Legally Queer: The Construction of Sexuality in LGBQ Asylum Claims

Abstract

Using court decisions, interviews with legal actors, and ethnographic observations, this paper analyzes the development of sexual identity classifications for sexual minorities seeking asylum in the United States and argues that the adjudication of such claims works to consolidate and regulate sexual identities but also creates possibilities for recognizing marginalized queer identities. Asylum seekers must prove their sexual identities, and immigration officials must classify claimants as belonging to a protected group. At the inception of queer asylum law in 1990, protected categories were highly circumscribed, but the indeterminacy of the law allowed advocates and asylum seekers to challenge existing categories and stake out new claims based on their sexualities. Against the backdrop of extant criticisms of the asylum process for queers, this paper suggests that the way asylum law has been elaborated, adapted, and interpreted, particularly in approximately the past decade, offers possibilities for making unique identity claims that are not recognized in existing scholarship.

Class, mobility and inequality in the lives of same-sex couples with mixed legal statuses

“…Until recently, the migration of lesbians and gays had mostly been studied under the rubric of queer asylum, which was the main legal route through which they could access international mobility as sexual minorities. The queer asylum literature has grown in the past two decades as many Western states dramatically shifted from homophobic policies to ones casting queer migrants as victims exceptionally deserving of access (Luibhéid 2008a;Millbank 2009;Spijkerboer 2013;Giametta 2014Giametta , 2017Lewis 2014;Mai 2014;Shakhsari 2014;Shuman and Hesford 2014;Vogler 2016;Hertoghs and Schinkel 2018). This literature can thus inform our critical assessment of the construction of queer mobility and migratory deservingness in the case of queer marriage migration.…”

Making Migration Sexy: How LGB Policies Influence International Migration

“…To date, queer migration research largely studies same-sex couples seeking to leave repressive conditions. Part of this is because of the U.S. policy environment which, for so long, did not define same-sex couples as "family" and left asylum as one of the few viable mechanisms for entry (Luibhéid, 2008;Vogler, 2016). Similarly, another strand of research documents people in more oppressive contexts seeking out partners in more equitable locations who can then sponsor them through the immigration process (Carrillo, 2018;Corey-Boulet, 2019).…”

“…Analyses of domestic LGBT communities often assume citizenship and migration research presents migrants as heterosexual (Luibhéid, 2008). The academic research that does acknowledge the realities of queer migrants, though, is largely centered on the asylum claims and offers a qualitative insight into how queer migrants navigate this process (Vogler, 2016). As such, there is presently a shallow understanding of the factors broadly influencing the migratory patterns of same-sex immigrant couples beyond this pathway and how these patterns align or diverge from their well-studied heterosexual counterparts.…”

Normative understandings: sexual identity, stereotypes, and asylum seeking

“…80 Vogler has rightly called out the expectation for potentially traumatised subjects to attend such venues as an act which punishes asylum seekers for displaying a symptom of fear and persecution. 81 Alongside the need to attend particular venues, the recognition of an individual as credible in their identity also relies on the possession of certain knowledges about queer communities and entities commonly assumed to be a part of queer culture. Morris provides a framework through which issues of assumed knowledge, such as those arising in the context of credibility determinations, can be theorised.…”