LGBTQ+ refugees in the welfare state: Research, policy and practitioners in dialogue

First, the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and the new EUAA Practical Guide for applicants with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions, and sex characteristics will significantly shape asylum procedures for LGBTQ+ refugees in EU countries in the coming years.

Second, research in the field of queer refugees has reached a point where deeper dialogue with practitioners is essential. Before 2019, when the QUEEN research network was established, research on LGBTQ+ refugees in the Nordic region was almost non-existent. Since then, the research field has grown rapidly in both scope and significance. Research has provided important insights into reception, legal security, health, and integration for LGBTQ+ refugees—but there is still a significant gap between research and practice.

At the same time, many prejudices and misconceptions about homosexuality and other LGBTQ+ identities persist, especially in the context of migration and asylum. These perceptions influence both governmental practices and societal attitudes and can lead to discrimination, incorrect assessments, and inadequate support. There is therefore a clear need for awareness-raising efforts based on current research and field experience.

The conference aims to:

• Share current research and field experiences
• Develop collaborative frameworks and policies grounded in research
• Strengthen Nordic cooperation regarding the situation of LGBTQ+ refugees
• Contribute to awareness-raising that counters prejudices and misconceptions about homosexuality, particularly in relation to LGBTQ+ refugees

The conference will be held in English, with opportunities for discussions in Scandinavian languages in smaller groups.

Please note that the conference will take place in person only; online participation is not possible.

The program will combine keynotes, panel discussions, and short presentations with interactive elements, including small-group discussions, poster sessions, and policy brief exchanges.

We invite scholars to submit proposals for poster and/or presentation consideration at the conference. We encourage scholars to make use of posters as we aim for an interactive conference. The call for proposals is open until the 25th of March. Please find the general guidelines below.

Abstract length proposals (poster and/or presentation)

• Abstracts should normally be up to 250 words.
• Authors who wish to be considered for a policy brief anthology should submit an extended abstract of up to 1,500 words.

Poster presentation format

• Poster presentations will be held in a poster session on the last day with wine and canapes. The format A1 (594 x 841 mm), but A2 (420 x 594 mm) is also accepted.

Presentation format

• Presentations will be 10 minutes, followed by discussion.

Review process

All submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the conference organisers. Authors will be notified of acceptance no later than 30 March.

Conference registration costs

Included in the conference costs are coffee and tea, lunches, and a conference dinner (VAT included):

Program

Thursday 21st of May

08:30-09:15 Registration
Location: Outside Hörsal 2

09:15-09:30 Welcome and introduction
Thomas Wimark
Location: Hörsal 2

09:30-10:30 Keynote: Eleonora Mantovani, European Union Agency for Asylum
From the legal framework to support in decision-making: examining SOGIESC-based applications for international protection in the EU.
Moderator: Thomas Wimark
Location: Hörsal 2

10:30-11:00 Swedish fika (coffee break)

11:00-12:30 Presentations: Asylum process and procedures
Panel participants:
Andrea Grønningsäter, University of Oslo
Aino Gröndahl, RFSL
Árdís Kár Ingvars, University of Iceland
Pip McKnight, University of Birmingham
Rieke Schröder, University of Münster
Johanna Vanto, University of Turku
Chair: Danielle Drozdzewski
Location: Hörsal 2

12:30-13:30 Lunch buffet served in Restaurang Humlan

13:30-15:30 Presentations: Asylum reception and post asylum challenges
Panel participants:
Mads Ted Drud-Jensen, DRC
Jon Martin Larsen, Kristiania University of Applied Sciences
Gustavo Machado, University of Essex
Kirill Polkov, Södertörn University
Sarah Scuzzarello, University of Sussex
Marie Sigrist, University of Fribourg
Linda Sólveigar og Guðmunds, University of Iceland
Annamari Vitikainen, Arctic University of Norway
Chair: Rebecca Thorburn Stern
Location: Hörsal 2

15:30-16:00 Swedish fika (coffee break)

16:00-17:30 Workshop: The role of research and the researcher.
Moderator: Marlene Spanger
Location: Hörsal 2

19:30 Conference dinner buffet at Home Hotel, Storgatan 30, 753 31, Uppsala

Friday 22nd of May

09:30-10:30 Keynote: Dr. S. Chelvan, Head of Immigration and Public Law
Behind the Mask: Does the DSSH model provide a positive tool for Queer Refugee Status Determination?
Moderator: Danielle Drozdzewski
Location: Hörsal 2

10:30-11:00 Swedish fika (coffee break)

11:00-12:00 Keynote: Dr. Moira Dustin, University of Sussex
Refugee women and ‘lived experience’: ethical and participatory approaches to knowledge exchange and evidence-based policy
Moderator: Marlene Spanger
Location: Hörsal 2

