Why do authoritarian regimes target the LGBTQ+ community?

Raids on gay bars and homes, hundreds of arrests and rhetoric about state responsibility to "protect families and children." Turkey's latest crackdown on LGBTQ+ communities is not such an outlier. "It's not uncommon, we've seen it before," Dr Koen Slootmaeckers, from the international politics department at City St George's, University of London, told DW. "Turkey's been doing this for a while, but it seems like a much higher intensity," Slootmaeckers said. "We've seen it in different places too. I think what we are seeing with the rise of the far right is a crackdown on anything that looks different. It's really about an us versus them narrative and a reinforcing of 'traditional family values.