Starting 25 March 1995, the weekly political paper Ekspres devotes a full page to the gays and lesbians in Istanbul.

The 25 March issue included the full text of the speech Mr. Yildirim TURKER delivered in the 2nd National AIDS Congress held in Istanbul the same week. Briefly, Yildirim stated that safe sex practices required a new state of mind, and that can be fun. Yildirim is a screenplay writer famous with his script for the movie 'The Night, Melek, and the Kids (Gece, Melek ve Bizim Cocuklar)'. This was one of a handful of movies made so far in Turkey with a gay/transgender content.

The 1 April issue included a translated article titled 'Am I really a lesbian ?', and a couple of foreign news articles about the openly lesbian Labour Party candidate for the Australian Parliement, and the outing campaign by the British group Outrage.

The 8 April issue shall include two articles, and a questionnaire by Queer Nation: All the questions you might ask to a heterosexual person to find out how he/she discovered his/her sexuality. One of the articles describes the current situation of the lesbians in Turkey. The other one, proposes a critique of the 1994 film 'Alegre Ma Non Troppo' by the Spanish director Fernando Colomo which was screened during the Istanbul International Film Festival (1-16 April 1995).

Ekspres can be contacted at: Tarlabasi Bulvari 60, Taksim, Tel: +90 (212) 254-2795, Fax: +90 (212) 254-2664. Ekspres comes out every Saturday, and can be found at the newsstands and the major bookstores in Istanbul. Ekspres is published in Turkish.

CONTACT LAMBDA

The Istanbul gay liberation organization LAMBDA can be reached by
mail or fax either through the weekly Express, or at Toplumsal
Arastirmalar Vakfi, Basaga Cesmesi sok. 17, Galatasaray, Istanbul.
Fax: +90 (212) 293-1095.