12:00-13:00 Lunch buffet served in Restaurang Humlan

13:00-14:30 Panel talk: The use of research in practice
Panel participants:
Alexandra Embiricos, UNHCR
Sabine Jansen, COC Netherlands
Linda Rognlien, Norwegian Directorate of Immigration
Yanaba Mompremier Rymark Sankoh, LGBT Asylum, Denmark
Josine Sunter, IND Netherlands
Eddy Aangeenbrug, Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security
Anna Lindblad, Swedish Migration Agency
Moderator: Rebecca Thorburn Stern
Location: Hörsal 2

14:30-15:00 Delmi Policy Brief release
Asylum assessment of asylum seekers who invoke sexual orientation and gender identity as grounds for asylum
Presenter: Thomas Wimark
Location: Hörsal 2

15:00-15:20 Round up of the conference
Location: Hörsal 2

15:20-17:00 Policy forum: Poster session
Wine and canapés during mingle with researchers at the poster area with posters.
Location: Outside Hörsal 2

Program as a PDF pdf, 105 kB.

Abstracts as a PDF pdf, 281 kB.

Keynote Speakers

Eleonora Azzurra Mantovani, Asylum Process Officer at the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA).

From the legal framework to support in decision-making: examining SOGIESC-based applications for international protection in the EU.

A core challenge for asylum practitioners lies in applying legal provisions and standards to the individual examination of applications for international protection. This task can become particularly complex in cases based on diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions and sex characteristics (SOGIESC).

This talk will highlight how, while general methodologies for information gathering, evidence and risk assessment, and legal analysis apply across all asylum cases, the particular nature of SOGIESC-based asylum claims requires tailored considerations. Alongside training, country of origin information, and country-specific guidance, structured and targeted practical guidelines can play a crucial role in supporting case officers in their demanding job and contribute to fair, objective, and impartial decision-making in line with legal standards.

Drawing on the EUAA Practical Guide on Applicants with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, gender expressions and sex characteristics – Examination procedure, this talk will address distinctive aspects of SOGIESC-based asylum claims and outline key considerations for case officers, which include recognizing and mitigating the impact of stereotypes; understanding the applicant’s linguistic and cultural backgrounds and weighting the significance of terminology; applying appropriate techniques for evidence collection, particularly during the personal interview; approaching the credibility assessment with attention to specific elements. The presentation will underscore the importance of properly accounting for the specific claim and individual circumstances of the applicant when examining their case.

Dr S. Chelvan, Barrister, Head of Immigration, Public Law & Civil Liberties, 33 Bedford Row Chambers, UK, and Adjunct Professor, Southampton University Law School.

Behind the Mask: Does the DSSH model provide a positive tool for Queer Refugee Status Determination?

Creating the Difference, Stigma, Shame and Harm (‘the DSSH model’) in 2011 was an instinctive reaction by Dr S Chelvan, a Queer UK-based activist lawyer, to address what Millbank (2009) had previously predicted would be a trend to move away from ‘discretion to disbelief’. First endorsed by UNHCR in 2012, the model was described by Newsweek Europe in 2014 as ‘a simple starting point that cuts across borders’. Fifteen years on, with the BBC outcry over false UK gay asylum claims in April 2026, Peter Tatchell recommends the use of Dr Chelvan’s model as a ‘rigorous process he devised which does establish a person’s genuineness’ as a method to address alleged false claims eg: where individuals were asked to rely on photographic evidence of attendance at Gay nightclubs or Pride events, or rely on the witness evidence of a false partner.

This keynote speech addresses the current procedural gap which fails the Queer migrant at RSD interview- due to the failure in preparing the Queer refugee for the interview in-line with the model. One would never allow a criminal defendant to attend trial without being prepared to recount their evidence, so why would those who support and/or represent Queer migrants allow them to attend an administrative authority interview without preparing them- by cultivating a safe space to draft, in their own words, their emotional journey? Noting and recounting the academic and administrative misinterpretation of the model, Dr Chelvan looks to dispel the DSSH model myths and empower the Queer refugee. In the words of a successful Pakistani gay student client of Dr Chelvan, granted refugee status in March 2026 following interview, the DSSH model reflects “an important shift towards a more humane, fair, and consistent approach in (the) asylum process”.

Moira Dustin, Assistant Professor, School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University of Sussex.

Refugee women and “lived experience”: ethical and participatory approaches to knowledge exchange and evidence-based policy”

The starting point for this presentation is the conviction that research, including academic research, has a valuable role to play in informing policy and practice regarding asylum and refugee protection. Bridging the research-practice gap is therefore necessary and here I explore the opportunities but also the obstacles to doing so in the context of the rights of asylum-claiming women, including LBT women. My context is the UK, but I hope there are lessons for other states and jurisdictions.

