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Lesson 4.1: Anti-Gender Politics and Displacement

4. Bureaucratic Violence & Betrayal by State Institutions

Asylum systems produce new, and reproduce old harms experienced by the people who flee countries in search of safety and dignity. They incounter: 

  • disbelief
  • moral judgement
  • heteronormative expectations
  • excessive demands for proof

One of participants from the exile case (EXIINT07) survived for six months in Germany as an “illegalised” person before even being allowed to apply for asylum. He recalled:

You’re selling your trauma just to get help. (ExileReport, p. 10)

Queer asylum seekers experience prolonged uncertainty and exposure to risk while waiting for decisions. Many flee extreme homophobic, transphobic, or lesbophobic violence in their countries of origin, yet forced encampment and drawn-out procedures leave them vulnerable. P

articipants reported intrusive questions about sexual practices that violate privacy and reflect ‘anti-gender’ stereotypes. Greek participant GRCFG3.4 said: 

 
[I]n the interview, they ask you a lot of questions that sometimes you would not be comfortable to answer them, about your sexuality—deeply—about your partner, some things you don’t want to share with anybody.

Waiting for decisions adds stress and fear GRCFG3.4 explained, 

Sometimes, we are tired of waiting. [...F]or me, it’s been three months, still no decision. [...I]t’s so stressful waiting […] I’m always thinking about it [...] I don’t know what is my fate [...M]y friends, here, we are going through the same thing [...] we have similar stories. (Greece Report, p. 18)

Trans refugees faced further hurdles in name-change processes and residency bureaucracies, revealing how migration systems reproduce gendered violence. Trans refugees in Greece face major hurdles in accessing Legal Gender Recognition (LGR) and other bureaucratic processes, even when asylum has been granted for being trans. Laws like L. 4491/2017 exist, but non-binary people and trans refugees often cannot use them. Marachi said:

 
As a non-binary person, I don’t have much access to adoption. I mean, if I want […] to apply to adopt a child, I’ll need to hide my non-binary identity.

Even after legal recognition, public services can out trans people and expose them to discrimination. Harry explained that when he received the COVID vaccine, it was issued under his dead name, and at conscription he faced humiliating questioning: 

 
[r]eally, these people did not know, I had to explain [...] there was a guy there who [...] said, ‘you mean you have […]’ and he did like [gestures pointing at his genitals].

Kassandra described renewing her Palestinian passport as traumatic because she had to: 

appear with my deadname, of course, but not only that: with male presentation […] they’re asking me to play a part that for me is so traumatic to re-enter.

These examples show how migration systems in Greece reproduce gendered violence, creating new barriers for trans refugees. (Greece Report, p. 11)

These dynamics reflect what Didier Fassin calls bureaucratic violence: harm enacted through procedures that are aimed to discipline, control, and eliminate rather than to protect.