In 2015, former UK Shadow Immigration Minister, Chris Bryant, proclaimed that asylum cases for Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) people will ‘always be messy’. A mess, Ahmed (2020) explains, can be a queer map that traces obscure journeys to reveal things that have been concealed from mainstream attention. She continues by arguing that a complaint is a type of queer map whereby a complaint is an attempt by an individual to find a sense of belonging in an environment hostile to their presence (Ahmed, 2021). A hostile environment includes the one engineered by the UK government to make life as irregular and difficult as possible for “illegal immigrants”. Byrant’s comment therefore invites queer critique of, and a complaint against, the asylum process for SOGI refugees. In a complaint against the treatment of SOGI refugees, particularly in the UK, this essay “maps” the queer journey of a SOGI refugee, turning first to the colonial past, then to the neo-colonial present, and finally towards a decolonial future. Whilst this format ostensibly follows a linear, colonial temporality, queer theory assures disaffiliation with colonial logics including universalism, temporality, and hegemonic power (Giametta date; Rao, 2020). Using queer theory to understand the causes of the oppressive systems that displace queer peoples today calls for an asylum process that accepts and affirms the plurality of ways of being, and to aspire for a world in which everyone belongs.
Queer in Colonialism
Sixty-seven countries across the world, criminalise private, consensual same-sex sexual activity (Human Dignity Trust [HDT], n.d.), leaving queer people in these countries a choice of either forever performing a heterosexual identity or fleeing to a country where LGBT+ rights are honoured. However, failure to acknowledge the historical causes of today’s anti-queer oppression feeds the misapprehension that SOGI refugees are ahistorical beings escaping monolithically homophobic countries to find liberty in the LGBT+ positive West (Jordan, 2011). Thankfully, a growing body of postcolonial scholarship is connecting the homophobia and transphobia experienced across the world today to the history of colonialism, thus linking SOGI refugeeness to colonialism (see: Narrain, 2004; Najambadi, 2005; Hoad, 2007). Colonialism was a totalising system of domination that institutionalised oppressive systems, including homophobia and transphobia, to allow the West to syphon off wealth and knowledge created by colonized peoples, and establish a world order in which Western ways and white people were/are believed to be supreme (Quijano, 2000). It was Western Christianity, with its disapprobation towards non-reproductive sex (Salzman, 2012); capitalism, with its reliance on the reproduction of the labour force (Federici, 2004); and colonialism, with its belief in European supremacy, that put non-heterosexual and non-cisgender identities ‘under duress’ and created a world order defined by white supremacy and heteropatriarchy (Rao, 2020: p. 14).
The object of colonisation, or the “white man’s burden”, was to “heterosexualize” (Alexander, 2005) colonies by restructuring their societies to follow the European model (Thomas, 2007). Simply, what would hundreds of years later displace thousands of queer people from their homes as SOGI refugees, started as a colonial mission to assimilate the world, and its entire population, into a hegemonic, straight time known as “modernity” (Rao, 2020), whereby human development was understood as a linear, temporal trajectory headed by Europe (Warner, 1991). By subsuming the world into a singular “way of being”, colonialism displaced and destroyed peoples, identities, and entire cultures that did not “fit” the European model. Therefore, colonial rule included the persecution of queerness not only as a means to control bodies but also to control entire nations by dictating who should live and how life should be lived; and this continues to define the lives of queer peoples around the world to this day (Najambadi, 2005).
Heterosexuality was the fulcrum in the colonial mission to restructure the world order, rendering ‘unthinkable, abject, unliveable’ anything that existed outside of the “heterosexual matrix” (Butler, 1996). The “heterosexual matrix”, or “heteronormativity” refers to the organisation of society around heterosexuality by setting heterosexuality as the natural, ‘default’ sexuality in modern society (Warner, 1991: 16). This creates a society in which homophobia and transphobia are normalized and naturalised (Crimp, 2002), forcing queer peoples to hide their identities or risk persecution. Disputing the idea that any genders or sexualities are natural, Judith Butler, in her work Performative Acts and Gender Constitution (1990), explains that gender and sexualities are culturally and socially specific, compelled into existence and naturalized by ‘social sanction and taboo’ (p. 520). For example, Oyewumi (1997) has shown how “woman” did not exist in the Indigenous Yoruba culture but was colonially imported. Institutionalising homophobia and transphobia, Britain introduced to many of its colonies the colonial penal code, Section 377, criminalising all sexual activities regarded as “against the order of nature” according to Western Christian and colonial thought (Elliot, 2018). However, colonial legislation itself does not explain why colonially imported homophobia and transphobia persists in attitude and law across the world today.
