Kareff, ‘Constructing Sexuality and Gender Identity for Asylum through a Western Gaze’, 2021
- Category: Literature
- Source: Academic
- Subject: Sexual Orientation/Sexuality, Gender Identity, Intersex, Refugee/Asylum, LGBT+
- Place: Americas, Other
- Year: 2021
- File: 06-Kareff-GT-GILJ210027
- URL: https://www.law.georgetown.edu/immigration-law-journal/in-print/volume-35-number-2-winter-2021/constructing-sexuality-and-gender-identity-for-asylum-through-a-western-gaze-the-oversimplification-of-global-sexual-and-gender-variation-and-its-practical-effect-on-lgbt-asylum-determinations/
Michael Kareff, ‘Constructing Sexuality and Gender Identity for Asylum through a Western Gaze: The Oversimplification of Global Sexual and Gender Variation and Its Practical Effect on LGBT Asylum Determinations’, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, vol. 35, no. 2 (Winter 2021)
Abstract
There is not much legal authority or legal scholarship that explicitly discusses credibility determinations for LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers in the United States immigration system. Most scholarship about credibility and the LGBTQ+ asylum experience exists in social science fields like anthropology and sociology and addresses the LGBTQ+ asylum experience in other jurisdictions. There is thus a need for scholarship that addresses the essential question of what boundaries the legal system has drawn between credible LGBTQ+ identities and experiences and incredible LGBTQ+ identities and experiences for the legal purposes of asylum. There are some clear determinations in case law and in Article I courtrooms that determine whether or not
LGBT asylum-seekers will be found to be “credibly” LGBTQ+. However, it is unclear which LGBTQ+ asylum-seekers have identities and lived experiences that are credible or incredible for the purposes of seeking asylum. This matters because what constitutes acceptable proof that an individual identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming, or
queer is more than just an intellectual evidentiary discourse; it reflects how a given society identifies and defines queer people, queer identities, queer narratives, and queer lived experiences.