It’s a safe space and no one cares if you’re bi, straight or gay. I play for the Imperial women’s 2nd team as a centre back. I really enjoy playing football, and our football club is quite queer, which I absolutely love. We were on the beach and I told him: "I might be bisexual." And his response was, "Well, good for you!" My brother was the first person I came out to. So I thought, if I’m living here, I will embrace myself for who I am. Coming to London, I saw how sensitive people are and how they embrace different identities and celebrate them. I would think: "Maybe you're trying to make yourself more interesting?" But it's just something that you are.
When I discovered I was bisexual, I used to blame myself. You are an outlier if you're openly gay in Turkey unless you are in a safe community. It was never an option to be anything else. In Turkey, it was always assumed that I was heterosexual. I’ve been empowered to be proud of my sexual identity because of Imperial. I came out after I moved to London to study at Imperial. I also really enjoy making ispanak yemeği ve pilav which is a spinach dish with rice.Īyşe enjoying a family holiday as a childĪs well as my Turkish culture, being bisexual is also an important part of my identity. Some of my favourite Turkish dishes are zeytinyağlı pırasa which consists of leeks, carrots, rice, orange juice, lemon juice and olive oil. Even if it was just a regular day, I would be making crepes with spinach, mushrooms and bechamel sauce (back when I wasn’t a vegan). Last year during COVID, I had a lot more time to be cooking complex dishes. I recently turned vegan and although I cannot eat most of the traditional food now, I still take pride in it.Ĭooking is a passion for me because I tried healing myself through food, as part of recovering from an eating disorder. It still fascinates me to this day how diverse the cuisine is in Turkey from its different regions. The other big part of my culture that I enjoy is the food. I think that behaviour comes from my parents who always said: "You always have to treat your guests right. Cooking for friends is a way for me to show my love and affection for them. I love having people over and treating them well. We place a big importance on how you treat your guests and that has really stuck with me. These experiences helped me realise that bioengineering was the right degree for me, as one day, I would love to improve the user experience of MRIs. I had to spend a lot of time getting MRI scans which I found scary. The process of getting diagnosed with these conditions was quite hard for me. I have a slight limp on days when I’m having a flare-up, but thanks to my medication, it's mostly gone.
I was diagnosed with the condition after I noticed my hip joint would keep flaring up following a pulled muscle. I wouldn't say I'm fully in remission, but I'm doing much better.Īs well as Crohn’s, I also have ankylosing spondylitis, which is a long-term condition where joints become inflamed. My condition does often affect my daily life, but I'm on immunosuppressive medication which helps. But after having an endoscopy and several scans, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. Initially, this was thought to be because of my eating disorder. During my last year of high school, I was struggling to swallow food. Growing up, I had an eating disorder and I struggled with bulimia for five years. When it came to choosing a subject to study at university, I wanted to combine the two and so I opted to study bioengineering at Imperial. I grew up in the city of Istanbul where I went to an American high school. I started talking to my dad about these issues and I think he’s changed a lot. I feel like he learnt this from his parents. Within my family, there was often a preoccupation with the clothes I wore and the makeup I was putting on, particularly from my dad. The country also has a sharp contrast between religious, conservative people and liberal people. I’m from a more privileged community which was fairly liberal, and quite far from the more religious communities in Turkey. I had a pretty typical upbringing and a regular childhood in Turkey.