Homophobia and transphobia were normalised socially as well as legally. Najmabadi (2005) looked at early Qajar Iranian archives from 1785-1925 and found that beauty standards in pre-colonial Iranian culture were largely undifferentiated by gender and pre-colonial Islamic literature found gender insignificant to love. It was only when European imperialists wrote of Iran as degenerate for their openness and acceptance of non-heterosexual, non-monogamous, and non-gender conforming identities that the Iranian elite, reverent towards European imperialists, agreed homosexuality was abhorrent and primitive (ibid). Moreover, because colonisers had come to synonymise modernity with heterosexuality, to be queer meant to betray one’s nation and to impinge on national progress (Weber, 2016). “Being” heterosexual was not only considered natural but was also a patriotic duty for people living in colonised and coloniser countries alike (Warner, 1991).
Queerness was therefore not only a means to control bodies, but also to control entire nations. Indeed, in the colonial imagination, entire colonized nations, not just certain individuals, were ‘living tableau[s] of queerness’ (Said, 1973: p. 103) that needed civilizing by Europe (Oyewumi, 1997). Therefore, heteronormativity not only defined what bodies were acceptable; it was foundational in imbuing Europe with global supremacy and providing a clear direction and objective for colonisation (Lugones, 2007). For example, gender and sex categories, constructed and imposed by colonial powers, became symbols of personhood and were ubiquitously denied to Black people; thus Black people were subhuman in the European imagination which served to pacify and naturalize slavery and colonialism whilst also reaffirming the European male/female gender dichotomy (Thomas, 2007; Oyewumi, 1997).
Reflecting on the impact of the assimilation of entire cultures into a ‘linear orientation’ of European, colonial design, Said (1999) describes feeling dislocated and ‘out of place’. Ahmed (2004) has observed this as a common feeling among queer people navigating a heteronormative society. It follows then that entire peoples navigating a heteronormative, colonial world would feel disjuncture from, or disorientated by, the world. Colonialism globalised heteronormativity by importing and institutionalising homophobia and transphobia, thus eradicating spectrums of genders and sexual identities and producing a world order that ostracised and erased non-European cultures, knowledge, ways of being, and peoples. The impacts of this are visible today, in the millions of people displaced from their homes due to war, instability, and persecution. Most directly, SOGI refugees exist today because of the history of colonialism, fleeing persecution introduced and implemented by Western colonial powers. To put it more perversely, if a SOGI refugee from a former British colony was seeking asylum in the UK, they essentially sought protection from the original perpetrator of their oppression.
Queer in Neo-colonialism
What ostensibly appears to be a departure from the colonially imposed oppression of queerness, the international community now demonizes countries that persecute queer people (Giametta 2017), leading to, for example, the World Bank withholding funds from countries that criminalise LGBT people (Rao, 2020). Further scrutiny, however, shows how the advancement of LGBT rights in Western countries retains a colonial logic that reproduces the West’s global hegemony. The colonial dichotomy of “civilized” and “barbarous” has been replaced with the dichotomy of “liberal” and “homophobic” (Held, 2017) whereby LGBT rights now symbolise advanced development (Puar, 2013) and, in the Western mind, homophobia is located outside of the West. Observing this phenomenon, Puar (2007) coined the term “homonationalism”.
Homonationalism refers to the careful control of queer rights to uphold the dominant social order and sustain racially charged, heteronormative systems of oppression (Detolla, 2021). It is intimately ‘connected with wider neo-colonial and neo-imperialist processes’ (Lubheid, 2008: p. 175), and is observable in migration systems, whereby border controls and immigration management are implemented to reproduce heteronormativity and the neoliberal, capitalist order. As shall presently be explored in the case of SOGI refugees arriving in the UK, homonationalism informs the asylum processes for SOGI refugees in almost all Western countries, by determining who is considered an acceptable queer and, more perversely, which queer bodies deserve to live (Balibar, 2004). Rather than, as the neoliberal narrative alleges, finding liberation in the West after escaping oppression in the Rest, SOGI refugees experience restructured inequalities when arriving in the West (Luibheid, 2008). The West continues to control sexual and gender identities and, as a continuum of colonialism, manipulates queerness to control bodies and nations to reproduce the hegemonic system.
Whilst not explicitly recognised in the Refugee Convention, people can claim refugee status on the grounds of being persecuted for their sexual or gender identity. The UNHCR (2008) states, ‘A person cannot be expected or required by the state to change or conceal his or her identity in order to avoid persecution’, rejections are made on the grounds of ‘credibility’ (Missing the Mark, 2013: p. 9). Asylum decision-makers are responsible for determining what “queer” looks like, and therefore which bodies deserve recognition and protection as SOGI refugees (Held, 2017). The rights of SOGI refugees are determined by essentialised, Western understandings of queerness presumed to be universal and distinguished from culture, geography, and history (Shakhsari, 2014). This reifies the colonial obsession with universalizing culturally specific, European knowledge and systems. For example, the Western metanarrative of “coming out” is based upon Vivienne Cass’s stage model which sets out a linear trajectory of events involved in a person accepting their queerness (Cass 1979; 1984). This rationalistic and formulaic sequence resembles the Enlightened and colonial understanding of human development, which erroneously assumes that all bodies can be neatly assimilated into a singular, linear trajectory. As a result, the SOGI applicant is required to present their queerness in ways that are recognisable to the decision-makers, with asylum applicants being disbelieved on the grounds of ‘failure to conform to heteronormative stereotypes about [queer] identity’ (Lewis, 2014: p. 965).
