Kurdish pro-LGBT Mothers at Izmir Pride Parade, Turkey, 2018

Recently, Turkish users posted a cropped version of this picture and titled it as: "Turkish LGBT Mothers at Izmir Pride, 2018". However, they cropped out the Kurdish sign seen on the right that reads: "Ez Hevzayendim, Ez Livirim", which is Kurdish for "I am gay and I am here".

The mothers in front all look Kurdish, and if you watch the video where this picture was captured from, you will see them talk to the Kurdish-sign holder. Foreigners might not notice the subtitle physical differences between Kurds and Turks, but these women look very Kurdish, and especially the older women's white headscarf gave it away, which is a style found in Van, a Kurdish region in Turkey.

There are of course Turkish sign, but that is logical, for the pride was in Izmir, a Turkish city in Western Turkey – but with a very large (over 1 to 1.5 million) Kurdish population. In addition, Kurdish was a criminalised language for almost a century, and as a result, many Kurds don't know their mother tongue – and the Turkish state is actively erasing signs of Kurdish in public spaces.

Turkey also has a long history of erasing Kurdish history, culture, and identity. Kurdish culture has been appropriated on a large scale, and for a long time, the existence of Kurds was denied.

What these Turkish redditors did is no different; they labelled these Kurdish mothers as Turkish mothers to score on Reddit and have Turks appear as progressive, while actually being very racist and disregarding the struggle of two minorities (Kurds and LGBT).

The pro-Kurdish HDP political party was the first political party in Turkey with an openly gay representative in parliament. Kurdish society is not perfect, and there is homophobia like in any other (Middle-Eastern) nation, but Kurds are at least actively trying to change that in a region that is not only hostile to the LGBT community and women, but also to Kurds themselves; it is a tough battle, and Kurds don't have (m)any allies. The least we can do is recognise their struggle and fight the racism and appropriation they face on a daily basis, even on Reddit.

/r/pics Thread Link - i.imgur.com