On 13 February 2025, GATE, in collaboration with Unbreakable Love and The Fruit Basket, submitted a report to the Call for Inputs on Protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in relation to forced displacement.
Summary
This report highlights the compounded risks trans and gender diverse persons encounter throughout the displacement cycle and provides recommendations to address these challenges
It was primarily based on data and findings of two reports developed by Unbreakable Love (Kenya) and The Fruit Basket (South Africa):
- Vulnerability Amplified: Assessing the Needs of LGBTI+ Refugees in South Africa (Camminga, de Gruchy, & Marnell, 2022/2023)
- Human Rights Violations Against Transgender Asylum Seekers and Non-Gender Conforming Individuals in Kenya (Unbreakable Love-UBL, 2024)
What are the challenges?
Trans and gender diverse individuals are forced to flee their countries for multiple reasons: pervasive transphobia, attacks by growing anti-gender and anti-rights movements, state-sponsored persecution, and criminalization of non-cisnormative gender expressions. Despite global legal reforms that decriminalize same-sex relations and trans identities in many countries, violence and discrimination persist.
Trans persons often experience:
- Structural Vulnerabilities: Legal systems frequently ignore gender diversity. Even when laws exist, they are implemented inconsistently.
- Intersectional Discrimination: Many trans refugees also belong to racial, ethnic, or socioeconomically marginalized groups, further compounding their exclusion (Camminga et al., 2023; Meyer, 2003).
- Economic Exclusion: Denied access to formal employment and social services, many trans asylum seekers are forced into survival strategies such as sex work (Camminga, 2019).
- Insensitive Policies: Asylum adjudicators often rely on outdated criteria when evaluating trans asylum claims, requiring trans applicants to “prove” their gender identity in ways that conform to stereotypical narratives (such as “outward transitioning” (Bach J. 2013) and placing trans refugees in the wrong wings due to misgendering (Camminga B, 2024).
What are the real drivers of forced displacement for trans and gender diverse persons?
- A. Legal and Structural Hostility: countries criminalize consensual same-sex relations and trans identities or impose laws that indirectly and disproportionately target trans and gender diverse persons.
- B. Intersectional Vulnerabilities: trans people who are also members of racial or economically marginalized groups experience further deprivations.
- C. Political Backlash and Socioeconomic Fragility: recent anti-gender and anti-right political trends have intensified the persecution of trans persons. Anti-trans rhetoric and legislative proposals have contributed to an environment of fear.
What other issues exist?
Trans and gender diverse people experience other challenges in transit and upon arrival in host countries, such as:
A. Discriminatory Registration and Legal Documentation: bureaucratic systems frequently fail to recognize their identities
B. Delays in Refugee Status Determination (RSD): which exacerbate the vulnerability of trans refugees
C. Widespread Violence and Impunity: trans refugees are subjected to extreme violence during transit and in host countries.
D. Economic Marginalization and Limited Access to Services: some experience a limited ability to seek employment or access community support services, are forced into informal or precarious livelihoods such as sex work.
How to promote trans inclusive forced displacement responses
GATE, in collaboration with Unbreakable Love and The Fruit Basket, has compiled a list of recommendations to foster trans-inclusive, rights-based responses to forced displacement.
Recommendations range from strengthening gender-responsive legal frameworks, enhancing training and capacity building for asylum officials, to expanding access to safe housing and economic opportunities, improving accountability and response to hate crimes, as well as fostering multi-stakeholder and cross-border collaboration.