majority. In the same year, she was subject to active discrimination (and subsequent torture), while attending a court trial on behalf of HRA, since her physical features did not align with her self-declared gender over the ID card. In 1991, Demir was again imprisoned for two months and tortured by Süleyman the “Hose” Ulusoy, the then police chief of Beyoğlu, who had a fearsome reputation for his acts of violence against transvestites. She thus became the first person to qualify as an Amnesty prisoner of conscience and thereafter, Amnesty International included homosexuality on their list of political crimes. Whilst she tried to take legal action, she was unsuccessful. Demir stood up for the rights of transsexual sex workers in 1995, when they were being arrested (and evicted) in order to "clean up" the neighborhood to organise the United Nations Habitat Conference, thus bringing greater visibility to transgender rights in Turkey. In 1996, she underwent a sex reassignment surgery to get a woman identity card and subsequently freelanced at workshops and press studios, before joining a company to avail of future retirement benefits. In 1997, OutRight Action International (formerly International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission) gave Demir the Felipa de Souza Award. Demir was arrested and physically abused on 12 July 1997, when she tried to stop police from beating up a girl who was selling handkerchiefs made by transgender people to earn a livelihood outside of prostitution. She was coming out of a workshop, organized to promote employment skills for the transvestite and transsexual community. Demir had enough of being harassed for her activism and subsequently sued the Beyoğlu District Police Bureau. The case was repeatedly postponed before the court ruled in her favor in 2003 and awarded a 21-year sentence against Ulusoy, which was immediately vacated by the government under an amnesty provision. In 1999, Demir became a candidate at the Beyoğlu City Council elections for the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), thus becoming the first transgender candidate to run in any general election in Turkey. She was unsuccessful. In 2007, she unsuccessfully ran for the position of deputy in Isparta. In 2008, Demir and other transgender activists created LGBTT Istanbul. She has been vocal about the discriminatory and harsh attitude of police towards the transgender community and of the community being often compelled to embrace prostitution for earning a livelihood. She has also criticized about the lack