Suchergebnisse

This book tracks the conceptual journeying of the term 'transgender' from the Global North - where it originated - along with the physical embodied journeying of transgender asylum seekers from countries within Africa to South Africa and considers the interrelationships between the two. The term 'transgender' transforms as it travels, taking on meaning in relation to bodies, national homes, institutional frameworks and imaginaries. This study centres on the experiences and narratives of people that can be usefully termed 'gender refugees', gathered through a series of life story interviews. It is the argument of this book that the departures, border crossings, arrivals and perceptions of South Africa for gender refugees have been both enabled and constrained by the contested meanings and politics of this emergence of transgender. This book explores, through these narratives, the radical constitutional-legal possibilities for 'transgender' in South Africa, the dissonances between the possibilities of constitutional law, and the pervasive politics/logic of binary 'sex/gender' within South African society. In doing so, this book enriches the emergent field of Transgender Studies and challenges some of the current dominant theoretical and political perceptions of 'transgender'. It offers complex narratives from the African continent regarding sex, gender, sexuality and notions of home concerning particular geo-politically situated bodies.

This paper is a response to Elizabeth Mills article 'Gender, Sexuality and the Limits of the Law'. Mills provides concise evidence based unpacking of how domestic law can inhibit or impact the lived realities of sexual and gender minorities in the Global South. Drawing on research carried out within the UK based Sexuality, Poverty and Law Programme (SPLP) Mills considers what (and who) shapes the law and what, in turn, shapes peoples experiences of the law. Mills is particularly concerned with issues of embodiment, materiality and precarity in the lives of those who often find themselves excluded from the law - either actively or through negation. As we see an increasing reliance on homonationalism as an indicator of modernity, linked to investment by the Global North in the Global South, the article raises several key questions that are pertinent to the current global moment.

'Gays Engage' was the headline of Malawi's Nation newspaper on 28 December 2009. A colour photograph dominated the front page showing Steven Monjeza and what the paper described as 'his bride', Tiwonge Chimbalanga. Arrested soon after and charged with 'unnatural offences' under the Malawi Penal Code, the couple made international headlines. Yet the situation was far more complex than the news media or transnational NGOs intimated. While the case was being touted as 'a test case for gay rights' the court documents noted that Tiwonge, assigned male, identified as a woman. Rights groups called for South Africa – the only country on the African continent that constitutionally protects Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) individuals – to not only advocate for the couple's release but to offer them asylum. In 2010, after receiving a presidential pardon, Chimbalanga was sent to South Africa where she was granted refugee status. Offering a post-colonial reading of transgender, this paper asks what it would mean for a person to be seen as transgender, to be presumed to be transgender, but to never take on that term for themselves – to refuse that subjectivity – while seeking asylum.

Abstract
Within Africa's long history of migration, this article focuses on the specific context of South Africa's recent influx of people fleeing persecution, violence, and discrimination on the grounds of their gender identity/expression. This paper conceptualises people who can make claims to the refugee status, fleeing their countries of origin based on the persecution of their gender identity as 'gender refugees'. I argue that gender refugees are different from sexual refugees in that their pre-dominant forced migration issue pertains to their gender identity, which is perceived as incongruent to their birth-assigned sex. Drawing on life story interviews carried out by the author between 2013 and 2015 with gender refugees living in South Africa, along with analysis of media and archival materials, this paper explores how, when, and under what circumstances transgender-identified individuals from countries in Africa are forced to journey, and come to seek refuge in South Africa specifically. Utilising the notions of 'shifting' and 'discomfort' as analytics in relation to narratives provided, I suggest that South Africa functions as a pan-African national imaginary, even for migrants, which represents a particular understanding of freedom due to widespread knowledge of its unique Constitutional precepts. In conclusion, I emphasise how the State in gender refugees' countries of origin, which sanctions the possibility of death for transgender people as exemplary subjects, plays an especially transformative role in the decision to flee.

AbstractSouth Africa is the only country on the African continent that not only recognizes but also constitutionally protects and offers asylum to transgender-identified individuals. On entering the country, an individual has fourteen days to report to a Refugee Reception Office and apply for asylum. To access a center, asylum seekers are required to queue. Faced with two separate lines, one for men and one for women—much like the issues surrounding transgender access to public bathrooms—gender refugees approaching the South African state for asylum are immediately forced to make a choice. This queue also creates the conditions for surveillance, particularly as different regions are serviced on different days, which brings together the same asylum seekers from similar regions on the continent. This can make life for those who transition in South Africa doubly exposing, as they possibly move between queues witnessed by local communities. This article questions the necessity of an ever-ubiquitous system of sex/gender identification in the lives of asylum seekers, noting current developments internationally, regionally, and locally in relation to the development of third-gender categories, "X" category passports, the suppression of gender markers, and wider debates about the removal and necessity of sex/gender identifiers on documents and their impact.

Beyond The Mountain: Queer Life in "Africa's Gay Capital" contributes to the body of knowledge on the lived experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) communities in Cape Town. The book provides insight on the lives of the LGBTQI communities in Cape Town and challenges the stereotypes and prejudices against these communities. The chapters consist of both narratives of lived experiences and academic discussions presented by novice as well as experienced scholars. The imagery of beyond the mountain is a depiction of the lives of LGBTQI community and immovable negative perceptions the general public have to them and seeks to expose their world and the kinds of violence and abuse they are subjected to, as well as unveiling the racial discrimination within these communities. The book revolves around five themes: education, emancipation, protection, acceptance, and integration of those who identify as LGBTQI people in society.

Introduction. Framing African Queer and Trans Mobilities: Absences, Presences and Challenges -- Labyrinthine Wanderings: Queering Mobility in Impossible Geographies / Yara Ahmed -- Telling a Different Story: On the Politics of Representing African LGBTQ Migrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers / John Marnell -- Along the Pink Corridor: Histories of Queer Mobility Between Maputo and Johannesburg (Ca. 1900-2020) / Caio Simões de Araújo -- An Ethical Dilemma: When Research becomes 'Expert Testimony'/ Agathe Menetrier -- 'Sheep in a Pen': How the Externalisation of EU Borders Impacts the Lives of Gay Refugees in Morocco / Marien Gouyon -- Homophobia as Public Violence: Politics, Religion, Identity and Rights in the Lives of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Asylum Seekers from Cameroon / Charlotte Walker-Said -- 'Where is Home?' Negotiating Comm(unity) and Un/Belonging Among Queer African Migrants on Facebook / Godfried Asante -- What is Private about 'Private Parts'? On Navigating the Violence of the Digital African Trans Refugee Archive / B Camminga -- Ties that Matter: Queer Ways of Surviving a Transit Country / Gonca Şahin -- 'Kindness is a Distant and Elusive Reality': Charting the Impacts of Discrimination on the Mental and Sexual Wellbeing of LGBT Refugee Youth in Kenya / Emanuel Munyarukumbuzi, Margaret Jjuuko and James Maingi Gathatwa -- Differential Movements: Lesbian Migrant Women's Encounters with, and Negotiations of, South Africa's Border Regime / Verena Hucke -- Debunking the Liberation Narrative: Rethinking Queer Migration and Asylum to France / Florent Chossière.