My talk incorporates theory and practice, drawing on some early feminist and related theory that interrogates positionality and power hierarchies and which is relevant when applied to the context of gender and asylum. I address some of the practical opportunities and also the obstacles to realising the learning from this literature in research and knowledge exchange with and for refugee women. I conclude with some positive examples of research and knowledge exchange that starts with values of inclusivity and participation.

Session 1: Asylum process and procedures

Chair: Danielle Drozdzewski

Andrea Vige Grønningsæter, University of Oslo

Discretion, disbelief and the limits of research: rethinking SOGIESC asylum reform

Over recent decades, the adjudication of SOGIESC asylum claims has undergone notable reform. This includes the rejection of the so‑called “discretion” requirement and jurisprudence clarifying that credibility assessments cannot be based on invasive questioning about sexual practices or other intimate acts, nor on stereotypical assumptions about LGBTIQ+ people. Nevertheless, research shows that both “discretion” and “disbelief” have continued to re‑emerge in new forms and at new doctrinal locations in the adjudication of SOGIESC claims. Expectations that “credible” claimants should present linear coming‑out narratives and display particular emotional responses, combined with culturally specific assumptions about visibility and risk, in practice function as new credibility filters and as ostensibly “factual” reformulations of “discretion” reasoning. This raise pressing questions about how we should understand the resilience of these issues within a supposedly reformed legal framework.

Using Norway as an example, the presentation examines how “discretion” and “disbelief” continue to shape SOGIESC asylum outcomes, and the institutional and epistemic conditions that sustain these patterns of reasoning. It reflects on what this means for the relationship between research, practice and policy reform, and explores the ambivalent role of scholarship: how research may, on the one hand, contribute to improved guidelines and decision‑making, while, on the other, risk being co‑opted by exclusionary mechanisms embedded in contemporary asylum systems. The presentation thus seeks to open a conversation on how researchers can engage with asylum authorities in ways that both support better adjudication of SOGIESC claims and maintain a structural, critical perspective on the limits of legal and policy reforms.

Aino Gröndahl, RFSL

Assessing Credibility of SOGIESC Asylum Claims in Sweden

In 2024, RFSL published my research Rejection motivations in SOGIESC asylum cases in Sweden, a case law analysis of the migration authorities’ assessments of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics as asylum claims. It was an updated version of my two previous reports in 2020 and 2023, examining over 3360 SOGIESC asylum decisions from the Swedish Migration Agency and the Migration Courts.

The research showed how the credibility assessments relied on unlawful stereotypes, that forbidden discretion-reasoning still prevailed, and that there was often an erroneous, unlawful mix-up between sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics, and many other concerning practices in Swedish SOGIESC asylum case law. The research was presented to the Migration Agency and the government. Several measures have been taken to improve the quality of decision-making in SOGIESC asylum cases.

In this conference, I wish to present my new ongoing research on Swedish SOGIESC asylum case law 2025 and 2026, examining whether the credibility assessments have improved and whether gender identity and gender expression are still assessed wrongfully. I also examine a new form of case law concerning revocation of refugee status and residency, where many people who were granted asylum in Sweden based on SOGIESC grounds are now having their status and residency revoked, i.e. after “anonymous tips” to the Migration Agency that they have lied about their SOGIESC. I will also describe RFSL’s advocacy work and dialogue with the Swedish Migration Agency, to impact the quality of decision-making in SOGIESC asylum cases.

Árdís Kár Ingvars, University of Iceland

Event(ual) Queer Crafting of Dublin Regulated SOGIE Refugees

This paper examines how LGBTQ+ refugees affectively navigate encounters with European migration authorities under the Dublin Regulation. Drawing on in-depth interviews and walk-along discussions with nine refugees in Italy and Greece between 2021 and 2023, alongside conversations with local stakeholders, it traces how interactions with border guards, police, camp personnel, and NGO workers shape asylum trajectories and queer self-making.

Rather than treating the asylum system as a static structure, the paper focuses on everyday encounters: border interviews marked by disbelief or indifference, policing practices that interrupt lives without notice, deportations that sever social and digital networks, and inconsistent support within camps and NGOs. These interactions are not isolated moments but become accumulated as affective bordering events. They are often recalled through sounds that reproduce fear, suspicion, and uncertainty into refugees’ lives. The analysis further shows how such encounters produce “out-of-time” subjects who must continuously negotiate credibility as both “real” refugees and “real” queers. At the same time, refugees actively respond to these conditions by navigating institutional expectations and building precarious support networks within and beyond formal systems.

