52 MEN 52 WEEKS/ 19 İRFAN DEĞİRMENCİ
Find Attached My Defense!
Click to read the article in Turkish / Kurdish
I apologize. If you are a man who said "yes" to the question "52 men will write about male violence against women for 52 weeks, would you be one of them?", then I guess the first sentence you write should be "I apologize".
I apologize. An apology without "but"s, "yet"s, "however"s. An apology said in a low voice, with your tail between your legs. A sincere apology followed with the statement: "It will not happen again".
A male writer is simply a "writer" but a female writer is usually addressed as a "woman writer". No one says male journalist but if it is a female journalist, then the emphasis is always on gender.
People say, "Sit down and write your piece like a man" but I usually write like a woman. I try to put myself in the shoes of everybody I write about, of all the characters in my stories. Now, for instance let me put myself in dear Michelle's shoes.
Michelle came to İstanbul in 1999 at the age of 24. Before then, he was a very handsome journalist. People used to point him out in the newspapers where he worked in İzmir. Michelle still regrets not keeping the dismissal letter from the last newspaper she worked in İzmir.
The letter said that on the way to cover a news story Michelle had allegedly harassed the newspaper's driver! So she packed up and came to İstanbul in 1999. In an interview with Çiçek Tahaoğlu from bianet in 2013, she says that that handsome boy, whose name she doesn't want to mention, died that year and she was born with a brand-new name and surname, Michelle Demishevich.
The new surname she picked for herself was the original surname of her Macedonian family before they migrated to and became citizens of Turkey. Hold on, hold on.
Now that I've put myself in Michelle's shoes I am not sure if I'd like that old handsome boy to be mentioned again in a piece written about me years later. If in the interview she says "dead" for that boy, then he must be dead. It's best if I go on.
Michelle became the first transwoman TV reporter in Turkey. She was last working at İMC TV. Even the average, inattentive television viewer must have met her that day when she was subjected to bodyguard violence on İstiklal Street as she attempted to ask a question to Sümeyye Erdoğan, daughter of the then-prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan.
Those images of Michelle had also caught my attention, they were covering her mouth and dragging her away from the scene as she was struggling to make herself heard, "Ms. Sümeyye, they are not letting me ask a question, they are pulling my hair Ms. Sümeyye"...
That was the first day we ever talked with Michelle and then I started to follow her news reports. Michelle had told me that in her first days at work she was returning home in tears even from a media organization like İMC TV, which had managed to become the voice of the "marginalized" and was unfortunately closed down after a while.
She had told me how at first people were nudging each other and pointing at her as she was eating or smoking with the other staff in the common areas of the work center where the TV channel is located, how women were giggling when they passed by her and how the private security officers were stopping her each time and giving her a hard time even though they knew her and where she worked.
She had also told me how her questions were ignored during press conferences and that even her journalist colleagues avoided greeting her. I can almost hear you asking me, "so what did you do?". This is what I did: As soon as I heard that this successful television journalist is looking for a job after having parted ways with İMC TV, I thought about working with her at Kanal D Morning News, right at the heart of mainstream media.
We needed a reporter like her who chases news day and night and asks brave questions. Now, I have to apologize at this point. I am sorry Michelle, I acted a bit rashly with the excitement of this idea and called you immediately.
Forgive me, I gave you hope that day even before I talked and straightened things out with the employer. And you got very excited. I had understood it from the tone of your voice. I know you waited for days. But I didn't. I acted at once because I knew that hiring a transwoman reporter into the mainstream media could be difficult and that we could face all sorts of prejudices.
I couldn't decide whom to talk to first about this matter, then I considered contacting the people at the highest level. I thought the man who was the friend and right hand of the boss, a columnist writing pieces about manhood after the age of 60, was ideally suited for this. And that is what I did. I asked for his help to have you hired.
After all, this gentleman was enthusiastic about writing articles that break taboos, he was charging at taboos with his pink trousers! The response I received from the gentleman was a huge disappointment for me as well as Michelle.
