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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.

The key role of digital and mobile media for refugees is increasingly acknowledged, but while the literature on the topic tends to celebrate the advantages of digital media, it is important to also acknowledge limitations. Thus, the focus on the creation and maintenance of connections through digital media may obscure experiences and practices of disconnection. This is certainly the case for forced migrants with non-normative sexual orientations, for whom experiences of homophobia within the family and ethno-cultural community in the country of origin may extend to fraught situations in the country of residence. As with digital media in general, it is important to consider the ‘offline’ social and cultural conditions determining online media uses. This article focuses on the specific challenges for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer refugees, both in general and in Belgium, drawing on desk research and expert interviews, as well as nine in-depth interviews with gay-identifying male refugees. While the refugees are relatively positive about the Belgian situation, they do identify a number of challenges. They use digital media to stay connected to family and other people in the country of origin, but often this connection has become difficult. Social media and dating sites also offer a way to connect to other gay men, but these connections can be equally fraught, particularly in the country of origin for danger of exposure but also in Belgium as social media transcend national boundaries. For this reason, some participants created new or parallel profiles, to keep their gay lives disconnected from their family lives. Overall, then, digital media are a tool not only of connection but also of strategic disconnection for gay refugees.

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.

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.

Since the 1990s, the European Union (EU) has slowly developed an increasingly sophisticated body of asylum law and policy, known as the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This framework – both in the shape of legislative instruments and case law – has inevitably also affected those asylum seekers who claim asylum on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI). This has been vividly demonstrated by particular norms in EU asylum instruments and judgments of the Court of Justice of EU (CJEU). The current CEAS can be said to have several shortcomings in relation to SOGI claims, including in relation to: accelerated procedures; country of origin information; the notion of ‘safe country of origin’; the burden of proof and the principle of benefit of the doubt; the concept of a ‘particular social group’; and the definition of persecution.

A new set of proposals for reform of the CEAS was put forward in 2016, and these also affect SOGI asylum claims in precise and acute ways. This contribution scrutinises these proposals of reform, including the different positions of the Commission, Parliament and Council, where relevant. In particular, this contribution will assess the extent to which these proposals and different institutional positions address, ignore or aggravate the issues that currently affect SOGI asylum seekers.