User:ProfGray/Trans asylum seeker

Transgender asylum seekers are transgender persons seeking refuge in another country due to stigmatization and persecution in their home countries. Trans asylum seekers may be fleeing from state-sponsored discrimination as well as from isolation within their family. According to the BBC, Amnesty International found that "the climate had become particularly bad during the pandemic, with many trans people 'isolated with hostile family members' and unable to access healthcare or wider support."

Countries of origin
Transgender persons may have experienced "severe persecution" in the countries they have fled, even where anti-trans laws do not exist. For example, in a 1999 case reported by Fatima Mohyuddin, a transgender woman only avoided deportation after her attorney invoked the United Nations Convention against Torture, in light of being tortured upon a previous deportation to Nicaragua.

In 2017, Amnesty International reported on transgender and other LGBTI people seeking asylum from three countries in Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. In 2020, Amnesty claimed that the situation in Guatemala was particularly unsafe for trans women in El Salvador. In Mexico, transgender women face "extreme vulnerability," according to a public health review of 45 cases, while noting that their health problems did not disappear in the U.S..

In 2021, the BBC reported on trans persons seeking asylum from Arab countries. In 2019, Thomson Reuters highlighted the case of a transgender woman who fled from the United States due to U.S. policies, such as with military service. She was sexually assaulted at a Norwegian asylum center and then deported back to the United States.

Treatment while seeking asylum
In some cases, trans asylum seekers are at greater risk than others offered refugee status. For example, Britain arranged for Rwanda to absorb asylum seekers from various countries but, according to PinkNews based on a British government report, trans asylum seekers are reportedly at great risk in Rwanda due to its prosecution of trans people, more than other LGBT categories, as "deviants."

Trans persons may also be at risk while detained in the countries in which they seek asylum, as Thomson Reuters reported regarding the treatment of trans refugees in the United States. It reported on the mistreatment of 112 trans persons in 28 U.S. facilities, including sexual harassment and assaults. According to a 2019 Reuters story, NGOs also reported abuse or rape of trans persons in U.K. and Greek facilities for asylum seekers. An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated that, “Any time we hear any type of allegations of mistreatment, we look into it, take appropriate action and we try to remedy it.” That year, The Atlantic published a story "The Horrors of ICE’s ‘Trans Pod’" accompanied by a video "The Horrific Untold Story of Trans ICE Detention." about the reported mistreatment of trans asylum seekers in the United States.

Asylum outcomes
When denied asylum, there have been reports of adverse outcomes for trans persons, such as one denied U.S. asylum under "the Trump administration’s hardening policy on asylum seekers," who was killed two months after her return.

When asylum is granted, transgender persons may still face difficulties, as Molly Hennessy-Fiske, a reporter for the LA Times, discovered about an asylum seeker who she met in October 2019 and who committed suicide in May 2020. Hennessy-Fiske noted that 40% of transgender people adults commit suicide, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Legal issues and political debate
Globally, asylum laws leave LGBTI refugee detainees "particularly susceptible to heightened levels of physical and mental abuse," according to refugee law specialists Shana Tabak and Rachel Levitan, and transgender refugees suffer in particular from inadequate access to hormone therapy (36ff.). This lack of access, in turn, may make them more visible during transition and hence more readily targeted for transphobic abuse (17). The typical separation by biological sex in detention centers may also cause problems, with transgender women the most vulnerable to sexual assault (16; 27). The authors recommended changes in detention policies, detainee safety protocols, and health care, with a priority on non-detention approaches. A 2021 law review article made a similar argument, regarding U.S. policy, due to the "unique challenges" facing transgender and other gender nonconforming asylum seekers.

Since 2000, the United States has recognized transgender asylum seekers as a social group that deserves protection on the basis of gender identity. Nonetheless, transgender asylum petitioners may be disadvantaged due the application of specific laws, such as prostitution.

In the United States, political activists have sought to improve conditions for trans asylum seekers.

External links:
Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network. https://grassrootsfund.org/groups/trans-asylum-seeker-support-network