Linguistic taboo, ideology, and erasure: Reproducing homophobia as norm and lesbianism as stigma in women's football in Turkey

Abstract

Women's football (soccer) in Turkey is an introverted community of practice with linguistic practices and ideologies that maintain homophobia as norm. The word lesbian is taboo and substituted with shorthaired, and lesbian identity is erased as wannabe manliness. Homosexuality appears acceptable (through erasure) only when women self-present as normatively feminine, and such propriety is class related. The linguistic taboo is fractured if interlocutor footing shifts vis-a-vis researcher expectations. However, the very moments when linguistic taboo is fractured reveal homophobia as the reigning norm. Given the larger political context in Turkey where queer identity and existence are threatened, the workings of linguistic ideology, linguistic taboo, and homophobia in women's football raise the stakes for queer footballers regarding how they may claim sexual identities. This article is based on four months of fieldwork in 2019 and 2020, mostly in Istanbul, with current and former footballers, coaches, media representatives, and club and federation administrators.