Gender and sexual minorities in the Ottoman Empire

Public norms exhibited fluid gender expressions (particularly for younger males), and attitudes toward same-sex relationships were diverse, often categorized by age and expected roles.

Beyond its borders, the perception of homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire became entwined with Orientalist tropes, perpetuating stereotypes of sexual perversion in Western discourse.

[6] According to the Iranian scholar Mehrdad Alipour, "in the premodern period, Muslim societies were aware of five manifestations of gender ambiguity: This can be seen through figures such as the khasi (eunuch), the hijra, the mukhannath, the mamsuh and the khuntha (hermaphrodite/intersex).

[11] Will Roscoe and Stephen O. Murray contend that the division between gender variance and sexual object choice occurred in the early 20th century.

[15] While in most cases, these relationships were temporary, Ottoman Albania at this time also had a concept similar to same-sex unions, among both Muslim and Christian communities.

However, as the previous laws were very rarely invoked and this reform was implemented during a time of heightening heteronormativity, some have claimed the 'criminalization-decriminalization' paradigm as inappropriate for the Ottoman Empire.

According to Dror Ze'evi, European pressure shaped the nineteenth century, resulting in the reinterpretation of local cultural material and traditions.

[28] Spurred in large part by these changes, homosexual contact started to decline in the late 19th-century, and the focus of desire turned to young girls.

The love and affinity that were, in Istanbul, notoriously and customarily directed towards young men have now been redirected towards girls, in accordance with the state of nature.

"[29] Research shows that the decline is in close relationship to increasing criminalization of homosexuality in the Western world at the time, which was followed by repression of gender and sexual minorities.

[30] Ottoman literary culture, particularly poetry, openly discussed gender and sexuality (including same-sex love and desire) until the 19th century.

Hamse included stories of individuals inside the Imperial Council, and discussed social values of the century, as well as moral and ethical codes.

Mihri Hatun, a highly educated unmarried female poet, wrote a poem where she pretends to be a man in love with a woman.

[43] The English historian Edward Shepherd Creasy wrote in 1835 that "it became Turkish practice to procure by treaty, by purchase, by force or by fraud bands of the fairest children of the conquered Christians who were placed in the palaces of the Sultan, his viziers, and his pachas, under the title of pages, but too often really to serve as the helpless materials of abomination".

[48] The Ottoman official Mehmet Cemaleddin Efendi was offered male prostitutes while on his stay in Paris between 1903 and 1906 by his hosts, who thought that being Turkish, he would be interested.

This discomfited him, who later wrote that the streets of Paris had "1500 boys exclusively occupied in sodomy" with their availability and prices advertised on printed cards, which was far more blatant in France than anywhere in the Ottoman Empire.

[46] This perception altered societal norms and attitudes (including the presentation of same-sex desire in literature) as the Ottoman Empire sought to become more Western.

The original composition, Alfiyya va Shalfiyya, was commissioned by the Seljuk Toghan-Shah is described by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall as a renowned "sotadic" work (referencing a geographic zone in which pederasty is allegedly prevalent and celebrated among the indigenous inhabitants).