Sexual Orientation in Canada's Revised Refugee Determination System: An Empirical Snapshot

This paper explores refugee claimant’s experiences negotiating the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Focusing on claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity, this paper investigates how claimants are made to ‘prove’ their sexual orientation and gender identity. The IRB and its decision makers require that claimants prove their identity as a refugee as well as a member of a sexual minority. Through an analysis of the existing literature and by integrating queer and feminist theoretical concepts on gender, sex, performativity and representation, it is apparent that the Canadian IRB functions as a heteronormative system in which the understanding of sexual orientation and gender identities are essentialized.

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Proving it: experiences of sexual minorities in the Canadian refugee determination system

10.32920/ryerson.14656989 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Casey Anderson

Keyword(s):

Sexual Orientation ◽

Gender Identity ◽

Sexual Minority ◽

Sexual Minorities ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Gender Identities ◽

Theoretical Concepts ◽

Canadian Immigration ◽

Determination System ◽

And Gender

This paper explores refugee claimant’s experiences negotiating the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). Focusing on claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity, this paper investigates how claimants are made to ‘prove’ their sexual orientation and gender identity. The IRB and its decision makers require that claimants prove their identity as a refugee as well as a member of a sexual minority. Through an analysis of the existing literature and by integrating queer and feminist theoretical concepts on gender, sex, performativity and representation, it is apparent that the Canadian IRB functions as a heteronormative system in which the understanding of sexual orientation and gender identities are essentialized.

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Interpreting the other other : assessing refugee claims based on sexual orientation in an anti-refugee climate

10.32920/ryerson.14645016 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shawn J Dicks

Keyword(s):

Sexual Orientation ◽

Personal Narratives ◽

Multiple Identities ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Assessment Process ◽

Complex Nature ◽

Refugee Claimants ◽

Determination System ◽

Definition Of ◽

Fair Assessment

This paper investigates some of the challenges in the Canadian refugee determination system facing the fair assessment of refugee claims based on sexual orientation. Relying on the United Nation's Convention definition of refugee, Canada interprets the section "membership of a particular social group," to apply to individuals fearing persecution due to their sexual orientation. This paper reveals the complex nature of refugee determination in cases based on sexual orientation and how decision-makers' Eurocentric conceptions of sexuality, race, gender and nationality, as well as a general anti-refugee climate impede the neutrality of assessment. Relying on personal narratives of those involved with the refugee assessment process, such as past refugee claimants and refugee lawyers, this study reveals the complexity of problems that are inherent in the IRB. Incorporating a critical race perspective allows us to see the damaging effects of Eurocentrism when evaluating multiple identities, such as racialized sexual minorities.

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Interpreting the other other : assessing refugee claims based on sexual orientation in an anti-refugee climate

10.32920/ryerson.14645016.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shawn J Dicks

Keyword(s):

Sexual Orientation ◽

Personal Narratives ◽

Multiple Identities ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Assessment Process ◽

Complex Nature ◽

Refugee Claimants ◽

Determination System ◽

Definition Of ◽

Fair Assessment

This paper investigates some of the challenges in the Canadian refugee determination system facing the fair assessment of refugee claims based on sexual orientation. Relying on the United Nation's Convention definition of refugee, Canada interprets the section "membership of a particular social group," to apply to individuals fearing persecution due to their sexual orientation. This paper reveals the complex nature of refugee determination in cases based on sexual orientation and how decision-makers' Eurocentric conceptions of sexuality, race, gender and nationality, as well as a general anti-refugee climate impede the neutrality of assessment. Relying on personal narratives of those involved with the refugee assessment process, such as past refugee claimants and refugee lawyers, this study reveals the complexity of problems that are inherent in the IRB. Incorporating a critical race perspective allows us to see the damaging effects of Eurocentrism when evaluating multiple identities, such as racialized sexual minorities.

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To feel the truth

Journal of Language and Sexuality ◽

10.1075/jls.3.1.02mur ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

pp. 6-27 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

David A.B. Murray

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Sexual Orientation ◽

Social Knowledge ◽

Decision Making Process ◽

Cultural Formation ◽

Sexual Identities ◽

Determination System ◽

Refugee Claimant

In this paper I explore how adjudicators in the Canadian refugee determination system assess sexual orientation refugee claims. By focusing on discourse and terminology of questions utilized in the hearing (in which the refugee claimant answers questions posed by the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) Member), I will outline how these questions contain predetermined social knowledge and thus operate as a cultural formation through which particular arrangements of sexual and gendered practices and identities are privileged. However, documents and interviews with IRB staff reveal the presence of a ‘gut feeling’ or ‘sixth-sense’ in determining the credibility of a claimant’s sexual orientation. While some may argue that these feelings represent a level of sensitivity that humanizes the decision making process, I argue that they reveal adjudicators’ application of their own understandings and feelings about ‘authentic’ sexual identities and relationships derived from specific cultural, gendered, raced and classed experiences, which, in effect, re-inscribe a homonormative mode of gatekeeping that may have profound consequences for a claimant whose narrative and/or performance fails to stir the appropriate senses.

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Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations: Serving GLBT Families in Our Schools

Perspectives on Communication Disorders and Sciences in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Populations ◽

10.1044/cds16.1.11 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 11-19 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ashley M. Frazier

Keyword(s):

Sexual Orientation ◽

Cultural Competence ◽

Service Delivery ◽

Linguistically Diverse ◽

Culturally And Linguistically Diverse ◽

Diverse Populations ◽

Cultural Issues ◽

Willingness To Disclose ◽

Bisexual And Transgender ◽

Societal Changes

Abstract School speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are increasingly likely to serve children of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) parents or GLBT students as cultural and societal changes create growth in the population and increased willingness to disclose sexual orientation. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has a progressive nondiscrimination statement that includes sexual orientation as a protected status and strongly urges the membership to develop cultural competence as a matter of ethical service delivery. The purpose of this article is to describe cultural competence in relation to GLBT culture, discuss GLBT parent and student cultural issues as they are important in parent-school or student-school relations, and to provide suggestions for increasing sensitivity in these types of interactions. A list of resources is provided.

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