2020
Statelessness & Citizenship Review
2(1)
discrimination (at the hands of individual officials) or manifest itself at the
interface of complex constellations of different regimes of recognition/nonrecognition (eg of non-traditional family units, sex/gender transition and
surrogacy). Finally, the fact that LGBTIQ+ persons are not referenced in the
literature as profiles at risk of statelessness may — in self-fulfilling fashion —
further compound the lack of attention received. For example, both statelessness
and SOGIESC are separately reported as being missed or misunderstood during
the process of assessing asylum claims. 42
INTERSECTIONAL EXPERIENCES
As a #stateless #LGBT #immigrant of South African descent I have many
aspirations sadly having no protection is inconvenient. #IBelong (USA, 2016) 43
I'm just so tired of being #stateless in Lebanon. Queer, in love, stateless, and
unheard from all nations. What can tears and melancholy do in this case? [...] When
a stateless LGBT tells you the world is too much, that's when you have to check
the privilege of belonging. #IBelong (Lebanon, 2019) 44
The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined by black feminist scholar Kimberlé
Williams Crenshaw in 1989 as an approach to challenge ‘the conceptual
limitations of the single-issue analyses’ for multiply-burdened subjectivities. 45
While the UndocuQueer movement mentioned in the previous section emerged as
a term and community-based advocacy movement to represent the intersection of
undocumented individuals identifying as queer in the United States of America,
(to the knowledge of the author) no analogous representation exists anywhere in
the world for LGBTIQ+ individuals who are stateless. Exploring the factors
behind the emergence of UndocuQueer — or indeed the non-emergence of a
‘StatelessQueer’ movement — is an exercise far beyond the scope of the present
article. That said, and despite their different non-citizen statuses, the body of
academic work on UndocuQueer is helpful in framing some of the broader issues
that also impact stateless LGBTIQ+ persons. As one scholar conducting field work
in San Francisco states:
Most of UndocuQueers … do not fall into the reified category of mobile humans
who cross physical borders … due to their undocumented status [they] are not able
to move freely. 46
42
43
44
45
46
Addressing Statelessness in Europe’s Refugee Response: Gaps and Opportunities (Report,
European Network on Statelessness and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion May 2019)
3; Missing the Mark: Decision Making on Lesbian, Gay (Bisexual, Trans and Intersex)
Asylum Claims (Report, UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group September 2013).
VB
Giovanni
(Twitter
Post,
28
June
2016)
<https://twitter.com/bruna_giovanni/status/747577611560361985>.
Joey
(Twitter
Post,
22
August
2019)
<https://twitter.com/monkeyduped/status/1164525565573050368>.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist
Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’ [1989] The
University of Chicago Legal Forum 139, 149.
Mara Pieri, ‘Undoing Citizenship, Undocumented Queer Activism and Practices of Rights’
(2016) 24 Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana 105, 109.
71