Trans Inmate Buse on Parliamentary Agenda

Click to read the article in Turkish

"Why is Buse's gender transition surgery being prevented despite a precedent for gender transition surgery and though all procedures regarding the process have been completed?

"Who is responsible for jeopardizing trans woman Buse's right to life by suspending her surgery?

"Is the letter sent to the press by Buse within your knowledge? Will you make any attempts to meet her request as soon as possible?

"Though there is a precedent for gender transition surgery, unjust treatments stemming from practice continue. Is there any work or study that you plan to carry out to ensure that the process prevented with arbitrary practices will be conducted in a just and effective manner with the intervention of NGOs operating in the fields of LGBTI+ and human rights?"

The above three questions and six similar others were asked by Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP lawyer Züleyha Gülüm to Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül about the condition of trans inmate Buse.

Submitting a Parliamentary question to the Speaker's Office to be responded by Minister Gül, HDP MP Gülüm has raised concerns over transgender inmate Buse, who has been prevented from having a gender transition surgery by the Ministry of Health though both the court and prison have indicated that "she needs to have the surgery".

Ministry said that 'it was for aesthetics'

Buse staged a 38-day hunger strike in July 2018, requesting that her demand for the surgery be accepted. Upon the verdict of the court that says "She can have the surgery", Buses ended her hunger strike.

However, she did not undergo the surgery. In response, Buse went on a death fast again on January 31, 2019. After negotiations, she temporarily ended her fast. In protest against the failure of the authorities to ensure her surgery, Buse cut her sexual organ in August 2019.

As the Ministry of Health has rejected covering the expenses of Buse's surgery, saying "It is for aesthetics", her lawyer Eren Keskin described the attitude of the Ministry as "tragicomic and transphobic".

'Attitude towards trans inmates at the extent of racism'

In her Parliamentary question to the Minister of Justice, HDP MP Gülüm has referred to the reports released by the LGBTI+ and human rights organizations and underlined that "the attitudes, especially towards trans women, in prisons have reached the extent of 'racism'."

Indicating that almost all of trans women inmates are held together with men in prison and several of them are held in single-person cells on the ground of insufficient capacity, Gülüm has referred to a series of other incidents of ill treatment experienced by trans inmates.

"For these reasons, not only are gender transition surgeries imperative for the mental health of the person, they are also of great importance in terms of prison conditions", Gülüm has concluded her question. (EMK/SD)