The perceptions of religion and religious people in LGBT literature in Turkey: A grounded theory study

In this study, the perceptions of religion and religious people -both in general and more specifically in the context of the relationship between religion and LGBT- in the LGBT literature in Turkey was discussed. In the research, 163 issues of Kaos GL Magazine, the first and longest LGBT magazine in the country, published between 1994 and 2018, were determined as sample. This research, which applied the constructing grounded theory, was prepared by using the digital background and rich visualizations of the qualitative data analysis program that carried out coding and theme steps on it. As a result of the study, it was found that the perceptions of religion and religious people are largely negative in the LGBT literature in Turkey, both in general and in the context of the relationship between religion and LGBT. In this regard, 598 negative perceptions and 58 positive perceptions were coded. In other words, the negative perceptions were recorded more than ten times of the number of positive perceptions about the religion and religious people in the relevant texts. In addition, -although differentiate by periods- it was seen that the subscriber letters/writings, translated texts and local texts based on those translated texts, and the interviews come to the fore in terms of text production in the relevant literature. In terms of the content of the text; while the idea that religion and homosexuality are incompatible was widespread in the first two periods, it has recently been observed that a new perspective of Islam has been developed to establish a rapprochement between religion and homosexuality. Keywords: LGBT, LGBT literature, Grounded Theory, perceptions of religion and religious people