This ethnographic paper investigates the meaning(s) of the term “queer” in Turkey, drawing on the talks, seminars, and workshops I co/organized on queer theory in different cultural venues and NGOs in Istanbul between 2017 and 2019. I first explore the workshops held in Boysan’in Evi (Boysan’s House), which is a non-profit event venue dedicated to shed light upon LGBT+ communities in Turkey. Established in 2016, it is a unique body that keeps a record of the collective history of non-normative identities in Turkey and does it always in memory of Boysan Yakar, the untimely deceased LGBT+ and human rights activist. The workshop in Boysan’in Evi brought together people from different backgrounds and provided a space of encounter for their varying opinions of queer. I then focus on the literary seminar series held at SPoD (Social Policies, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association), which traced the lineage of the “minor” within Turkish literature. Drawing on critical queer theories elaborated by Butler, Smith, Warner, Edelman and Sullivan, the seminar series investigated the anti-institutional and decolonizing stances within overlooked writings. Through this assemblative framework, which brings together sites of cultural production, communal organizing, and academia, this paper analyzes the limits and potentials of using queer as a method of critical engagement in Turkey. I ask: How is the term queer understood? Is it a nameable category of sexual identity for most people? Can we actually talk about a queer movement in Turkey? How do these two venues act as spaces of encounter, resistance and coexistence contra the ever-mounting authoritarian climate in Turkey? Finally, what are the ways in which these events and encounters help us imagine a queer futurity, or, in José Esteban Muñoz’s words, “a horizon of possibilities” in Turkey?