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Prior to the Syrian uprisings in 2011, Syrian queer and trans* populations were rather unknown and irrelevant to global LGBT politics, Western media, and humanitarian efforts. This changed considerably after the uprisings as representations steadily increased and proliferated on social media and in journalistic accounts. This article traces this shift and argues that queer and trans* Syrians became visible primarily through a queer/humanitarian media-visibility paradigm and the construction, consolidation, and circulation of the figure of the suffering Syrian gay refugee. Drawing on analyses of what I consider pivotal events and media representations as well as journalistic writings, this article maps out the ways in which the figure of the suffering Syrian gay refugee and the associations it foregrounds emerged, circulated, and became normalized after the uprisings and years into the Syrian conflict. Furthermore, based on ethnographic fieldwork that I conducted with Syrian LGBT refugees in Istanbul during 2014 – 15, this article challenges the suitability of this figure as a knowledge production framework and suggests new research trajectories to approach, understand, and write Syrian queer and trans* histories beyond the queer/humanitarian visibility paradigm and the figure of the suffering Syrian gay refugee.

This article argues that Australia’s increasingly externalized refugee policy harms queer asylum seekers and refugees. Australia’s refugee and foreign policies perpetuate colonial and homophobic relations with states such as Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Nauru to meet Australia’s border security priorities. The lack of recognition of queer people in Australia’s foreign policy and the harm caused by its regional refugee policies represent a clear contradiction to Australia’s claimed liberal human rights diplomatic position.

Housing policies for refugees are a hot topic in many countries receiving refugees. However, most discussions tend to treat refugees monolithically despite the fact that they have diverse experiences. Individuals seeking asylum on the grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity face numerous obstacles during the asylum process. This article aims to explore how asylum accommodations are governed and how this process affects queer asylum seekers. Based on a range of sources, including interviews, documents and media articles, the results show that many queer asylum seekers have been victims of homo- and transphobic violence. The findings also indicate that the Swedish migration agency has implemented temporary solutions to mitigate such violence but refused to change the overall policy. In the analysis, I maintain that there are three underlying assumptions in the system, namely, the primacy of heteronormativity, the metropolitan nature of queers, and the need to adjust but not challenge heteronormativity. I argue that this process renders queer asylum seekers unfit and leaves them in unsafe housing situations to domesticise them in the context of a heteronormative society, i.e. a society in which they do not stand out or claim further rights.

This third edition of the Trans Legal Mapping Report represents a departure from the earlier versions in 2016 and 2017. While we continue to research legal gender recognition, we have now added criminalisation examples to countries where information is available – both through desk-based research and a combination of desk-based research and verification by trans activists in those countries. The decision to add criminalisation is a political one, as well as one borne out of necessity. We know anecdotally that trans people, especially trans women, are disproportionately targeted by institutions of authority in almost every country in the world, and one method of such targeting is the use of laws, arrest and detention. That is why, in this edition, when examples of such targeting has taken place, we have classified them as either “de facto” or “de jure” criminalisation. This is to indicate the impact of the discrimination on trans persons – that the systemic targeting of trans people using seemingly innocuous laws such as those related to public spaces, is just as damaging as so-called “cross dressing” laws which overtly target gender expressions.

The Covid-19 pandemic clearly reveals the vulnerability of LGBTQI+ persons seeking asylum and refuge within the Common European Asylum System and as applied in Germany. The German government recognizes that the call to “stay home and save lives” potentially puts at risk vulnerable groups (i.e. women, children, elderly etc.) and increases isolation. However, people seeking asylum find themselves in cramped accommodation with less access to community and with increased instances of violence and trauma. In most federal states, legal services offered by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) have been temporarily suspended. A particularly vulnerable group within the category of asylum claimants in Germany are lesbian, gay, bi- and transsexual, gender non-binary and intersex people seeking asylum who often experience loneliness and abuse in reception and accommodation camps due to homo/trans-phobia. The continuing pandemic substantially exacerbates the social isolation they were already facing and poses specific challenges in regard to accommodation, healthcare, access to community, trauma and isolation, and (sexual) violence.

Die Covid-19-Pandemie legt offen, dass LSBTIQ+ Geflüchtete innerhalb des Europäischen Asylsystems und seiner Umsetzung in Deutschland eine besonders schutzbedürftige Gruppe darstellen. Die Bundesregierung erkennt an, dass die Forderung, soziale Distanz zu wahren und zu Hause zu bleiben, für schutzbedürftige Gruppen (z.B. Frauen, Kinder und ältere Menschen) eine besondere Gefährdung darstellen kann. Dennoch finden sich Geflüchtete meist in überfüllten Ankunftszentren und Flüchtlingsunterkünften wieder, in denen sich Gewalt und re-traumatisierende Ereignisse häufen und die ihre soziale Isolation fördern. Zudem wurden in den meisten Bundesländern die vom Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF) angebotenen Rechtsdienstleistungen aufgrund der Pandemie vorübergehend eingestellt. Eine besonders vulnerable Gruppe von Geflüchteten sind lesbische, schwule, bisexuelle, trans*, non-binäre, inter* und queere Menschen, die in den Unterkünften oft Formen von LSBTIQ+ Feindlichkeit wie sozialer Ächtung und Gewalt ausgesetzt sind. Die derzeitigen Maßnahmen zur Eingrenzung der Covid-19-Pandemie verstärken diese Tendenzen und führen zu besonderen Herausforderungen in Bezug auf die Gewährleistung einer sicheren Unterkunft, Gesundheitsversorgung und sozialer Kontakte, sowie der Vermeidung von Traumata, Isolation sowie (sexuelle) Gewalt.

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.

Transgender legal protections have long been contentious issues, with courts often pathologizing or refusing recognition of transgender identities. Recently, however, courts adjudicating asylum claims have recognized “transgender” as a legitimate category of protection. I take this legal development as an opportunity to ask how courts determine if individuals are transgender. While previous work has shown how courts maintain the gender binary, asylum law offers the first chance to analyze how recognizing a distinct transgender category affects the legal gender order and the classification of trans claimants. Drawing on court decisions, ethnographic observations, and interviews, I argue that the recognition of transgender as a category implicitly acknowledges the malleability of gender. Yet, the adjudication of transgender asylum cases continues to uphold a fixed and binary conception of gender by assuming a “born into the wrong body” narrative and that claimants should always already know their gender identities. Courts thus enforce a cis–trans binary wherein only certain claimants are found “trans enough.”