Gay İzmir

Izmir is Turkey's most secular and liberal major city — a consistently different political and social environment from Ankara or Istanbul's more conservative districts. The city has a long history as a cosmopolitan Aegean port (ancient Smyrna) with large Christian and Jewish communities well into the 20th century, and this heritage has produced a social atmosphere that is measurably more tolerant than the Turkish average. The LGBTQ+ scene is centred in the Alsancak neighbourhood and has historically included one of the few Pride marches in Turkey that operated into the 2020s. The scene is small but the city itself is one of the more comfortable places to be LGBTQ+ in Turkey.