By Nazlan Ertan
In Turkish, teşhirci (exhibitionist) is a word with two lives. In everyday use, it is an insult, hurled at women whose clothes are judged too revealing or at men who flaunt their cars and watches. In the Criminal Code, however, teşhircilik has a very precise meaning: exhibitionism. Article 225 punishes those who “publicly exhibit their sexual organs” with up to six months in prison. A word meant to describe a trench-coat flasher in a public park has, over time, swollen into a moral cudgel: used less to prosecute streakers and more to police women’s bodies.
That slippage is why teşhirci is the word of the week.
In Konya, a state hospital ophthalmologist named Hasan Hüseyin Uysal refused to examine a young woman because of her outfit. On video, he tells her: “I select my patients. Doctors have the right to choose. I don’t examine teşhirciler.” The woman, dressed in jeans and a short T-shirt, breaks down in tears. “You called me naked. You called me a flasher. How can a doctor say this?” The exchange went viral, sparking outrage across the country.
The Ministry of Health opened an investigation. The Turkish Medical Association issued a sharply worded statement reminding doctors that the Hippocratic oath does not come with a dress code. Social media piled on. One commentator wrote, “What’s next, refusing to treat women in veils because you’re ‘afraid something is hidden underneath’?” Another quipped, “Is this sharia already, doctor?”
The keyboard-happy community dug into the good doctor’s social media account, digging up former posts where he spouted anger (with wording that borders on pornographic) at women’s clothing and defended marriage between 13 year-olds on the grounds that if people can have sex at 13, they can get married too. He also appeared to be in favor of culling strays. Others - mostly from his own city, part of Turkey’s conservative heartland - defended the man: “25 million Kemalists would not be worth our good doctor,” said one.
LAW AND RELIGION
Professional and legal frameworks are unambiguous. Turkey’s Patient Rights Regulation guarantees fair access to health services “in accordance with justice and equity,” language that sits poorly with dress-code gatekeeping. The Turkish Medical Association’s ethics rules require respect for patient rights, informed consent, and treatment without discrimination. In short, a white coat is not a badge to police morals: you help the person in need, not only those you think deserve it.
Religious guidance, too, is more pragmatic than culture-war slogans. The Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) says the baseline preference is for same-sex care, but when that is not possible, examination by the opposite sex is permissible. It also clarifies that, when medically necessary, practitioners may look at and touch intimate areas for treatment. The principle is medical need, not moral panic.
YOU DID IT
Unsurprisingly, columnist Ahmet Hakan of Hürriyet tied this story to the February 28 era (his shorthand to refer to the pre-AKP era when the pious were humiliated, ignored and bullied), claiming that headscarved women were turned away from hospitals and ridiculed in waiting rooms. Then, he claimed, it was secular doctors imposing their prejudices; today, the roles are reversed, with conservative doctors branding unveiled women as indecent. “There is no difference,” he wrote, “between a doctor who says ‘I will not treat a veiled woman’ and one who says ‘I will not treat a so-called flasher.’ Both commit the same injustice.”
Medicine has long been the frontline of Turkey’s culture wars. In reality, there were few documented cases of doctors outright refusing to treat veiled women, while doctors in conservative Anatolian towns often complained that they were prevented from examining female patients by husbands or fathers or men shying away from being treated by a female doctor.
In the 2000s, however, cases did emerge of religious doctors refusing to examine patients of the opposite sex. In Konya again, two veiled radiologists declined to perform an ultrasound on a 16-year-old boy with a testicular condition; he eventually lost the organ. At the time, columnists warned that when religion and science collide in the examining room, it is the patient who pays the price.
Words matter (you would not expect this column to say the opposite, would you?) In Turkey, where attire is still a proxy for politics, calling someone a teşhirci becomes exclusionary, a refusal of care, a denial of rights - and even an invitation to lynching. When hurled by a doctor in a white coat, it is even more corrosive: the gatekeeper of public health turned into the bouncer of public morality. Let’s keep an eye on where this case would lead.
