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LGBTI Refugees
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From the course by Stanford University
International Women's Health and Human Rights
178 ratings
Meet the Instructors
Anne Firth Murray
This week, we offer two interviews concerning the situation of refugees.
One is with Tina Chalmers, a lawyer, who works with a US based group
that addresses issues of gay and lesbian refugees worldwide.
Another is with who works with refugees in the Netherlands.
Here's the problem with lesbian and
gay applications of, we'll talk about this more later.
How do you prove that you're gay?
How do you prove that?
That is not so easy.
But we'll talk about that more in a second.
So now I want to just talk a little bit about LGBTI issues.
I'm pretty sure I'm stating the obvious for
all of you, but I'll just state it just to make sure, so LGBTS stands for
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex.
I'm going to guess you know what lesbian and gay and bisexual are.
A transgender person is someone who was born in one gender, one sex, and
has decided to feel that they are really another sex inside, another gender inside.
And are in the process of transforming from a man to a woman or a woman to a man.
The expression also is used for people who feel that they are really part of a third
gender, they're not quite any of those things.
And there are all kinds of interesting words that are used to apply
to people in that situation.
And intersex is someone who maybe born with different genital structure,
some female, and some male genitalia, so they're sort of not quite in the realm.
We sometimes refer to this as SGN, sexual and gender non-conforming.
Because in the nonprofit world we love acronyms.
There will be many more acronyms, but
what those folks all have in common and I'm an L by the way just in case.
Anyway so, what the L's and the G's and the B's and the T's and
the I's have in common is that their presentation is not considered the norm.
Either their sexual orientation or
their gender identity is not the norm.
When we see LGBTI refugees, sometimes, they are fleeing because they're being
persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Sometimes, we see them because they're fleeing something else entirely.
In Syria, there are quite a number of LGBTI refugees in the camps.
I'm sorry, in Jordan, in the camps, fleeing from Syria.
Some of those folks are fleeing because things are getting worse for
LGBTI communities.
But some of them are there because things are just plain worse, and
their villages are under fire.
So, it's an interesting complexity of things.
The situation of LGBTI people internationally
varies as you might imagine quite a lot.
It's kind of a funny moment for us here in the US because things are pretty much
getting really a lot better in the gay community here in the US, right?
We have gay marriage, we got rid of Domo, we have all kinds of great things coming.
We may have the end of employment discrimination soon.
And so in the US there's a little bit of a feeling, of well phew,
now we're done with that, which I can really understand.
But in the rest of the world,
things are actually getting a little bit worse in some place.
There are actually 76 countries in the world,
where it is a criminal infraction to be lesbian or gay.
Now, some of them have the law on the books but
it's not clear that it really means anything.
So in Singapore where we live,
there is a rule on the books that makes it a crime to be gay.
But, when I was there a few years ago I dropped into a gay bar that had
a nice rainbow flag outside and lots of advertisements and
it looked pretty much like your average gay bar in a US city.
So, it appears that that rule is not being enforced particularly in
Singapore though it still is on the books.
But in other countries, it is quite severe.
And some of those countries, it comes from a religious perspective and
sometimes it's a political perspective.
So in Iran, you are subject to the death penalty if it
is determined that you are LGBTI.
And, I think it's pretty clear that most of that arises out of
[SOUND] okay that's totally not okay, sorry.
Arises out of religious beliefs and
the same is true in a few primarily Catholic countries.
On the other hand in Uganda,
there is really an increasing anti-gay feeling and
many people feel that where that comes from is Evangelical Christian
movements in Uganda, much of which is not local in its genesis.
It comes from either the US or other countries who are sending in
missionaries in this particular approach and their view about
being gay is pretty punitive.
In Russia by contrast, have you all been following the sort of drama in Russia?
So in Russia, there's a legislation passed now that speaking
about gayness where a child could hear, is now a crime.