The gentleman got shocked as if struck by an evil spirit when I mentioned your sexual identity. He warned me over and over again saying, "Oh please, what you are talking about is what the boss hates the most. He cannot stand it even when he sees it, he gets angry. Forget about it and do not share it with anyone else." I could not have them hire you, Michelle. First, I gave you hope, then, I made you sad. I am sorry.
As a matter of fact, in this country, even on the news of violence against them trans individuals were not mentioned. If it was a sex worker who was murdered, then anyways it was automatically his or her fault. Everyone had children and whatnot, and it was a crime for a trans individual to walk on the street even in broad daylight, right?
This society was so hypocritical that the person who pounds your door down to lynch you in the morning, would return at night to ask for sex. Our last encounter with Michelle was in the neighborhood of Denizköşkler in Avcılar.
After the earthquake in 1999, the severely damaged buildings in this neighborhood were polished and the trans individuals, who were not allowed to live in any part of İstanbul, took refuge in those buildings that no one wanted to live in.
Some of them became property owners in time. Other were still tenants. One day, provoked also by a television news broadcasted by a male journalist, the people living in the neighborhood pounded on their doors. They were carrying torches in their hands. They were saying, "You either get out or we will burn you alive". The harassments and threats had reached an unbearable level.
Among the ones threatening to burn the trans individuals were also women clasping the hands of their children. In an interview, one of those women revealed a secret which no man had confessed: "Now, there is this thing called urban transformation. Our houses will increase in value, but when people see them here they will not buy these houses. Isn't it an injustice to us? Because of these transvestites, the price of the neighborhood falls. We do not want them here."
It was in this neighborhood that I met Michelle for the last time. And what is more, it was the night of July 15. Michelle was not angry or cross with me because I could not make them hire her. I understood it that night. Our morning news were on summer break on July 15, 2016. That Friday night, we were at the wedding of a very dear friend of ours from our team.
The wedding was at a garden in Avcılar. At first, there were tweets about a bizarre situation on the Bosphorus Bridge, then, everyone warned each other saying, "A coup is being staged". The guests started to take off one by one and the bride and groom were left standing there.
We took to the roads as a group of 10 women and men who were all dolled-up for the wedding. We started to walk along the E-5 Highway. We could not understand what was happening. First, we decided to take turns checking the Twitter so that our cell phone batteries would not die. Then, we gave piggyback rides to the friends who were having difficulty walking in high heels.
There was a group of angry people walking towards us. Some of them shouted at a girlfriend of ours, who was elaborately dressed for the wedding and was wearing a mini skirt, "Because of you, there is no suffering we have not endured for the last 90 years. Your end has come", they said. Then, in the middle of this pitch-dark night, I heard a familiar voice as we were passing through the Denizköşkler Neighborhood.
It was no other than Michelle, she was leaning out of the balcony and shouting at me, "It is very chaotic out there, come upstairs if you like, our girls have a couple of guests, if you don't mind you can rest here for a while". This offer was like an olive branch extended in the middle of a cataclysm. In that moment we were like the characters of a Dali painting. Our last encounter with Michelle was one of those coincidences that happens once in a lifetime.
Now, Michelle is able to continue her profession in Germany. I apologize to everyone. I don't think you expected me or this short article to give advice on how to solve the most important problem of this country, the problem of violence against women!
Besides, I have learnt better from Gülsüm Kav, the General Representative of the "We Will Stop Femicide Platform". Gülsüm Kav told this to me after a performance of mine, whose proceeds were donated to this effective non-governmental organization. That day, in the backstage, Kav thanked me for not being one of those men who advise women on how to combat violence against women.
I made my decision that day. I will keep my opinions to myself and continue supporting women by standing tall beside or behind them whenever they ask. And I will start doing this by apologizing to them... (İD/ŞA/APA/SD/TK/IG)
* Images: Kemal Gökhan Gürses