How Western metanarratives of being queer shape the asylum process for SOGI refugees are visible from the documented reasons for rejection in the UK, which have included: not looking like a lesbian; not knowing who Oscar Wilde was; not sounding gay; not being promiscuous; having previously had a heterosexual relationship; having children; not visiting gay bars in host country; being of a certain religion; and being elderly (Briddock, 2021; Held, 2017; Dustin, 2018). Amongst the callous reasons for rejection, being disbelieved on the grounds of not being actively and publicly engaged with the queer community in the host country, or not being “out and proud” enough (Dustin, 2018) is particularly grounded in (neo)colonial thought. Because LGBT rights are now symbolic of development, the visibility of LGBT rights is imperative for the nation to prove its advancement, just as it was important during colonialism to prove the nation’s “straightness” (Alexander, 2005). SOGI refugees are enmeshed in ‘visibility politics’ essential in upholding neoliberal narratives (Lewis, 2013: p. 179). Not only does this expectation reduce SOGI refugees to solely sexual or gendered beings (Dustin, 2018), ignoring the possibilities of discrimination within the queer community on grounds of racism, xenophobia, and aporophobia (Lee, 2011; Held, 2017). It also assumes that it is safe for refugee persons to be “out and proud” in the host country, overlooking experiences of trauma, lack of money or time, language barriers, and lack of experience in articulating or understanding their queer identities; and also overlooking statistics such as one in five LGBT people in the UK experiencing a hate crime in 2016 (Bachman, 2017). The asylum process is grounded in the (neo)colonial assumption that the host country is exceptional and in order for a SOGI refugee to live in this exceptional country, they must meet the country’s expectation of a legitimate and acceptable queer person (Murray, 2011).
Knowing that the asylum decision-makers determine the credibility of a SOGI refugee’s queerness based on Western and neoliberal stereotypes of “queerness”, it has been suggested that claimants are compelled to lie or act out their identities in ways that appease these stereotypes (Herlihy 2009; Giametta, 2017). Referring specifically to the UK, Shuman (2014) and Briddock (2021) argue that the main fault of the asylum process for SOGI refugees is that the decisions are made based on limited and homophobic stereotypes. However, when understood in the context of Britain’s own colonial history, it is more plausible to find the use of stereotypes not as a fault within the system, but as a purposeful proponent upholding the hegemonic system. Firstly, because some SOGI refugee claimants feel the need to conceal their true identities to avoid persecution, the UK is breaching the UNHCR’s guidelines on international protection (2008). Not only does this showcase the colonial hangover in Britain regarding its belief in its exceptionalism. It also shows that the UK has retained the power to determine which identities are permissible based on which identities will uphold the hegemonic system. Secondly, and more perversely, the treatment of SOGI refugees in the UK allows a continuation of Britain’s role in eradicating certain identities. For a SOGI refugee who is not deemed by UK decision-makers as “credibly” queer, their choice is to either assimilate their identity to match the host country’s expectations, or to return to their country of origin and either hide their queerness or face persecution. In all instances, Britain has retained its colonial power to deny, erase, and eradicate certain bodies and identities.
It was through colonialism that Britain forged its national identity, based on the tenets that a dichotomy existed between its civilized self and the uncivilised, colonized peoples (Said, 1978). National identity compounds the nation-state (Walters, 2020) and because European colonialists institutionalised homophobia as part of its “civilizing mission”, nation-states today are ‘heterosexual, putative abstraction[s]’ (Giametta, 2017, p. 12). Sanghera (2021) argues that since the end of Empire, Britain has yet to establish a cohesive national identity for its entire population. However, recent studies on sexuality and migration, particularly on queer bodies, have pointed to the role of sexuality in constructing national identity and citizenship (Held, 2017). Leading on from this, the presence of SOGI refugees in Europe epitomizes two central proponents that have historically informed British identity: xenophobia, and a fear of queer bodies. Antagonising the polarity between SOGI refugee peoples and British national identity reveals how colonial thought continues to pervade Britain.
