‘I knew about political asylum, but not about asylum for gay people’: How queer exiles come to apply (or not) for SOGI asylum in France

Abstract SOGI asylum has received increasing political and academic attention. Focusing on refugee status determination, academics have emphasized how normative representations of sexual and gender minorities in Northern asylum institutions lead to the exclusion of many SOGI asylum applicants. To broaden the understanding of queer people’s experiences of forced migration and asylum, this paper shifts attention to what happens just before the asylum examination, namely the fact of applying for SOGI asylum itself. Based on 3 years’ ethnographic fieldwork, this research investigates how queer exiles come to apply for SOGI asylum in France. By emphasizing the variety of factors, besides their experiences of persecution, leading them to apply for SOGI asylum, this paper decompartmentalizes asylum from below, denaturalizing the category of LGBT+ refugees by reinserting the asylum application into more general and diversified individual experiences of migration. Doing so, it also counters liberationist and humanitarian narratives associated with SOGI asylum seekers.