Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in Turkiye

Sexual minorities consistently rank as the most disapproved of group in Turkey although the LGBTQ community remain largely invisible. To explain this disparity, we examine private and public responses to “homosexuality” along four dimensions: demographic factors, social context, religion and religio...

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Main Authors: Murat Ergin, Fatoş Gökşen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Istanbul University Press 2023-06-01
Series:Journal of Economy Culture and Society
Subjects:
Online Access:https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/E26AE9D1389041D3B2D8D408328B71F2
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author Murat Ergin
Fatoş Gökşen
author_facet Murat Ergin
Fatoş Gökşen
author_sort Murat Ergin
collection DOAJ
description Sexual minorities consistently rank as the most disapproved of group in Turkey although the LGBTQ community remain largely invisible. To explain this disparity, we examine private and public responses to “homosexuality” along four dimensions: demographic factors, social context, religion and religiosity, and public morality. The data come from a nationally representative survey (N=1893). We tested four sets of variables to explain the persistence of mistrust toward sexual minorities. The first two, demographic factors and social context, show limited explanatory power. The third dimension of personal morality is also limited, because boundaries against LGBTQ individuals also cut across religion and religiosity. The fourth dimension, public morality, a vision of moral values shaping public life and political discourse, explains the particularity of the views toward non-straight sexual orientations as the specific alignment of a moral worldview with exclusionary cultural membership. Results are significant in two ways. First, they show that the mistrust of sexual minorities is high. Second, the public displays of mistrust are different from the forms of prejudice expressed toward other groups, such as ethnic minorities. The symbolic boundaries drawn vis-àvis LGBTQ individuals tells us more about the core values of belonging and solidarity in Turkish society.
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spelling doaj-art-38ef84152fcb4d2e94c6be80663c9b7a2025-08-20T02:57:02ZengIstanbul University PressJournal of Economy Culture and Society2645-87722023-06-01679711810.26650/JECS2022-1068689123456Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in TurkiyeMurat Ergin0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8447-8014Fatoş Gökşen1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3510-0637Koç Üniversitesi, Istanbul, TurkiyeKoç Üniversitesi, Istanbul, TurkiyeSexual minorities consistently rank as the most disapproved of group in Turkey although the LGBTQ community remain largely invisible. To explain this disparity, we examine private and public responses to “homosexuality” along four dimensions: demographic factors, social context, religion and religiosity, and public morality. The data come from a nationally representative survey (N=1893). We tested four sets of variables to explain the persistence of mistrust toward sexual minorities. The first two, demographic factors and social context, show limited explanatory power. The third dimension of personal morality is also limited, because boundaries against LGBTQ individuals also cut across religion and religiosity. The fourth dimension, public morality, a vision of moral values shaping public life and political discourse, explains the particularity of the views toward non-straight sexual orientations as the specific alignment of a moral worldview with exclusionary cultural membership. Results are significant in two ways. First, they show that the mistrust of sexual minorities is high. Second, the public displays of mistrust are different from the forms of prejudice expressed toward other groups, such as ethnic minorities. The symbolic boundaries drawn vis-àvis LGBTQ individuals tells us more about the core values of belonging and solidarity in Turkish society.https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/E26AE9D1389041D3B2D8D408328B71F2moral boundariesreligionreligiositypublic moralityturkey
spellingShingle Murat Ergin
Fatoş Gökşen
Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in Turkiye
Journal of Economy Culture and Society
moral boundaries
religion
religiosity
public morality
turkey
title Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in Turkiye
title_full Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in Turkiye
title_fullStr Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in Turkiye
title_full_unstemmed Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in Turkiye
title_short Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership: Perceptions of the LGBTQ in Turkiye
title_sort moral boundaries and cultural membership perceptions of the lgbtq in turkiye
topic moral boundaries
religion
religiosity
public morality
turkey
url https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/E26AE9D1389041D3B2D8D408328B71F2
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