Turkey Has Proven How Easily The ‘Gay Agenda’ Rhetoric Can Morph Into ‘LGBT Propaganda’

What’s your ‘gay agenda’ for the day? My gay agenda (or rather, bisexual agenda, but that doesn’t seem as catchy) today involves answering emails, eating unhealthy but convenient food at my desk, publishing lots of fab stories, and POSSIBLY even getting through the afternoon without another politician/conservative commentator saying stupid shit about our community. Wildly ambitious, I am aware.

The usage of ‘the gay agenda’ leads one to believe orchestrating something bigger. “LGBT propaganda”, “gay propaganda”, the “homosexual agenda”.

The Big Gay Agenda™ is, of course, ordinary queer lives dressed up as a ominous covert operation, because people falling in love, being comfortable in their own bodies, going to work, paying our taxes, and arguing about the dishes apparently doesn’t sound quite sinister enough.

Our community loves to make fun of the phrase ‘the gay agenda’ – we’ve always been good at flipping bullshit rhetoric from conservatives and hate groups and laughing, reclaiming their slurs against us.

It is absolutely laughable – but we’ve gotta acknowledge those who seek to harm us are still using this phrase seriously.

And what has happened in Turkey in recent months has given us a really good example of how quickly and easily they can evolve what they see as ‘the gay agenda’ into ‘LGBT propaganda’. It’s justifying something genuinely terrifying.

‘The Gay Agenda™’ online

Across the past year, “gay agenda” sits above the other three selections for most of the worldwide graph. Its average interest score is 55, compared with 31 for the “Homosexual agenda” topic, 23 for “gay propaganda” and 21 for “LGBT propaganda”.

Those are relative scores, not percentages of people or raw search totals. But within this comparison, “gay agenda” clearly attracts the most attention.

The green line reaches its biggest peak around February, with another nearly as high around May and a further spike in June,the latter of which is obviously Pride Month.

The related searches worldwide are revealing: “what is the gay agenda” is up 100%, “gay agenda meaning” up 90%, and “the gay agenda” up 30%.

People are clearly looking for explanations. That matters when the explanation they encounter might come from someone determined to paint us as a danger to their children.

Which countries are searching ‘LGBT propaganda’?

The individual regional rankings offer some surprises. The Netherlands leads relative interest in “gay agenda”, followed by Switzerland, Canada, Belgium and France.

For “LGBT propaganda”, Kazakhstan comes first, followed by Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil and Germany.

“Gay propaganda” is led by Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, the United States and Australia.

Yep. We’re in that top five!

These rankings measure each query’s relative popularity within a place, rather than total searches or hostility. Googling a phrase of course doesn’t mean agreeing with it – friendlies may be searching to understand a news story, for example.

Still, this shows that language about our community’s so-called ‘agendas’ and propaganda is happening well beyond the countries we might expect – including our own.

So, we don’t get to file it away as somebody else’s problem. It is ours, too.

Turkey’s LGBTQIA+ raids show the danger behind the rhetoric

As Star Observer reported, September’s “My Family Is Safe” operation in Turkey targeted LGBTQIA+ organisations, homes and venues.

Human Rights Watch’s Emma Sinclair-Webb called it “the widest crackdown on LGBTQ+ people in recent years”.

HRW documented at least 112 arrests during raids on 12–14 September, involving LGBTQIA+ rights groups, HIV support organisations, bars and nightclubs.

Journalist Tuğba Tekerek was detained; the only evidence prosecutors cited against her, HRW said, was an article about LGBTQIA+ rights in Georgia.

Homosexuality is legal in Turkey. Yet broad obscenity laws have become weapons against queer organising, while Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said the operation would “protect our children, the institution of the family and the social order”.

There has so far been no explanation as to how queer people existing is a threat to heteronormative families.

LGBTQIA+ journalism is being branded ‘propaganda’

A Turkish court blocked independent outlet T24 over 118 items labelled “LGBT propaganda”.

Yildiz Tar, editor of LGBTQIA+ outlet Kaos GL, said targeted reporting included rights, hate killings and queer people’s experiences after the 2023 earthquake.

“It’s not propaganda. It’s about basic journalism. It’s about reality,” Tar told Reuters.

As a queer journalist and editor myself, I find this bloody bone-chilling, because once authorities decide reporting our lives is dangerous or even illegal, every story becomes a liability that potentially carries prison time, every story has the potential to be a threat to both my life, and the lives of those who read it. Every interview would have a reason to hesitate; every source that speaks honestly is someone I would worry about afterwards.

That’s why the “gay agenda” bullshit deserves scrutiny, even when we’re sick to death of hearing them rant about it. Because it’s the ‘Gay Agenda’ that can be flipped – scarily easily – into them calling it ‘LGBTQIA+ propaganda’.

Our colleagues in Turkey deserve to tell queer stories without police at their doors, and people deserve to read those stories safely, just as you are reading this one now.

We best stand up and fight together now – because with the rise of anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric and policies, I can assure you that what is happening in Turkey is their end goal.