There was also a piece of legislation that is pending in that would allow
the government, in fact, mandate the government to take away the children
of people who were found to be lesbian or gay, bisexual, transgendered.
So, that includes your biological children,
your adopted children, children that you are helping to parent.
Most people expect that law will pass,
although they may wait to vote on it until after the Olympics.
But one view of why this is happening in Russia now is because it's political,
because it's a way to separate out from the west.
In many countries, being gay is seen as a western thing.
I should just say that's not true.
The incident of homosexuality is pretty much the same across cultures, but
it gets expressed in different cultures differently and
it's allowed to be expressed in different cultures differently.
So the West has typically had the most openly gay people and
as a result it is seen as a Western thing.
So it takes a whole different approach when you have a politically-motivated
problem When gay people are persecuted
in their country, it usually looks like, not just the legislation,
but the culture in the community and a sort of a condoned violence.
Sometimes it's a cause and effect problem.
Sometimes people are violent because that's what they believe and
the law gets passed because there is a general anti-gay feeling in the community.
Sometimes the law is seen as a permission to develop a more anti-gay feeling.
But in Russia, ever since that law was passed, the incidence of anti-gay violence
has been much more severe and often the police don't respond to it.
So, there was a couple of armed people who ran into a LGBT group
meeting in St. Petersburg and started firing, and then ran out.
There were people who had been hit.
The police arrived and said, this seems to all be under control,
doesn't seem to be a crime here, and left.
So, that's the interaction between the official status and
the grass-root violence, if you will, it's pretty close.
For lesbians, there is a particular challenge.
When I say lesbians for women, for lesbian women, bisexual women and
transgendered women, there is this phenomenon called collective rape,
you may have read about it in some of your readings, I think.
I hate that phrase because it sounds like it makes it legitimate somehow, but
the idea is either we're going to punish you for being gay, or
this will make you not gay, if we rape you.
And so it's kind of open season on those women.
This is a particularly common thing.
We see it a lot in the sub-saharan Africa but it happens around the world.
So, there are particular issues that LGBTI refugees face,
particularly the women among them.
One of the first is, for those of us who are working to help them,
it's really hard to find them, right?
Because it's terrifying for them to be open about who they are.
So those of us who are looking for LGBTI refugees have a hard time finding them,
they have a hard time finding us.
And they often are very reluctant to say
why they're fleeing persecution, why they are being persecuted.
And that makes it tough, right?
They have an unbelievably compelling story.
They were beaten almost to death four times in their country of origin by people
who yelled death to the queers, but they're not willing to say that.
And so their story is very vague, and it doesn't fit in the well founded fear
of persecution requirement, and so they have a hard time getting refugee status.
And they have a hard time getting help in general.
When most of the organisation that are giving help to people are faith based
NGO's, non governmental organisations and sometimes that's a great thing,
most times that's a great thing, it means there is resources and caring and
compassion out there.
Sometimes when the religion doesn't feel that homosexuality is appropriate or
permissible, it becomes another dangerous place for them.
And if the faith based organization is running a refuge camp, you
can imagine what it would be like to try to tell someone that you are a lesbian and
you can't be with these people in your community
who are targeting you in the camp.
And that's one of the big issues with these camps,
is that they pretty much replicate the society that
these folks have fled from which is comforting for some people, right?
If it works for you, it's comforting to be with your community,
but if you are an outsider or someone who is being targeted and
persecuted, it's a scary place to be.
And it's just a little bit less law, it's more lawless, often.
And so there is greater risk of rape and greater risk of beating.
When you get resettled, you have the issues of where your community is.
So as I mentioned, a typical place to be is the resettlement folks
will say to themselves, well, let's see, you're Hmong and there is a huge community
of Hmong people in this central valley of California, so we'll send you there.
And if that's true, if you are a straight Hmong farmer that might be perfect for
you because you will find people who speak your language and
people who understand your cultural concerns.
But for a gay person who's fleeing that culture
that can be the exactly worse thing to be in.
