Erkoçlar, who announced last year that he was transgender and replacing his name Rüzgar with Nil, wrote on his blog that he had been called up to the Turkish army.
“After the transition, then came the invitation to army!” he wrote. “Amid all the psychiatric process, hormone process, name change, a series of operations, while the situation is challenging and requiring emotional adaptation, it should not be made any more difficult. People working in those areas should be better informed. It should not be us directing them; it should be them directing us.”
Every man over 18 in Turkey is legally bound to perform mandatory military service. The army’s own health committees give “not suitable” reports only to men with health problems, disabilities or to those who are homosexuals.
Read more at hurriyetdailynews.com
Turkeys road for membership of EU is long and one of the problems is governments views on human rights and LGBT rights – and with the speed government uses today to improve these rights – it will take at least 50 years before EU in reality will do some serious discussions with Turkey.
