Female asylum seekers on the bizarre burden of proving their queerness

When Alex* was a teenager at an all-girls boarding school she dreamt of wearing boxers and routinely became flustered in the communal showers. And she fell hard for Elton John. She’d google him in the library and listen to ​“Candle in the Wind” on repeat.

“Oh God! I stalked him!” she laughs. ​“I really wanted to know who he was, where he lived, what food he ate. He gave me hope. He was like me and he was good.”

Sexual awakenings are never straightforward. But some are much more complicated than others. Alex is from Uganda, where homosexuality carries a seven-year sentence and anti-gay laws continue to get more extreme. Her morning TV was populated with pastors whose sole agenda was to stamp out sodomy; at school, her religion teacher blamed gays for drought and famine. When she arrived in the UK aged 29 she was eight months pregnant by a blackmailer threatening to expose her sexuality. She’d survived rape, forced marriage, modern slavery, disownment and police beatings, all as a direct consequence of her sexual orientation.

But when she attends a Home Office interview later this month she’ll be expected to bang the drum as loudly as possible for her sexuality; to detail in no uncertain terms the ins and outs of her body’s identity. To save herself from being sent back home to a country where violence against homosexuals is state-sanctioned and deeply institutionalised, Alex must fight the instincts of a life – cloaking her sexuality for her own protection – and be performatively gay. Click to read Alex’s story.

There are 70 countries where homosexuality is illegal. It is punishable by death in six. Accordingly, queer women, trans and non-binary people of colour across the globe look to the UK as a potential safe space where they can live the truest version of themselves. The reality is very different. Refugees have a right to protection from what the law describes as ​“well-founded fear of persecution”. But Home Office policy has vacillated over the years, currently lying somewhere on a spectrum between ​“go home and tone it down” and ​“we don’t believe you’re gay”.

To make an asylum claim in the UK, there’s an initial screening by an immigration officer, an in-depth questionnaire and then the dreaded Substantive Interview – a rigorous dissection of every aspect of your life and claims. According to Home Office statistics, around 2,000 people seek asylum each year on the basis of their sexual orientation. Less than a quarter of them will be successful. The decision is made largely on the outcomes of this interview.

Sarah Cope is founder of Rainbow Sisters, a London-based support group for lesbian and bisexual asylum seekers that forms part of the Women For Refugee Women charity. She explains: ​“Sometimes these interviews can last up to nine hours. The women go through the most traumatic things that they’ve ever experienced. And all with a stranger who’s combative and asks them the same question in various ways in an attempt to catch them out.”

Last year the UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group (UKLGIG) published a report identifying a Home Office obsession with what they describe as ​‘narratives of self-realisation’. They’d discovered a tendency amongst interviewers to expect cliched emotional journeys of sexual discovery and coming out tales. But, as the report puts it, ​“A market trader from Kampala is most unlikely to give an account of their sexual identity (be it heterosexual or any other) which could be in any way comparable to an account given by a Shoreditch blogger.”

And so Home Official officials dig for stories they can recognise. Back in 2013, judges were berated for asking lesbians if they’d read any Oscar Wilde or enjoyed using sex toys. Home Office guidelines have improved since then, but are not always reflected in practice. In our interviews, each woman we spoke to had been pressed on how many Pride marches they’d attended or which gay clubs they liked.

Diana* has been in the life-on-hold stagnancy of the asylum system for 15 years – and her lifestyle reflects this. Even if she wanted to live out the most textbook version of lesbian life in the UK, she simply couldn’t. She’s not permitted to work, survives on £37 a week in vouchers and lives in substandard, temporary asylum-seeker accommodation.

“I showed one of my friends my refusal letter and he was laughing,” she says, ​”They wanted proof that I’d been to a lesbian club! Not everybody can afford to go to a club!” Diana’s letter went on to state that her relationship with her then-girlfriend wasn’t sufficiently convincing as they didn’t live together. But her home is a small single bedroom and she’s not allowed guests. ​“What sort of evidence do they want? Do they want me to sleep with a woman in front of them?” she cries.

And herein lies the toughest part of this process. It’s common amongst female asylum seekers to have dealt with sexual violence, imprisonment or torture at the hands of official figures in their country of origin. So the notion that they’d talk openly about sex to a government body as a means of protection is not just bizarre but completely terrifying. Click to read Diana’s story.

Cee* is from Kenya. She knows that if, back home, she suffers a homophobic public lynching, when the police arrive it’s her they’ll arrest. A fear of authority is etched deep into her psyche. ​“I’ve been detained in Kenya,” she explains. ​“I hate being somewhere where I feel trapped.” Little wonder the Substantive Interview process was a trauma she will never forget. ​“I had him asking: ​‘Are you sure you’re gay? If you’re gay, when was the last time you had sex and where?’”

