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Die Beitrag befasst sich mit geschlechtsbezogenen Fragestellungen, die sich im Asylverfahren ergeben. Dabei wird die Situation bei der Unterbringung und im Verfahren ebenso diskutiert wie die Regelungen zu geschlechtsspezifischer Verfolgung, die bei der Prüfung von Asylanträgen zu berücksichtigen sind.

In the last decades, international refugee law (‘IRL’) and international human rights law (‘IHRL’) have increasingly taken into account sexual minorities’ needs. Despite not being one of the grounds of persecution under the 1951 Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, sexual orientation has been identified as a relevant factor for the recognition of refugee status for more than twenty years. In parallel, IHRL has evolved to a point where sexual minorities are more fully included within the scope of rights and freedoms set forth in universal and regional human rights treaties, especially via the prohibition of discrimination. Yet, strange as it may seem, this simultaneous evolution has not always led to a fruitful intersection between IRL and IHRL, even in terms of interpretation despite what the Law of Treaties requires. Drawing from documentary and qualitative data and by taking people fleeing homophobia as example, this article looks at the role that IHRL may play in complementing and in intersection with IRL. It argues that IHRL may, firstly, raise obligations to facilitate the access of these claimants to asylum determination procedures and, secondly, inform the notion of persecution used in IRL more comprehensively than it currently does in practice.

Human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity are grounds for seeking asylum in Europe. However, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) people claiming asylum face particular legal and social challenges when they go through the asylum process. Within Germany’s asylum system, LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum belong to the least visible and most vulnerable group.

Menschenrechtsverletzungen aufgrund der sexuellen Orientierung und Geschlechtsidentität stellen Asylgründe in Europa dar. Lesben, Schwule, Bisexuelle, Trans-, Queer- und Intersexuelle (LSBTQI*) Menschen, die Asyl beantragen, stehen jedoch vor besonderen rechtlichen und sozialen Herausforderungen. Innerhalb des deutschen Asylsystems gehören LSBTQI* Geflüchtete zu den am wenigsten sichtbaren und am stärksten gefährdeten Personen

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.”

It is well documented that refugees and asylum seekers (RAS) experience high levels of mental illness. This is also true of sexual and/or gender minority (SGM) individuals. Based on a literature summary, we present the current research on mental illness in individuals who experience the ‘multiple minority stress’ of being both SGM individuals and RAS.

This study explores the asylum claims of unaccompanied children concerning sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) and examines how case officers at the Swedish Migration Agency (SMA) responded to the credibility of their claims. The SMA provided one calendar year of asylum decisions concerning unaccompanied children, and 16 SOGI cases were identified. A thematic analysis of the cases was conducted. The results showed that case officers directed their focus to the quality of the children’s sexual relationships. This indicates that the case officers expect children to engage in long-term relationships similar to adults, despite their age. Furthermore, case officers tended to only render narratives credible if the society as whole was narrated as perpetrators. This indicates that case officers expect origin societies to be monolithic. The main conclusion, therefore, is that case officers are guided both by homonormative as well as homonationalist views in their decision-making process.

LGBT+ rights have recently gained international attention across the continent and have resulted in expanding tensions surrounding access to both city and state in South Africa. The experiences of LGBT+ asylum seekers, an underexamined group of migrants in South Africa, adds further complexity to the literature that has already challenged common-sense notions of Cape Town as a safe haven for sexual minorities. Increasing xenophobic tensions in South Africa’s major urban centres combined with neoliberal-led cut-backs at municipal and national levels has further hidden and made invisible the struggles of LGBT+ asylum seekers. Accessing shelter and employment are interrelated facets of the right to the city as these aspects determine whether forcibly displaced queer people are allowed to live or are simply abandoned and left to die. Thus, this article asks, ‘What is the interplay between access to the right to the city and the opposing social realities of death?’ Using data from fieldwork conducted in 2014–2015 in Cape Town with NGOs and asylum seekers, I seek to examine the violent processes in which state-structured violence embedded in the heteronormative urban space impedes the survival of forcibly displaced queer people. I argue that LGBT+ asylum seekers in Cape Town navigate a landscape of abandonment and death in their attempts to access the right to the city.

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is a widespread public health problem and a violation of human rights rooted in gender and power inequities. Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants living in Europeanasylum reception facilities (EARF) are especially vulnerable to SGBV. To contribute to closing the gap on systematic and accurate evidence on SGBV, we aim to explore reported cases of SGBV, causes and preventable measures described by residents and professionals from EARF.