Because that's what you're fleeing was the homophobia endemic in this
particular culture and now you're going to get plopped right into it again.
We don't always have resettlement folks that are sensitive to that, hence, the guy
I met who is resettled in Las Vegas where it's a pretty
conservative place and challenging enough to be African there,
very challenging to be gay and African there.
So those are some of the issues.
You could try to make a stand for, I'm gay and
I want to go to some place gay friendly.
But again many people are terrified that that won't work.
And frankly, the US was excluding gay people from immigrating not very long ago,
and so it's understandable that people are fearful to disclose.
I mentioned the credibility issue.
There have been some horrifying stories of how adjudicators have tried to figure out,
are you really gay or not?
They had some physical tests they believed would reveal everything.
They have asked questions like, do you have children?
Yes, well then you must not be gay.
Well, let me start with what's wrong with that, right?
First of all, many times gay people marry people of the opposite sex
because that's what's expected of them and that's what keeps them safe.
Bisexual people may actually have a genuine relationship with someone of
the opposite sex or have had one in the past and gay people can have children.
One of the challenges with Russia right now is that Russia actually was a pretty
liberal place for a while.
And so lesbians in particular made families,
they created in their partnerships they adopted kids or had kids.
And so now they're very vulnerable to this new law because they are completely out.
In some ways, ironically, in Uganda, the women are safer
because they are much more accustomed to keeping a lid on it.
So the way to determine credibility, really is, and this is something that my
organization spends a lot of time trying to train people on, is to ask people about
their growing up, about their relationships, what was their experience.
How did they feel when they went to school?
How did they feel in relationship to other people?
That is going to bring out the stories that are,
the richness of it is going to give you the credibility.
And finally I just want to mention the health issues that women do face and
gay people do face.
Particularly lesbians who are not willing to come out,
have a lot of issues because they aren't willing to go to health care,
and they aren't willing to talk about being a lesbian.
And so when they can't have that conversation,
they're not going to get the appropriate care.
They may often opt to get no care, because they don't want to have
that conversation about why aren't you married, do you have any children?
For trans women, you need a lot of medication as you make a transition, and
that medication is pretty serious, and includes some pretty
serious injectable hormones.
So, often trans women who flee don't have that access to that anymore.
They, somehow they had a pipeline for it sort of in the underground, but
now they're stuck in a country of transit.
Maybe they thought they were going to be able to go right to the US and
get those drugs and yet they can't.
And it really wreaks havoc with their healthcare when they
can't continue to get that medication.
There's a lot of HIV, and for gay men in particular and for
trans women, that's a big problem.
Again, you have to come out in order to say what your problem is and
then to get the medication that you need.
And finally, sort of to state the obvious, there are serious mental health issues.
I'm going to show you a quick video and you'll see that the mental health toll
that it takes on someone to flee their country,
leaving everybody that they know behind, however awful it was for them,
land in another country, which is also not safe for them.
And where they don't have access to health care or social services.
And desperately trying to get the help they need without saying what the help
they need is, because they're so fearful, takes a terrible toll and
there are times when we as advocates have come in too late in that process.
I don't think it's ever too late, but too late to really make a significant dramatic
change and allow this person to live a fully happy life.
Really, the heart of the problem is that their claim is that they
were persecuted in their country of origin because they were gay.
So, first of all they have to tell that story,
they have to be willing to tell that story.
The other stories they have to tell, they probably have other stories.
It's not great being a woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
even if you were straight.
But the thrust of why they personally are persecuted,
and why they have a subjective fear, has to do with their being gay, so
they have to be willing to come out with it.
And in fairness, they have to test it somehow, right.
They have to make sure that you're not just telling a story,
you're the refugee to get there.
So the problem is how to give those interviewers some
tools to find out is this faking or is this story real without
doing it in an offensive and by the way ineffective way.
You don't look gay is not really a very good approach.
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