Two Kurdish trans woman kissed in Istanbul on march 2021 and then got persecuted by police

1. The image: a public kiss captured and circulated

A prizewinning photograph by Turkish photographer Cansu Yıldıran, titled “Kurdish Trans Women,” shows two Kurdish LGBTI+ activists kissing onstage during the March 6, 2021 Women’s Day protest in Kadıköy, Istanbul; the image was widely published and even featured on a Times Square billboard after winning an international award, demonstrating the photograph’s reach and the public visibility of the moment ^[1].

2. The immediate police response at the protest

Multiple human‑rights and local LGBTI+ outlets reported that police aggressively restricted LGBT symbols at the March 6 gathering, attacked a Trans+ cortege called by the HDK LGBTI+ Assembly, and prevented trans participants from entering the protest site with banners and flags — actions that precipitated chases and detentions of trans activists that day ^{[3] [4]}.

3. Detentions, alleged ill‑treatment and fines

Reporting by Bianet, echoed by human‑rights groups, states that five Kurdish trans women were taken into custody after the Kadıköy event and subsequently fined 3,500 Turkish lira under public‑health legislation; activists and HDK statements allege forceful detention and ill‑treatment amounting to torture during the arrests ^{[2] [3] [4]}. Human Rights Watch documented that five trans women and four other women were violently detained at a daytime assembly on March 6, 2021, linking the detentions to policing of LGBTI+ presence ^[4].

4. Broader context: escalating repression of LGBTI+ visibility

The incident fits into a documented pattern of increasing state hostility toward LGBTI+ rights in Turkey at the time, including bans on Pride marches, public rhetoric conflating queer visibility with threats to public morals or security, and other episodes of arrests and harassment of activists across cities — a context that human‑rights NGOs and academic studies identify as systematic and policy‑driven ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

5. What reporting does and does not prove about “persecution” of the two women

While the photograph establishes that two Kurdish trans women publicly kissed at the March 6 event ^[1] and multiple sources confirm that trans women were later pursued, detained, and fined ^{[2] [3] [4]}, the provided sources do not contain an explicit statement that the two individuals in the photo were themselves singled out, charged, or subjected to named legal penalties beyond the broader group accounts; therefore the claim that those exact two women “then got persecuted by police” is supported indirectly by group‑level reporting but not directly confirmed in the cited articles ^{[2] [1] [4]}.

6. Alternative narratives and possible agendas

Activist outlets and human‑rights organizations portray the events as targeted repression of trans visibility and link them to a wider government campaign against LGBTI+ rights ^{[2] [4] [5]}, while state or police statements are absent from the material provided here; academic analyses also document political incentives to conflate Kurdish/LGBTI+ activism with security threats, which may shape both policing practices and official rhetoric ^[6]. Given these competing framings, the available sources consistently document harm to trans protesters but do not supply the police’s version of events on record in these excerpts ^{[2] [4] [6]}.

7. Bottom line for readers following the claim

The core factual elements are corroborated: two Kurdish trans activists were photographed kissing at the March 6, 2021 Istanbul Women’s Day protest ^[1], and that same protest saw police efforts to block LGBTI+ participation, chases, detentions of trans women and fines for at least five Kurdish trans women — with allegations of violent treatment — reported by multiple independent outlets and rights groups ^{[3] [2] [4]}. The leap from those group detentions to asserting that the two women in the well‑circulated photograph were individually and specifically persecuted is plausible and consistent with the pattern of policing reported, but the provided reporting does not include a named, source‑verified record identifying those two women as separately prosecuted beyond the broader accounts ^{[2] [1] [4]}.