Pride

This is an ongoing series about a transgender person who, at the same time, is an activist for promoting transgender visibility and rights. Gokhan (as she calls himself) is still waiting to go through a sex change to become a female to male transsexual. Gokhan had very hard times in ‘her’ childhood while trying to figure out his feelings about the girls as a girl. 'She' had nobody to talk about it, as 'she' could not figure out how 'her' family would react. At the age of 18, Gokhan was married to a man of around ‘her’ age. The marriage lasted for two months where no intercourse took place between the partners. That was the time that ‘Gokhan’ explained deep feelings to the family that 'she' has no attraction to men. Gokhan says: 'When I first talked to my mother about my feelings for the girls, she said nothing but started to cry and hugged me'. Now Gokhan is at the beginning of a treatment to become a ‘real man’. Although it is not easy to be a transgender in the country he is living, where only heterosexual men and women binaries is accepted to be the ‘norm’, ‘Gokhan’ does not hide himself and is ready to fight for the transsexual rights. Gokhan’s mother gives him a full support in his process. She also is an activist to become a model for the other families. Gokhan is writing a book about ‘his’ life which he expects this book will inspire the other hiding LGBTQ people to have a courage to increase their visibility and fight for their equality rights.