The Construction of Heteropatriarchal Family and Dissident Sexualities in Turkey

Nation states create their sexual regimes not only to discipline and manage the populations within the state but also to establish their differences from other states and set their borders through the bodies of the citizens under their mandate. The article contends that heterosexuality is naturalised through the argument that sexual orientation is an issue which concerns only a small minority of the population that deviates from the norm. In Turkey, the depiction of a homosexual category, that is hyper-sexualized and devoid of parenting abilities works in the construction of the heteropatriarchal family, which constitutes one of the main pillars of the nation state. The article scrutinizes the institution of motherhood in relation to the nationalist ideology, why parenting is reserved only for heterosexual people and how sexual dissidents are excluded from the practices of parenting a child.