A student in Turkey says a university in Istanbul refused permission for an LGBT conference organized by students on campus.

Medical students at Yeditepe University, a private university with 15,000 students, organized a conference called LGBT-Medicine-Ethics, due to be held last week.

The program was to include sessions on problems faced by LGBT people in medicine, gender realignment surgery and LGBT ethics in medicine - but administrators refused the students permission to hold the conference.

Before transitioning, Michelle Demishevich was fired from her job as a newspaper journalist in Izmir, Turkey. Now nearly 15 years later she has been hired by Turkish TV channel IMC as a reporter. 

'I have heard of trans columnists but I am the first trans TV reporter in Turkey,' Demishevich said to Bianet.org about her dream come true.

Yasemin Oz, who has campaigned for LGBT-rights in Turkey since the mid-1990s, is being honored with a human rights award.

The Felipa de Souza Award, given by the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) every year, recognizes courage and activism in LGBT human rights work.

Oz was chosen as this year's recipient of the award because of her dedication to improving LGBT rights in Turkey.

Turkey’s prime minister has instructed his government to take the case of an adoption of a boy by a Dutch lesbian couple to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

A report by the Turkish daily Sabah states that Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is making plans to take the case to the court, saying it was wrong to allow a lesbian couple to adopt the child.

A trans woman attacked four days ago in Turkey has died.

The victim was reportedly a resident of the Meis district, where complaints of police violence and pressure from local residents have been reported since October 2012.

According to Rozerin Seap Kip, lawyer for Social Policies, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association in Turkey (SPoD), the victim was heavily beaten up four days ago. She died yesterday at a hospital in Bakirköy, Istanbul.

The Turkish Armed Forces is set to introduce a new regulation that essentially states to gay soldiers: ‘If you come out – you’ll be expelled, if you stay in the closet – we’ll do nothing’.

The old articles of ‘unnatural intercourse’ and ‘psychosexual disorders’ as reasons to dismiss a soldier from the army, are to be replaced with a new criteria: ‘sexual identity and behavioral patterns should be dominant and apparent in every part of life’.

Yeni Akit, a pro government paper known for its nationalist and homophobic views branded gays and students as being ‘dirty’ ‘deviants’.

The paper published the article after students from Turkey’s Middle East Technical University (METU) protested against a visit by the country’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

As Erdoğan attended METU for a launch of a Turkish satellite called Göktürk-2, hundreds of students protested against his conservative and militarist policies.

Activists slammed Turkey's progress report to the European Union (EU), saying it totally ignores the EU’s recommendations regarding LGBT rights

Turkey’s minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bağış said the report is ‘not just a reaction’ but indicates the government’s ‘commitment to reform’.

Turkish LGBT activists, however, pointed out that the report ignores the problems and demands of gay people and justifies previous and current criticism expressed by the EU Commission.

A trans women from Beylikduzu in Istanbul was shot last Saturday, tragically extending 2012's list of murdered transgender women in Turkey.

Gunce Hatun, a 19-year-old who worked as a sex worker was shot dead on the street, said Kemal Ordek a Turkish steering committee member for Transgender Europe.

Turkish news reports say that police arrested a man who is a driver for a private bank. He claimed Hatun tried to force her way into his car.

This brings the number of murder trans women in Turkey this year to six.

The 2013 David Kato Vision & Voice Award has been awarded to Ali Erol, a leading LGBT activist in Turkey.

Inspired by David Kato's work, the award recognizes those who strive to uphold sexual rights for LGBTI people. It is named after human rights activist David Kato, who was murdered in his home in Kampala, Uganda on 26 January 2011.

The award was presented to Erol today 29 November at Pan-African Parliament in South Africa.

The murder toll for trans women in Turkey has tragically risen again following the death of Serap Güneşer, 25, last week.

Güneşer, a sex worker, was stabbed and had her throat cut in Antalya in the early hours of Wednesday 24 October. She was alive when police arrived but died before she reached hospital.