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While over the last twenty years geographers of sexuality have explored the racialisation of\ud queer spaces, the experiences of LGBTIQ+ refugees in those spaces are rather absent in these\ud studies. At the same time, while in recent years there has been an increasing amount of research\ud on LGBTIQ+ asylum in Europe and beyond, the social experiences of LGBTIQ+ claimants\ud and refugees in their host countries, including queer spaces, have only recently started to be\ud examined. Drawing on research carried out in Germany, Italy and the UK, this article explores\ud LGBTIQ+ refugees’ experiences in different spaces such as LGBTIQ+ support groups and\ud night-time leisure spaces, as well as intimate relationships. The article argues that these are\ud ‘ambivalent’ spaces for LGBTIQ+ asylum claimants and refugees and that to fully understand\ud these spatial experiences, we need to look at the inter-dynamic relationship between gender,\ud sexuality, (dis)ability, ‘race’, religion and ‘refugeeness’.

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This report discusses the data gathered through two surveys carried out in the context of the SOGICA project. SOGICA – Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum: A European human rights challenge – is a four-year (2016-2020) research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) that explores the social and legal experiences of people across Europe claiming international protection on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI).

Our overriding concern is that the EU LGBTI+ Equality Strategy should acknowledge the need to prioritise and protect the rights and needs of LGBTI+ asylum claimants and refugees. SOGICA (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum: A European Human Rights Challenge) is a four-year (2016-2020) research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) that explores the social and legal experiences of individuals across Europe claiming international protection on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI). It is led by Professor Nuno Ferreira and a team of researchers at the University of Sussex who are Dr Carmelo Danisi, Dr Moira Dustin and Dr Nina Held. Our research addresses the experiences and needs of those LGBTI+ people who are discriminated and persecuted and claim international protection in EU Member States. Our feedback relates to how we can ensure that these asylum claimants and refugees are treated in a fairer and more appropriate way. Please find attached full feedback.

It is now nearly forty years since the first SOGI asylum claims were recognised, and a great deal of progress has been made at a global and European level. There is increased awareness of SOGI persecution as well as examples of good policy and practice that should be publicised and replicated. However, alongside these, the SOGICA project found many areas where improvement is urgently needed, and we address these here. These recommendations largely reflect the views of almost 500 people, those who participated in the SOGICA project's interviews, focus groups and online surveys.

LGBTQI+ people seeking asylum in Germany are isolated, inadequately housed, and at risk of violence.

Persecution due to marginalized sexual orientation and gender identity is a recognized reason for asylum in the FRG. At least five percent of the refugees currently entering the country are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans *, intersex or queer - LGBTTIQ refugees for short. They are confronted with specific forms of discrimination in the FRG, which on the one hand creates an increasing awareness of flight and migration in the LGBTTIQ community and the need to get involved politically and supportively. On the other hand, with the current increase in migratory movements, concerns about emancipatory achievements are being raised, some of which, however, slide into racist attributions. The contributors to the volume approach the discussion in a differentiated manner and focus on the challenges, but also opportunities and possibilities beyond generalizations and paternalism. They deal with research ethics, participatory survey methods, media representations, intersectional experiences and the specific needs of LGBTTIQ refugees in initial accommodation and asylum procedures. The volume thus offers an insight into various awareness-raising concepts and educational approaches on the subject of LGBTTIQ refugees.

This chapter looks at the intersections of gender, sexuality, ‘race’, religion and ‘refugeeness’. By drawing on research conducted with members of the Lesbian Immigration Support Group (LISG) in Manchester, it discusses current issues faced by bisexual women and lesbians when they are seeking sanctuary in the UK. ‘Proving’ sexuality lies at the heart of the matter, with the majority of cases refused on credibility i.e. that the claimant is not believed to be a lesbian. The chapter argues that bringing ‘refugeeness’ into intersectional analysis challenges the concept of intersectionality in particular ways.

