Complexities of LGB Asylum: The Imbricated Nature of Identity and Conduct

• In Event: Sexuality and the State: Borders, Boundaries and the Sexual Commons

Abstract

This paper addresses the complexities surrounding the adjudication of LGB asylum applications. How does the state categorize LGB applicants as authentic or as inauthentic? Should the state focus on homosexual identity or on homosexual conduct? In the recent past, some western countries have come under intense scrutiny and criticism for denying asylum to gay applicants on the grounds that they were not “gay enough.” But the situation is more complicated than some of these critics acknowledge. On the one hand, administrative rationality dictates that there be clear rules governing the evidence used to determine which of these cases are authentic and which are fraudulent. Gender – taken here to mean a set of performances – invariably gets implicated in these adjudications about sexuality. On the other hand, we know, following a range of queer theorists, that gender cannot be stabilized as any one form of conduct. Given these dilemmas, and given the fact that sexual orientation and gender identity (and gender expression) are often interrelated and interconnected, what can the state do but try to determine whether one is “gay enough”? This paper addresses these and related challenges the state routinely confronts in the case of LGBT asylum. 

Author

• Cyril Ghosh, Wagner College