Lambdaistanbul
Lambdaistanbul was founded in 1993 and is one of the very first official LGBT support groups. It was the first group to host and organize Turkey's first pride parades. They create safe spaces and healthy environments for LGBT people in the area. Their mission goals are reporting human rights violations that occur because of homosexual discrimination and to amend the 10th article of the constitution to include gender identity and sexual orientation as invalid reasons for discrimination along side race, skin color, gender, and political opinion. They have been up against much discrimination and faced many challenges courtesy of the Turkish government. They were given orders in 2008 to dissolve their group because their objectives were "against the law and morality". With the help of Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch Group they were allowed to keep their doors open and continue to run as an official organization
Istanbul Pride
Istanbul Pride is the organization that puts together the annual gay pride week and accompanying Pride Week. It is made up of over 20 other smaller organizations that all support gay rights in the country of Turkey or refugees from other countries.
Lesbian and Gay Inter-University Organization
The idea of creating an advocacy group for gay and lesbian University students had bounced around for many years, but finally came to be in the year of 1996. The group took on the name LEGATO. They opened up an office in Hacettepe University and began to plan and coordinate activities for the homosexual students. These events included spring fairs, music festivals, protests, and lectures. LEGATO spread to larger campuses including those in Istanbul and Ankara, which have very high numbers of LGBT residents and students. LEGATO grew and grew over the course of a few years and eventually had to merge their separate campus groups, making them the largest LGBT organization in the country,
Their goals include:
Their goals include:
- bringing homosexual students together
- fighting homophobia
- supporting homosexual students during their stay on campus
- keeping in contact with homosexual students and supporting them
- to educate Turkish communities about LGBT rights and causes