The more “gay” Middle Eastern asylum seekers are, the easier it is to receive asylum in Germany, according to a new report.
A study, “Between queer liberalisms and Muslim masculinities: LGBTQI+ Muslim asylum assessment in Germany,” published by the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies July 26, claims that Middle Eastern LGBT people who don’t fit the queer narrative or ideal are less likely to be granted asylum in Germany.
Ideally, Middle Eastern LGBT asylum seekers have to “prove” their queerness by demonstrating how out they are, the report stated. This can be done by being connected with LGBT organizations in their country and/or Germany and going to gay venues and events, such as Pride.
“In order to gain asylum, asylum seekers must convince officials of their permanent identity as ‘gay,’ ‘lesbian,’ ‘trans,’ ‘bi,’ and/or ‘intersex,'” said Mengia Tschalaer, Ph.D., the author of the report. “They also need to demonstrate that their sexual and gender identity has led to them being persecuted in their home country.”
Furthermore, Tschalaer noted that queer people who demonize their home country and idealize Germany’s liberality were more likely to be granted asylum in the country.
LGBT people who are closeted, married and/or have children, or came from abusive situations were less likely to be granted asylum, the study noted.
The Federal Office in Germany registered 1.6 million refugees in the country between 2016 and 2018, according to the report.
Germany doesn’t maintain statistics based on refugees’ sexual orientation or gender identity, but the Lesbian, Gay, Association Germany in Cologne estimated there are 60,000 LGBT people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen in the Middle East and from Algeria, Sudan, Uganda, and other African countries, according to the report.
Homosexuality is illegal in more than 73 countries and carries prison sentences from three to 11 years or even the death penalty.
Tschalaer, who is from the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol in England, interviewed 15 LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers from Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Pakistan. She also interviewed asylum lawyers and judges in Berlin and Cologne and LGBTI refugee counseling centers in Cologne, Munich, Heidelberg, and Mannheim.
She found that some lesbians and transgender individuals suffered the most from the criteria.
Many of these applicants were in the closet, traumatized by domestic violence or fear of coming out due to anti-gay laws and social stigmatization.
“LGBTQI+ asylum seekers who felt forced to hide their sexuality and/or gender identity, and who felt uncomfortable talking about it were usually rejected,” said Tschalaer in a July 26 news release.
The same was true for “those who were married or had children in their countries of origin,” she continued. “This was either because they were not recognized or believed as being LGBTQI+, or because they were told to hide in their country of origin since they had not come out yet.”
Inappropriate and illegal questions about applicants’ sex lives were also asked during interviews, some LGBT asylum seekers said.
Asking about an individual’s sex life is against European Union law.
Some translators provided by the federal office only compounded LGBT asylum seekers’ fears that they were interjecting their own prejudices and weren’t translating their experiences properly during interviews. This caused some LGBT asylum seekers not to speak openly about their experiences, Tschalaer explained.
“One Somali man said that his fear and shame of coming out as gay — coupled with his translator’s known negative attitudes toward homosexuals — stopped him from being able to talk openly about his sexuality, leading to the rejection of his asylum claim,” she said.
Lesbian women from sub-Saharan Africa were harshly judged under the criteria. Officers from the federal office rejected their applications 98% of the time, according to the report.
“That’s a very, very high rate when you compare to the medium rate of around 60% for that category of seekers,” she said.
The study found that a majority of successful applicants were well-informed about the asylum process expectations, were born male, came from middle to upper-class backgrounds, were educated, and some had connections to German LGBT organizations when they applied for asylum.
To read the study, visit http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2019.1640378 .
