Evolving Bodies: Mapping (Trans)Gender Identities in Refugee Law

Abstract

What is a (trans)gender identity? How do we measure gender identity related persecution? Does refugee law offer adequate protection to culturally diverse gender minorities? Constructions gender identity as a ‘particular social group’ in international refugee jurisprudence remains elusive and unpredictable. Judicial, political and academic tensions arise about whether non-conforming gender identities should be treated as a category distinct from claims relating to (homo)sexuality in refugee decision-making. While there are a limited number of publicly available decisions, some of these tensions can be gleaned by examining the diverging legal tests relating to social perception, social visibility, and immutability when defining the particular social group. Moreover, understanding the position of transgender and other gender non-conforming refugees requires us to problematise the assumption that gender identity is reducible to ‘wrong body’ or ‘confused sexual identity’ discourse. Persecution also does not be motivated by intentional malice nor is it always just perpetrated by state actors. Highlighting some judicial and administrative decisions arising in the United States and Australia, this chapter contextualises how gender identities have been understood in refugee law and offers some critical reflections improving the juridical mapping of these complex claims.

Citation

(2016). Evolving Bodies: Mapping (Trans)Gender Identities in Refugee Law. In The Routledge Research Companion to Geographies of Sex and Sexualities (221 - 228)

• Acceptance Date: May 1, 2016
• Publication Date: May 19, 2016
• Pages: 221 - 228
• Book Title: The Routledge Research Companion to Geographies of Sex and Sexualities
• ISBN: 9781472455482
• Keywords: Transgender, Refugee, Law, Gender Identity, Geography
• Publisher URL: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Research-Companion-to-Geographies-of-Sex-and-Sexualities/Brown-Browne/p/book/9781472455482