Arendt (1951) argued that nationwide xenophobia becomes a means of self-definition. She explained that as the number of rightless people increases, attention is diverted from the governments implementing persecutory and oppressive legislation towards the status of the persecuted. This concept is evident in the ways mainstream media in the UK report on refugees. For example, documenting the 2015 “Syrian refugee” crisis, in which thousands of refugees fleeing war and persecution made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe (UNHCR, 2015), frontline headlines included The Sun’s, “The Illegals Have Landed”; and the Daily Express’, “Migrants Swarm To Britain”. These headlines, void of humanism and compassion, preserve the racial hatred spawned by colonialism by continuing to deny non-European peoples' personhood. Being considered an “illegal” person means to not be legally recognised as a person and so to exist as an impossibility, much like certain queer bodies have historically been denied recognition as real people. Reddy (2005) explains that “illegal immigrant” is ‘a political status produced and imposed through shifting relations of power embedded in histories of empire’ (p. 113).
States receiving refugees are imbued with the power to instigate a legal borderline between people worth legal protection, the “good” immigrants and the “good” queers, and those who are not (Spivak, 2007; Bell & Binnie, 2000). In this situation, SOGI refugees are completely ‘out of category’ (Held, 2022: p. 1), with the possibility of having their personhood and their queer identities be completely denied. Luibheid (2008) has gone as far as to suggest that queer refugees are ‘impossible subjects’ (p. 171). This “impossibility” is emphasised by the control over what constitutes permissible queerness. Whilst the UK boasts of its liberal and progressive LGBT+ rights, the UK’s asylum application process for SOGI refugees demonstrates that these rights are simply tokenistic gestures of ‘queer liberalism’ that extend only as far as the finite, and closely controlled, categories of “queer” allow (Eng, 2005: p. 4). Butler (2005) understands this as a fear of “other” queers caused by ‘the anxious and rigid belief that a sense of world and a sense of self will be radically undermined if such a being, uncategorizable, is permitted to live within the social world’ (p. 71). This explains why some SOGI refugee peoples are denied recognition for their identities by asylum decision-makers. Secondly, this reveals the fragility of national identity, founded upon fluid and politicised sexualities (Alexander, 2005). Simply, citizenship and national identity are racialised and sexualised concepts that diametrically oppose SOGI refugeeness and maintain colonial logic.
Overall, the ways in which histories of colonialism inform the modern day are visible through the existence of SOGI refugees seeking sanctuary in the very countries that originally globally institutionalised anti-queer oppression. “Homonationalism” is therefore a neocolonial tool for the West to maintain its hegemony, allowing former colonial powers to retain control over bodies and borders by portraying the West as the champions of liberalism against the homophobic, undeveloped Rest. LGBT advocacy by neoliberal, neo-colonial powers exist only to maintain their hegemony. Contrastingly, Queer theory strives to liberate all identities and all peoples by breaking the restrictions imposed by hegemonic powers (Theil, 2018).
Queer in Decoloniality
Just by existing, queer refugees prove the unnaturalness of boundaries and restrictions (neo)colonially imposed upon human identity and geographical spaces. This essay has used Queer theory to draw attention to the ways in which anti-queer systems of oppression have mutated through time to allow former colonial powers to maintain their control over bodies and borders. Specifically, this shows that the displacement of LGBT+ peoples was wrought by homophobia and transphobia imported by colonialists. Understanding that the colonial past informs the neo-colonial present, whereby historic colonial powers have retained the global power to control bodies and borders, it is clear that refugee rights and queer rights are to be achieved through global efforts to escape colonial thought. Romanow (2006) argues that “postcolonial” studies provide a “queer” orientation of study by rejecting the normative understandings of the world. However, postcolonial studies are limited by existing only in binary opposition to colonialism (Parry 2004).
In contrast, decolonial studies delinks from coloniality and fosters plurality in ways of being, knowing, and living (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo 2018). Therefore, decolonial studies is a force against the reproduction of the (neo)colonial system. It is a “complaint” against the injustices of colonialism (see Ahmed, 2021), providing direction for Queer Theory’s ‘radical pluralism’ (Smyth, 1992: p. 25) and Refugee studies, by imagining a future of greater acceptance of the expansiveness of human identity. This includes: rejecting limiting, colonial understandings of identities; re-discovering multiplicity, pre-colonial ways of being; and creating space for new potentialities for ways of being (Bakshi et al., 2016). The first step is therefore queering the asylum process in the West to acknowledge its historical implications in today’s instability and oppressions, and to ensure a sense of belonging to all.
About the Author
Caitlin (she/her) is a recent graduate from the University of Warwick with a first-class honours degree in History and Politics. Whilst at university, she was fortunate to be involved as a co-author for the Decolonising Social Science workbook (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/decolonisingss/ ). Now she works as a caseworker for people in the National Referral Mechanism. She is also a prolific writer, focusing particularly on current affairs; please see all her published works here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitlin-hoyland-772139208/details/publications/
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