Transgender sex workers in Istanbul

Turkey is the most dangerous place to be a transgender person in Europe. According to a study conducted by the Trans Respect versus Transphobia, there were 36 lethal hate crimes against transgender individuals between January 2008 and September 2014. Thanks to severe transphobia in work environments, Turkey's transgender community is almost exclusively shut in sex work. Tarlabasi, an inner-city ghetto in Istanbul, has traditionally been associated by Istanbulites with crime, drugs, prostitution and poverty – although it’s just a stone's throw away from the iconic Taksim Square. That said, Tarlabasi had also always been a diverse and a relatively liberal neighbourhood. Hence, over many years, Tarlabasi has been the accepted home of Istanbul’s transgender community – who were attracted by the low prices and felt safer living together as a community. Some even began to acquire properties there. However, when the conservative Istanbul Municipality introduced the “Urban Transformation Project” to improve and rebuild Istanbul’s inner neighbourhoods, most transgender people in Tarlabasi were forced to move out – and many of them feel this was a project mainly to get rid of them. Those who already owned homes were compensated at the fraction of the real cost. Most of them had to relocate to neighbourhoods where they are marginalized further and experience a greater risk of hate crimes.