On 8th October 2021, Turkish Government announced on the Official Gazette that the novel Heartstopper, written by Alice Oseman, was banned from being sold to people younger than 18 and had been started to be sold packed in cardboard packets with a writing that states ”It’s harmful for young people” on it. It was claimed that the book’s content was threatening the cultural values, it was disturbing for children and that it was detrimental.
Heartstopper was published on the first of September online and after people’s positive and affectionate comments on the book it was decided to be published as a novel in 2018. Heartstopper’s content is about two young boys falling in love with each other and their lives which is basically included in the LGBTQ+ genre.
Government’s recent decision was apparently due to homophobic reasons and not banning real disturbing content from kids. Whereby, it can be seen that books which include rape, violence and sexism are allowed to be sold to people younger than 18 years and TV shows which openly reflects the violation against women, paedophilia, incest relationships and cinematographic content that contains sexist and homophobic terms that can actually disturb and harm a kid’s or a young person’s thoughts and development, are again allowed on public television broadcasts and bookstores.
This ban has taken the attention of both the author herself and activists in Turkey. It was stated by many journalists and activists in Turkey that the importance of representation hasn't been valued by referring to all bans including Heartstopper, banning rainbow symbols on clothes in order to not “impose” LGBTQ+ on people and many others.
The point that must be taken into attention is that, meanwhile, people have been suffering from poverty, negative living conditions due to insufficient security conditions, climate change effects, unequal education conditions, etc. Two male teenagers falling in love with each other shouldn’t be the “problem” that must be focused on. In order for people to be more aware of the diversity among society and be respectful about the true societal values, governments must be taking more actions towards it instead of spreading hate and supporting the actual harmful ideologies.
Yaprak Gürtunca
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