The Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its official political identity of conservative democracy dominated the first decade of the new millennium in Turkey. Conservative democracy rests on a fusion of a particularistic conservative national identity with the universal principles of liberal democracy. The conservative narratives on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgenders (LGBTs) reveal the limits of this synthesis’ ability to create a deliberative democracy in Turkey, and underscore the challenges faced in recognition of LGBT demands within the conservative democratic project.