Fifth day in Ankara. I'm in the leaving room of Buse's house. Zelosh and Buse are chatting and drink coffee in the huge orange sofa. They laugh and debrief about last evening. Dost, Buse's dog, sleeps next to her. Nazle is cooking. Can is listening to electro music. Buse is one of the transsexual I'm taking pictures of. She's blonde, tall, have perfect white teeth and spend two thirds of her days with a smile on her face.
Buse is the founder and president of Pembe Hayat, the most powerful and most representative LGBTT association in Turkey. Buse is an activisit. She fights restlessly. Field worker, spokesperson, social worker, lobbyist. During the day, Buse does it all. At 10 PM, Buse puts her black high heeled boots on and opens the door on her second life. She's a sex worker. Every night, she and Selay go to work together. Selay lives across the street. Every night, they drive together their black car in the "trans-streets" of Ankara. Selay is behind the wheel most of the time. They work together because of the violent customers, beacause of the police, because of the weirdos. They care on each other. Every night.
In turkey, trans-women don't have any choice but being sex workers. There's no other way. The turkish id system, with its two colors (blue for men, pink for women) prevent them from getting any other job. Although Turkey is third country in the world in term of transsexual population, no rights are granted for trans. They are harrased by the police. Nobody protects them, eithey socially, medically or legally. They have to defend themselves. Hate crimes are commonnly perpetrated against transsexuals. Violent, bloody, shocking hate crimes.
Three days after my arrival, Buse came back home early. She couldn't work, because of the police. She wanted to show me where she was working. We all went : Buse, Selay, Zelosh, Can (pronouce Jan) and I. We where filming and taking photos. A police car came from behing. Lights on. Selay went back in the car. Mini-chase. Selay drives fast, with a precision of a rallye pilot. Once she lost the police car, we started doing photos again. A small white van stopped by. Policemen. A fight started. Policemen in their car. Buse, Selay and the rest of us in the other car. I filmed the scene, as discreetly as I could. Not to put anyone at risk. Eventually, the cops went away. In our car, pressure went down. Everybody laughed again. And we went to the only trans club in Ankara.
Today, the weather is cloudy. I should have gone to Toprak home, but he cancelled. When I do this kind of project, I'm always afraid one of the person I take pictures of deceides, for any reason, to eventually say no. This is not the case for Toprak. He was too busy today. Toprak is a FtM trans. Female to Male. He lives one hour away from Ankara, in a huge surbub where you only can find shopping malls and buildings. Thousands and thousands of towers. All built on the same model. He lives there with his girlfriend. I'll go and shoot them next week. Hope so. I even think that if what I get is good, I'll do specific project on them.
Inch' Allah.
So today, I will scout Ankara for some illustration shots. Tocatepe -the mosk, cats, birds, traffic jams, streets. Life. Tonight is Pembe Hayat big party. It's going to be quite fun, I guess. I hope I can do nice shots. Tomorrow, I meet Aida. If she's no too tired.
Nazle just finished the soup. She did a yogurt soup, with spices. Buse, Zelosh, Nazle and Can are aroud the big coffee table.
And Buse is laughing.
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