpost, titled “Reactionary Opportunity Out of Crisis: The Anti-Gender Movement” and in the Purple Çizgi Podcast #12and #13 where I hosted Alev Özkazanç.

The Big Family Platform

The Big Family Platform was established on March 1, 2023 by various NGOs ranging from MÜSİAD to Aziz Mahmûd Hüdâyi Foundation, from Yesevi Alperenler to Republican Women’s Association, from TÜGVA to Turkish Youth Union. Thus, groups such as conservatives, nationalists, and sects, which seem to be dissimilar to each other but see no harm in gathering under the same roof when it comes to opposing women’s and LGBTI+ rights, came together.

It is possible to say that such a formation is one of the outcomes of the anti-gender movement that has strengthened simultaneously with the rise of authoritarian regimes in Turkey and around the world. The way they define themselves reinforces this idea in terms of their common discourse with their counterparts around the world.

On the Platform’s website, it is claimed that The Platform sets out “against all the elements that threaten the family in particular and society in general in recent years” and it has been founded by,

  • those who love their homeland and nation,
  • those who thinks about the future of humanity,
  • those who are concerned about the integrity and independence of their country,
  • those who do not abandon their children and future generations to the dirty hands of global gangs and imperialist powers,
  • those who feel responsible for these corruptions in society,
  • and it was established with the coming together of hundreds of NGOs that see “family” as “the address of the solution” rather than the problem and pledge to fight for this cause.

The content on the platform’s website consists of propaganda and news that is hostile to women’s rights and LGBTI+ community. There are also surprising groups and associations among the platform members. For example, the Republican Women’s Association. The association, which until a few years ago defended women’s right to alimony (you can find more detailed reviews of the alimony debates in these two articles on the Purple Çizgi Blog and in Purple Çizgi Podcast #20), turned into a community that advocates for the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention because it includes “sexual orientations” and adopts anti-LGBTI+ rhetoric after Prof. Dr. Tülin Oygür from the nationalist Vatan Party became the president in February 2020. As a result, in an organization such as the Big Family Gathering, it was juxtaposed with the Ismailağa Sect, which even makes little girls wear a headscarf in the visual it uses in its announcement.

Another noteworthy Platform member is KADEM, whose board of trustees is chaired by Sümeyye Erdoğan Bayraktar, the daughter of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which is known for its use of family values and its campaigns against violence against women. As a government-sponsored organization, KADEM plays an important role in adopting and disseminating government policies on gender equality. (For an in-depth conversation on the contribution and impact of KADEM, which is considered the “acceptable face” of the struggle for women’s rights in Turkey, listen to Purple Line Podcast #18). KADEM, which has been taking the fight against violence against women as an issue since its foundation, and which has received the reaction of anti-women’s rights groups and associations that supposedly “defend the family” for defending the Law No. 6284, announced on its website that it participated in the Big Family Gathering “with [their] board members, in order to stand against the global LGBT imposition and raise social awareness” organized by the Big Family Platform.

The Rising Star of the Anti-Gender Movement and Conspiracy Theories: Yeniden Refah Party

 The opposition movement, which fights against the concept of “gender”, against the gains made in the struggle for women’s and LGBTI+ rights since the 60s, and against progressive policies on minority and immigrant rights, has been growing since 2010 with the embrace of authoritarian and populist governments aiming to organize the masses on the far-right. In Turkey, these groups have begun to come to the fore with their opposition to the right to alimony, the Istanbul Convention and Law No. 6284.

However, even Turkey’s abrupt withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention by Presidential Decree in March 2021 in order to appease the rising objections did not make these reactive groups, who have radical objections to the vital gains made in the field of women’s, children’s and LGBTI+ rights, happy. The Yeniden Refah Party, which came to the forefront with its reactionary discourse and conspiracy theories, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, became a lifeline for these unhappy groups. It should be noted here that M. Fatih Uğurlu, one of the founding members of the Big Family Platform, is the deputy chairman of the Yeniden Refah Party.

It is important for us to see how much the Yeniden Refah Party and the discourses it has expressed so far intersect with what the participants of the Big Family Gathering expressed in their interviews, and how much it feeds the opposition movement. Some of the misconceptions about LGBTI+ community’s that were encountered in the interviews and are also frequently encountered in the Yeniden Refah Party’s circle are as follows:

  • Children will be forced to watch porn in schools,
  • There is an attack on traditional family values,
  • Additives in water, vaccines, GMOs make people homosexual,
  • Gender reassignment surgery is being performed on young children. 

It doesn’t end there; Yeniden Refah Party has been carrying out black propaganda against Law No. 6284 on the Protection of the Family and Prevention of Violence against Women for a long time. In order to join the People’s Alliance in last May’s elections, it conditioned the elimination of women’s right to alimony and Law No. 6284. Here are some of the allegations against international conventions such as the Istanbul Convention and especially Law No. 6284, which Party Chairman Fatih Erbakan said to abolish by saying “Do not be a partner in this sin”: 

(External Powers and Global Racist Imperialism);

  • want to break up the family and turn countries into easy prey,
  • want the family to disappear, they don’t want reproduction and multiplication,
  • want to end the extinction of societies and people other than themselves.

Family is Local and National; Conspiracy Theories are Imported

The anti-gender movement is on the rise in many countries around the world. Although these countries are completely different from each other in terms of religion, language and culture, they all share a common claim that the gains in women’s and LGBTI+ rights are damaging “local and national family values”. This is also the case in Turkey. The anti-gender movement, which emphasizes that the struggle for LGBTI+ and women’s rights is imported and is part of the insidious plots of the West to destroy the family institution in Turkey and to collapse the country, is based on unfounded fears and conspiracy theories that have an “imported” aspect. For example, one of the main concerns of the European opposition movement is sex education in schools, which they argue harms children. They also want to prevent gay marriage and adoption by homosexual couples. We see similar claims in Turkey; however, there is no sex education in Turkish schools. Even Pride marches have been banned since 2015, let alone homosexual marriages. 

The translated news on the websites of the Big Family Platform components aim to pump fear into the society. Translations from dubious sources, which readers are unlikely to be able to confirm from the original source, spread unfounded and frightening conspiracy theories about Covid-19 pandemic, transsexuality and the concept of gender. 

The masculine crisis that emerged at the intersection of the gains made in the field of women’s and LGBTI+ rights and the crisis of neoliberalism is directed against women, LGBTI+, even migrants and lower classes. Authoritarian regimes turn the crisis into an opportunity and play a direct or indirect role in bringing the masses together. In recent years, masses of men have reacted to laws and conventions enacted to protect minorities, claiming that they have been victimized and showing that they want to reintegrate with the masculine state. As a result, laws and conventions that are a matter of life and death for the oppressed segments of society are being abolished in order to eliminate suspected male victimization by putting forward figures that are not based on any research or data. Organizations such as the Big Family Platform, on the other hand, constitute an alarming space for groups that, although ideologically different from each other, see no harm in coming together to undermine the gains in the field of human rights with their vision of a hierarchical and unequal family where the man is the head of the family, women and children have no say in anything.

However, despite all these efforts and possible government support (after all, we are talking about an organization that government-sponsored NGOs, such as KADEM, do not hesitate to become a member), neither the desired crowds can be reached in the meetings nor a breach can be opened in the struggle for the rights of women and LGBTI+ community.