Since the 1990s, the European Union (EU) has slowly developed an increasingly sophisticated body of asylum law and policy, known as the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This framework – both in the shape of legislative instruments and case law – has inevitably also affected those asylum seekers who claim asylum on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity (SOGI). This has been vividly demonstrated by particular norms in EU asylum instruments and judgments of the Court of Justice of EU (CJEU).The current CEAS can be said to have several shortcomings in relation to SOGI claims, including in relation to: country of origin information; the notion of ‘safe country of origin’; the burden of proof and the principle of benefit of the doubt; the concept of a ‘particular social group’; and the definition of persecution. A new set of proposals for reform of the CEAS was put forward in 2016 by the European Commission, and these also affect SOGI asylum claims in precise and acute ways.This policy brief scrutinises these proposals of reform, and assesses the extent to which these proposals and different institutional positions address, ignore or aggravate the issues that currently affect asylum seekers who identify as LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex). The policy brief makes fifteen recommendations for European policymakers in regards to the reform of the CEAS, in order to ensure that the needs of LGBTI asylum seekers and refugees are effectively addressed and their rights are respected. Academics from the University of Sussex working on the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum (SOGICA) project, funded by the European Research Council, are calling for policymakers to implement these recommendations in order to render the CEAS fairer for SOGI asylum seekers.

This article aims to contribute to the fields of emotional geographies and geographies of sexualities by exploring the relationship between emotions and gender, sexuality, and ‘race’ in sexualised night-time leisure spaces. By drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Manchester's Gay Village, the article highlights the importance of taking into account intersections of social identities when exploring how people feel in certain spaces. It explores how relations of ‘othering’ work through emotions, in particular how people are othered through feelings of comfort and safety. Whilst these feelings are triggered by a particular reading of bodies and spaces, they also produce bodies and spaces that are gendered, sexualised, and racialised (and classed). The article offers a rethinking of comfort and safety as not just feelings individuals have but as being constitutive of sexual, gender, and racial subjectivities and spaces.

This chapter explores intersections of sexuality and ‘race’ by drawing on different projects: ethnographic research conducted in Manchester’s Gay Village and observations gathered through voluntary work with the grassroots organisation Lesbian Immigration Support Group (LISG) in Manchester. The chapter demonstrates that in both night-time lesbian leisure spaces and the asylum system in the UK, belonging to the group ‘lesbian’ is inherently racialised. In the Gay Village, some bodies are perceived and constructed as the ‘somatic norm’ while others are (made) ‘out of place’. The chapter argues that this norm is produced through representations, door policies, and other spatial practices. In the asylum system, for asylum claims based on sexuality to be successful the claimant must ‘prove’ their sexuality. The majority of sexuality cases are refused on grounds of credibility, where the claimant is not believed to be lesbian. The chapter demonstrates that these claims have a higher chance of success if the claimant conforms to homonormative notions that are racialised and constructed around a Western model of sexuality that is ‘out and proud’.

This thesis seeks to understand the relationship between sexuality, ‘race’ and space within the context of urban night-time leisure spaces for women. It is informed by and draws on different fields: sexual geographies, critical ‘race’ scholarship, feminist and queer theories, studies on whiteness, postmodern spatial theories. The intellectual roots of this thesis lie in black feminist theories of gender, ‘race’ and sexuality (and class) as intersecting categories and fields of experience. The thesis draws on poststructuralist approaches that theorise sexuality and ‘race’ as discursively and performatively produced. It argues that ‘race’ and sexuality are mutually constitutive categories and that they can only be understood in relation to each other.\ud \ud The ethnographic fieldwork of this study is carried out in specific sexualised spaces, namely two lesbian bars in Manchester’s Gay Village. Through participant observations in those bars and qualitative interviews with women who identify as lesbian and bisexual and white, mixed-race, black and East Asian, the thesis explores the role of ‘race’ in the construction of lesbian bodies and spaces and how sexuality, ‘race’ and space work together in shaping subjectivities.\ud \ud The aims of this study are manifold: to develop an understanding of how practices of inclusion and exclusion work in leisure spaces designed to meet the needs of a marginalised group; to find new ways of understanding ‘race’ and sexuality by looking at their spatial relationship; to contribute to debates on sexuality and space by investigating how space is simultaneously sexualised and racialised; to contribute to existing research on whiteness through an exploration of how different forms of whiteness spatially intersect with sexuality.