Abstract
Hop-Çiki-Yaya Polisiyesi is a Turkish crime novel series by Mehmet Murat Somer that appeared between 2003 and 2004. The series is set in the trans world of Istanbul, and the hero/heroine is a gender-nonbinary sleuth. The present essay explores the paradox at the heart of this series, which on the one hand offers an affirmative portrait of a sex-positive and sociopolitically mobile trans world, and on the other hand exposes the reality of trans murders and the necropolitics as well as bare life politics in practice against the trans community in Turkey. The publication of these novels coincided with the emergence of an LGBTQ+ politics in Turkey but also with the rise to power of the Islamist Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party). Drawing on crime fiction theories, trans studies, and recent Turkish history, this essay draws out the significance of this series and its place in the trajectory of LGBTQ+ life in Turkey.