Framing Transfemicide in Turkey: The Politics of (In)visibility and Media Representation

This thesis will explore the coverage, representation, and framing of transfemicide cases between 2017 and 2024 in both Turkish mainstream and alternative media. Transfemicide, i.e., the murder of a trans woman because of their identity, is an intersectionally distinct form of gender-based violence that is highly prevalent in Turkey. However, the term is mainly absent in Turkish literature. Therefore, this thesis will, as the first step, explicitly call these cases transfemicide, which is essential for the visibility of the subjects and the problems they face that have sociopolitical roots. Following a theoretical discussion of transfemicide and related concepts such as transmisogyny, biopolitics, necropolitics, and performativity, this study will explain the increasingly discriminatory stance of the Turkish state, government officials, and media toward LGBTI+ individuals, as well as mentioning the findings from two prior media analyses of trans murders and suicides in Turkey until 2016. After identifying the transfemicides between 2017 and 2024 based on local and global NGO data and reaching the online articles from mainstream and alternative media channels, organizations, and journals, the discriminatory patterns in the news will be determined and coded qualitatively, after which a detailed Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of a total of 12 articles from both mainstream and alternative media will assess these patterns and media’s contribution to either visibility of marginalization of the trans women. The findings will contribute to the understanding of transgender women’s problems and their sociopolitical nature, as well as of the media’s role in representation, (in)visibility, and shaping public opinion on transgender lives.