Quinan et al., ‘The Politics of Vulnerability and Protection’, 2020
- Category: Literature
- Source: Academic
- Subject: Sexual Orientation/Sexuality, Gender Identity, Refugee/Asylum
- Place: Europe, Other
- Year: 2020
- File: The_Politics_of_Vulnerability_and_Protec
- URL: https://www.academia.edu/104251607/The_Politics_of_Vulnerability_and_Protection_Analysing_the_Case_of_LGBT_Asylum_Seekers_in_the_Netherlands_in_Light_of_Securitization_and_Homonationalist_Discourses?email_work_card=view-paper
Christine Quinan, Dana Theewis, and Cecilia Cienfuegos, ‘The Politics of Vulnerability and Protection: Analysing the Case of LGBT Asylum Seekers in the Netherlands in Light of Securitization and Homonationalist Discourses’, in Kevin Smets, Koen Leurs, Myria Georgiou, Saskia Witteborn, and Radhika Gajjala (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration, 2020
Abstract
For many decades the question of safety in relation to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people has been debated, as violence has historically been perpetrated towards gender and sexual minorities. This broader dynamic has taken on a new direction in the wake of the global refugee crisis. For many LGBT asylum seekers coming to Europe, violence, discrimination, and intolerance continue to be a daily battle (Broomfield, 2017; Campanna and Ioannou, 2018; Tsagkari, 2017). This is exacerbated by the fact that individuals applying for asylum on the basis of discrimination due to sexual orientation and gender identity must undergo a process of ‘credibility assessment’ in which the state decides if they are sufficiently ‘homosexual’ or ‘transgender’ to be afforded legal status. As many scholars and activists have shown, this state assessment process is often invasive and violent in and of itself. The threat of violence is further compounded by the fact that refugees are placed in restrictive housing compounds while awaiting decisions on their applications. In the Netherlands, several organizations have asked the government to provide separate housing for asylum seekers who identify as LGBT, as many have detailed discrimination and violence in asielzoekers centra or Asylum Seeker Centres (AZCs). The leading party in the Netherlands (VVD) has responded by saying that instead of providing separate housing for LGBT asylum seekers, they prefer to separate the instigators of this violence. This public discussion illustrates several important points. Firstly, both the government and LGBT organizations lobbying for this separation posit LGBT people as ‘vulnerable’ and in need of protection from their environment. The naming of these individuals as vulnerable is not an innocent move: it shapes power relations between the state and the LGBT migrant and between the LGBT migrant and the migrant framed as ‘inherently homophobic’.