The 12th Istanbul Trans Pride Week called on many organizations and institutions during Newroz: “We are part of the memory, resistance, and rebellion of these lands.”
Photo: KaosGL
The 12th Istanbul Trans Pride Week announced that, like every year, they will be present at the Newroz celebrations in Istanbul with trans and LGBTQ+ flags.
Trans Pride Week called on all organizations and groups defending human rights to stand with them against the attacks they have faced at Newroz by unidentified individuals and the police. The call reads as follows:
“Our open call to feminists, workers, revolutionaries, anarchists, activists, defenders of the right to live, institutions, associations, and organizations: Let’s carry trans and LGBTQ+ flags together at Newroz!
Every year, in the Newroz area where we gather together in resistance against the state and its denial policies, we are targeted because of our flags. We are subjected to violence under various male gangs—nurtured by patriarchy and convinced they are the sole subjects of the space. Despite this male violence, which seeks to block our very existence by forming gangs, we will continue to be present in the square and organize.
In previous Newroz celebrations, we faced physical, psychological, and verbal violence as our flags and our very existence were targeted. The same group of men did not even hesitate to attack babies. Just as we stand against the state’s policies of denial and assimilation, we will continue to fight against such acts of violence, intimidation, and gang-like tactics in the Newroz square where hundreds of thousands gather in the name of peace, freedom, and equality. We are lubun, we are trans, we are Kurdish. We exist in the memory, resistance, and rebellion of these lands. Newroz belongs to us too.
We call on our fellow activists to stand in solidarity with us against those who follow the state’s hate policies targeting trans and queer people.
On the streets, at protests, and on Newroz; we call on everyone to wave the lubunya flag with us, and we invite all our friends and organizations to take pride in flying trans and rainbow flags in the streets. This Newroz, we ask you to wave the lubunya flag alongside your own flags in your parades. Our struggle is shared.
Newroz pîroz be!
Bê trans û lubunya jiyan nabe!
Newroz is mine, yours, and all of ours!”