Nonetheless, for all these stories of challenges, trauma and despair, each woman I speak to is at an exciting place on their journey of self-acceptance. They’ve found a surrogate family in the form of groups: Rainbow Sisters, Out and Proud and Metropolitan Community Church, the latter a progressive Christian group in Camden, north London that welcomes queer communities.

But given the Conservative government’s hostile, anti-immigrant stance, it’s virtually impossible to subside as an asylum seeker in the UK without relying on the kindness of strangers. For many, on first arriving in the UK, the obvious place to find this is with their expat church and community. And so the negativity of pastors and so-called friends rings in their ears. And the need to hide continues. Click to read Cee’s story.

“These women might be battling the rest of their lives to be completely at home in their bodies,” notes Cope. It’s a recognition of the reality that renders Home Office expectations of neat and tidy stories, coming out clichés and instant declarations somewhat ridiculous. Fiona* arrived in the UK from Uganda in 2004, but it took her over ten years to live openly as a lesbian. ​“There was no way I could open up when I first got here,” she explains. ​”I did it when I was ready.”

As she can attest, when Home Office decision letters arrive, they’re often riddled with inconsistencies and a burden of proof that’s way too high. ​“I had letters from the church. I had letters from the groups that I visit. But the Home Office said that everybody was writing to help me out and that it was self-serving. If you take four photos they say it’s not enough – but if you take a lot they say it’s fake.” Similarly, evidence of straight marriages or children can work against the applicant. But marriages are often forced or a necessary means of survival; and children the inevitable product of this. It exposes a wanton disregard of a country of origin’s cultural nuances on the part of a civil servant decision-maker with targets to meet. Click to read Fiona’s story.

Ultimately, however, there’s perhaps little point in analysing Home Office practice or hunting for ways to appease their expectations. As recent scandals — most notably Windrush – have proven, the institution as a whole is in complete disarray. Fiona’s refusal letter serves as a perfect example of their cut-and-paste culture: ​“They got my age wrong, and they told me to go back to Nigeria. I’m not from Nigeria. Then they told me to go back to Iran.”

Since 2010 the law has stated that it’s no longer acceptable to expect somebody to return to their home country and ​“be discreet”. Despite that official line, now the Home Office are wont to recommend that somebody relocate to a different part of their home country. But as Cope points out: ​“They’re still going to be who they are wherever they are. And it’s not like there’s going to be some kind of LBGT safe haven.”

Cee submitted extra evidence in February this year and was told that the Home Office finally believed that she’s a lesbian. But she was also told that Kenya is now safe for her to return home to because of the potential decriminalising of homosexuality – in fact, the Kenyan High Court refused to scrap the colonial-era law that punishes ​‘carnal knowledge’ with up to 14 years imprisonment on 24^th May. Plus, to Cee, Kenya will always be the country where she watched her girlfriend murdered; where the President told CNN last year that gay rights were an issue ​“of no importance to the people”; and where she sincerely believes that ​“the community and church is not going to allow me to live my life”.

For those still caught up in the system in the UK, life stands still. Cee, Fiona and Diana have all seen relationships end as their partners buckle under the stress of the asylum process. And so, for now, Diana’s ruled out dating: ​“If I’m with someone it will be like they’re helping me. I can’t afford to look after myself, so how can I look after somebody else?”

Yet there’s always hope. For a lot of these women, contentment is closer than ever before. Since Rainbow Sisters was founded last year, seven of its members have been granted five years Leave to Remain, and there’ve been no deportations or detentions of any of its members. These encouraging signs speak to the importance of solidarity and perseverance, and of giving a voice to one of the most vulnerable groups in UK society.

“It’s so important for these people to surround themselves with support,” says Sarah Cope. ​“It sends a very strong message to the Home Office that too many people care. They can’t just be sent home.” Ultimately, she feels this is a question of intersectionality. ​“We’ve got gay marriage, but it’s not job done. The rights that we have are for a very limited number of people. It’s time that we see this is an LGBT community-wide issue”.

In taking ownership of their bodies and their sexuality these women are carrying out a truly radical act. One that, in our privileged position as Westerners, we will never fully appreciate. It’s now our nation’s duty – not least as creators of draconian colonial-era laws that still exist in faraway lands – to welcome them as trailblazers and heroes.

“The first time I saw openly gay people, you cannot imagine the excitement,” Alex beams, with a look of pure joy that might just match her first peep of Elton. ​“I almost wanted to touch them. I was like: ​‘I’m here! I’m here!’ I was so happy. You just don’t know how it feels to be free. Taking me back to my country could mean my murder. But either way, it would definitely kill me.”

*Names have been changed