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Lesbische, bisexuelle, trans, queere und intergeschlechtliche (LBTQI) Migrantinnen, Asylsuchende und Flüchtende sind besonders anfällig für sexualisierte und physische Gewalt – auf ihrem Weg nach Europa, während des Asylverfahrens und nachdem ihnen der Flüchtlings- oder humanitäre Status in der Europäischen Union zuerkannt wurde. Dabei handelt es sich unter anderem um Vergewaltigung und sexualisierte Gewalt in Flüchtlingslagern, Auffanglagern und beim Transit, um sogenannte „Ehrenverbrechen“, Ausbeutung als Sexarbeiter*innen durch Menschenhändler und Einschüchterung durch Behördenmitarbeiter*innen und die Gesellschaft insgesamt.

In this article, the author foregrounds transgender as a useful category of analysis to shed light on the issue of gender variance and its articulations within the encounter between Syrian queer and gender-variant refugees and the humanitarian-asylum complex. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Syrian queer and gender-variant refugees in Istanbul in 2014 and 2015, this article contends that transgender as a term first circulates among the queer and gender-variant circles as a thinkable possibility primarily through its function as a humanitarian category, especially as propagated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). By highlighting this specific encounter, the author attempts to demonstrate, however, that rather than focusing on what the term does to the persons it interpellates, one must map out and document the ways the term is taken up and negotiated by the Syrian queer and gender-variant populations themselves, a method that could help ameliorate the negativity attached to transgender as a Western term and show that other systems of identification and histories of gender variance in the Syrian or Syrian diasporic contexts do not simply disappear or are subsumed by transgender, but are further complicated by it and continue to exist alongside it.

While many refugees have settled in Germany within recent years, little is known about LGBTQ* (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer*) refugees, a potentially vulnerable group. This qualitative study investigated LGBTQ* refugees’ experiences of distal and proximal minority stressors as well as their mental health burdens during the post-migration period.

The European Union accepted more than one million refugees from Muslim-majority countries in 2015. However, Islamophobic social conditions have created numerous hardships as they attempt to integrate into European society. This situation may be especially challenging for refugees identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ). They not only experience discrimination from multiple sources but also lack connections with their diaspora communities. This qualitative study examined the experiences of LGBTQ refugees who migrated from Islamic societies to Austria (n= 19) and the Netherlands (n= 19). We conducted semi-structured interviews to understand how they experienced integration. Additionally, we interviewed five LGBTQ refugee service providers to triangulate data and enrich findings. We identified the following themes: precarious livelihoods, the complexity of depending on others, still not free, and you’re Muslim; we don’t want you. Findings indicated that participants experienced uncertainty regarding the asylum process, including issues related to the Dublin Regulation. Although participants relied on host community members to ease integration, they also encountered discrimination based on race, religion, and immigration status. In Vienna, this discrimination was experienced as overt, whereas in Amsterdam, it was subtler. Participants also encountered discrimination based on their sexual and gender identity from other refugees, compromising their ability to receive services needed to facilitate integration. The article concludes with recommendations for promoting the integration of LGBTQ refugees into the European Union.

In Europe asylum seekers are confronted with migration-filtering techniques when beginning their rights claiming procedures, during the decision-making process of their asylum claims, and finally across the procedural constraints imposed on them. In this article, I want to look at asylum through a focus on newly recognised refugee protection categories: sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). In so doing, I concentrate on the ordinary, yet effective, manifestations of the filtering devices inherent in the politics of asylum by examining the elusiveness of current migration control practices. I aim to elaborate on the discrepancy between the widening of refugee protection, through the inclusion of gender identity and sexual orientation as grounds of asylum, and the increasingly restrictive practices that define the refugee granting process in France and the UK. The analytical considerations in the article emerge from interviewing and conducting ethnography over a three-year period between London, Paris and Marseille with gender and sexual minority refugees, immigration lawyers and refugee support workers and volunteers. The article seeks to sociologically investigate the claim of ‘asylum as filtering device’ within two western European national settings.

In der Verknüpfung der Themenstränge Geschlecht, Migration und Sicherheit werden spezifische Konstellationen und Konzepte fassbar, die zur (Re-)Produktion und Stabilisierung aktueller Herrschaftstechniken beitragen, aber auch emanzipatorische Praktiken und Grundrechtsansprüche beinhalten. So geht es um die Analyse sexistischer und rassistischer, migrationsbezogener Sicherheitsdiskurse einerseits und um geschlechtsspezifische Sicherheit unter Bedingungen von Rassismus, Neokolonialismus und Militarismus andererseits.

Female and LGBTI+ asylum seekers’ experiences are invisible and under-researched within Turkey’s asylum regime. Based on in-depth interviews with asylum seekers, this chapter shows that although women and LGBTI+s have often escaped from gender-related persecution, they are exposed to serious gendered risks throughout the asylum application and reception process in Turkey. This is especially visible in the cases when applicants are sent, without any social or economic support, to small and conservative cities which are unsafe for single women and LGBTI+s. This chapter shows that there is no gender sensitivity in asylum reception and protection processes in Turkey and the processes may put women and LGBTI+s in more vulnerable positions exposed to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

Gemäß EU-Aufnahmerichtlinie 2013/33/EU ist Deutschland zur rechtlichen Verankerung geeigneter Maßnahmen bei der Unterbringung Geflüchteter sowie zur Identifizierung besonderer Schutzbedarfe verpflichtet. Lesbische, schwule, bisexuelle, trans- und intergeschlechtliche (LSBTI*) Geflüchtete werden in der Richtlinie nicht als besonders schutzbedürftige Gruppen benannt. Zwar hat die Bundesregierung 2017 bei der Ergänzung der bundesweiten Mindeststandards zum Schutz von geflüchteten Menschen in Flüchtlingsunterkünften dem LSBTI*-Schutzbedarf durch einen Katalog spezifischer Schutzmaßnahmen Rechnung getragen, jedoch liegt die Kompetenz bezüglich der Unterbringung und des Gewaltschutzes bei den Bundesländern. Der Artikel analysiert daher die vorliegenden Gewaltschutzkonzepte der Bundesländer im Hinblick auf die Verankerung dieses besonderen Schutzbedarfs. LSBTI*-relevante Schutzmaßnahmen werden in Form von Clustern detailliert vorgestellt und so spezifische Bedarfe herausgearbeitet. Insgesamt verfügten im Beobachtungszeitraum (01.01.-10.03.2019) nur 9 von 16 Bundesländern über ein Gewaltschutzkonzept – diese verankerten im Schnitt weniger als ein Drittel der in den Mindeststandards beschriebenen LSBTI*-spezifischen Schutzmaßnahmen.