ANKARA – “Football is the world’s most popular sport,” says 25-year-old Selin Yildiz. “And it’s also a kind of bastion of masculinity; when you say ‘football,’ people think of men. So we want to turn it inside out – not only to challenge sexism and homophobia and transphobia, but also to oppose other harmful political ideologies.”

Selin is the star-player and co-founder of Sportif Lezbon, who claim to be Turkey’s first open LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) football club. On 25 October they kicked off their second season in Ankara’s Ozgur Lig (“Free League”) – an alternative football league created by activists.

The start of the season was postponed for two weeks following the bombing of a peace rally outside Ankara’s central train station on 10 October which killed 102 people – Turkey’s deadliest terrorist attack.

The country has witnessed growing instability and violence since June when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) – a socially conservative party with its origins in Islamism – failed to win a parliamentary majority for the first time since taking power in 2002. A divisive election campaign was held for snap polls on 1 November.

Sportif Lezbon’s story reflects widening polarisation in Turkey, where – while social conservatism has grown – a liberal opposition movement, struggling for LGBT rights, is also blossoming.

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