This essay discusses the emergence, strategies, and challenges faced by Pembe Caretta (www.facebook.com/pembecarettalgbt), a grassroots advocacy group in Antalya, a major city in southern Turkey with a population of three million people. I conducted one-on-one interviews in a room at the back of an Antalya bookstore with eleven members (six women, four men, and one self-identified transsexual) between twenty and twenty-seven years old in the summer of 2014, finding participants with the help of LGBT activist friends. I asked about members’ involvement with Pembe Caretta, the difficulties faced by the group, and the challenges of LGBT activists in Turkey.
The group’s name and rainbow-colored logo, which includes a prominent design of the endangered loggerhead sea turtle (the species has a large breeding ground in Antalya), signal its commitment to animal and environmental protection as well as support for a social minority. The group mission focuses on LGBT “right...
