Vitikainen and Lenard, ‘The Role of Trust in LGBTQ+ Refugee Status Determination (RSD) System’, 2024
- Category: Literature
- Source: Academic
- Subject: Sexual Orientation/Sexuality, Gender Identity, Refugee/Asylum, LGBT+
- Place: International
- Year: 2024
- File: Journal of Social Philosophy - 2024 - Vitikainen - The Role of Trust in LGBTQ Refugee Status Determination RSD System
- URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12596
Annamari Vitikainen and Patti Tamara Lenard, ‘The Role of Trust in LGBTQ+ Refugee Status Determination (RSD) System’, Journal of Social Philosophy, 2024
Introduction
The refugee status determination (RSD) system struggles to treat LGBTQ+/queer1 asylum seekers fairly. The many humiliations to which they are subject over the course of the determination process are well-documented (O’Leary 2008; Jensen and Spijkerboer 2011; Lewis 2014; Danisi et al. 2021). The dangers they face before they seek status and after they are granted this status are widely recognized (Grungras, Levitan, and Slotek 2009; UNHCR 2021, 2022a; 2022b; Human Rights Watch 2020; Rainbow Railroad 2022; NGLHRC [National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission] and Amnesty International 2023). Many LGBTQ+ claimants are being denied status because their way of expressing their sexuality or gender identity does not conform to the existing stereotypes of being queer (Morgan 2006; Tschalaer 2020; Wolff and Cochrane 2023). During grueling and often humiliating interviews, their stories are discredited by homo- or transphobic interviewers, and their discomfort with being open about their sexuality or gender identity along with their occasional refusal to disclose highly private, intimate details about their behavior, is often judged in ways that are detrimental to their case (Murray 2014; Akin 2017; Dhoest 2019; Dustin and Ferreira 2021; Ferreira 2023).
In this article, we look at one specific, underlying feature of the RSD system—that of mistrust—and the ways in which the unique experiences of LGBTQ+ persons and the social attitudes directed at them challenge the appropriate functioning of trust within the system. We bring together several strands of philosophical analysis—specifically insights from queer theory, democratic theory, and political theory of refugees—to demonstrate the difficulties that LGBTQ+ persons face in gaining access to protection, and to shape several recommendations for undermining these difficulties.
We start from the assumption that certain relations of trust and institutional mistrust ought to operate at the center of a fair RSD system, one that aims to identify those (and only those) individuals who are eligible for international protection. The appropriate relations of trust and mistrust within the system—and between individual RSD officers and asylum claimants—are, however, distorted in many ways. One major distortion, which is endemic to the system and which applies to all asylum seekers, stems from the structural disadvantages that asylum seekers face vis-à-vis the asylum system in general. That is to say, asylum seekers are always at the mercy of the officers that determine their fates. We will consider the way that these structures shape trust, mistrust, and distrust below, among all asylum seekers, but our main analysis is focused on two additional factors that undermine trust in LGBTQ+ cases specifically: (1) The often unique experiences of queer people that lead to what we call the logic of concealment, that is, the near-universal experience of LGBTQ+ people recognizing that sometimes it may be better, and safer, for them to conceal their being queer than to risk the consequences of not doing so. (2) The ways in which the prevailing social attitudes, including homo- and transphobia, bleed into the RSD processes, thus undermining trust and the appropriate use of discretion within the system. We call this the problem of institutional bleeding.
We proceed as follows. In Part 2, we give a brief outline of the RSD system and elaborate the kinds of trust, mistrust, and discretion that are necessary for the system to do the work it is supposed to do. In Part 3, we turn specifically to the case of LGBTQ+ individuals and show how the logic of concealment feeds into an already existing system of distrust between the RSD officers and LGBTQ+ claimants. In Part 4, we consider the problem of institutional bleeding as one of the RSD system’s internal challenges in creating conditions of trust in LGBTQ+ cases. In Part 5, we outline three complementary measures for reducing the risks of institutional bleeding.