By centring these interactional dynamics, the paper speaks directly to ongoing debates in policy and practice. It highlights how institutional procedures, often intended as neutral, can reproduce harm, while also pointing to moments where more responsive, context-sensitive engagement becomes possible. In doing so, it calls for a closer dialogue between research, practitioners, and policymakers on how asylum processes are lived, interpreted, and contested in practice.

Pip McKnight, University of Birmingham

Transnational Liminalities: Navigating Queer Identity and Risk in the UK Asylum System

This paper uses the concept of liminal transnationalism (Beichelt, 2020) to examine how queer people navigate hostile systems and negotiate identity within the UK asylum regime. Using a liminal transnational lens, we analyse how participants navigate overlapping thresholds of legal status, identity, and cross-border obligation. Their experiences are shaped not only by the UK asylum process but also by ongoing ties to countries of origin, co-ethnic communities, and concerns about future mobility and return. We argue that queer people seeking asylum inhabit a condition of double liminality, suspended between states and between culturally situated forms of queerness, requiring constant negotiation of visibility, safety, and belonging.

Drawing on interviews with people in the asylum system and specialist LGBTQI+ asylum support services, we show that participants face heightened risks of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) across multiple sites, including asylum accommodation, legal settings, and support services. Individuals making claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) must demonstrate their queerness according to Eurocentric norms that may be culturally unfamiliar or unsafe (Danisi et al., 2021; Gartner, 2015). In the absence of alternative evidence, claimants are compelled to perform and document their identities to meet Home Office expectations, often at the cost of personal safety. These risks are intensified by precarious legal status, exclusion from co-ethnic and LGBTQI+ networks, and the demand to remain visible for credibility while concealing identity for safety.

Rieke Schröder, University of Münster

Forces of Love in Queer Asylum: Governing Affect and the Possibilities of the Otherwise

This article examines the affective politics of love within queer asylum regimes in Denmark and Germany. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with queer refugees, volunteers and immigration officials, we analyse how love functions as both a regulatory and a generative force across asylum assessment and support practices. In the process of refugee status determination, applicants must not only establish the factual basis of their claims but also demonstrate ‘credible’ queerness through affect. Love thereby becomes a form of evidence – a means of rendering intimacy legible within bureaucratic frameworks privileging Eurocentric narratives of monogamous, romantic and publicly visible sexuality. Building on affect theory and Haritaworn’s (2015) notion of the ‘queer lover’ and the ‘hateful other’, we trace how queer refugees are incorporated into national imaginaries of tolerance and diversity through their alignment with homonormative scripts of love. Nonetheless, we also show how these same affective frameworks generate new exclusions, rendering alternative forms of kinship, intimacy and care unintelligible. The article further explores how love circulates within queer refugee support organisations, where care and compassion function ambivalently as both protective and disciplinary. What we term protective love reflects the tension between safeguarding vulnerable subjects and reproducing hierarchies of race, citizenship and belonging. Finally, we highlight moments in which love exceeds regulatory capture (through, e.g., one’s chosen family, collective joy and solidarity), creating affective spaces of survival and resistance. We argue that, while love is a central technology of governance within queer asylum, it also holds transformative potential as a force that sustains life and gestures towards queer futures beyond the state.

Johanna Vanto, University of Turku

Scripted identities: queer asylum decision-making in Finland

Non-presenting authors: Åbo Akademi (Finland): Hedayat Selim, Pia Lindblad, Mia Helenelund, Elvira Eilittä, Eveliina Paimala, Jenny Skrifvars, Jan Antfolk, Julia Korkman, Elina Pirjatanniemi; University of Turku (Finland): Anne Alvesalo-Kuusi

To qualify for asylum based on sexual orientation, applicants must prove – through words alone – that they are genuinely queer. But what counts as a credible queer story, and who decides? This presentation synthesises five studies examining how the Finnish decision-makers evaluate queer asylum claims, revealing structural and cultural biases operating at every level of the system.

The first study shows that the DSSH (Difference, Stigma, Shame, Harm) model primes decision-makers to expect a linear, Westernised identity narrative. It risks functioning as a filtering mechanism that excludes applicants unable to perform its script. The second study finds that queer rights organisations occupy an uneasy position within the migration control apparatus: they may unintentionally become participants in the very system they seek to challenge.

The third study – a quantitative analysis of 68 negative decisions – finds that 69% of claims were rejected because the applicant’s sexual orientation was disbelieved, for insufficient detail, inconsistency, or implausibility. Every claim of sexual identity development was rejected. The fourth study reveals that only 12% of 13,000 interview questions (in 129 cases) were open-ended, while 57% focused on sexual identity.

The fifth study shows that nearly half of applicants in delayed disclosure cases (45%) were unaware that sexual orientation constitutes a valid asylum ground, yet late disclosure was cited as a factor in rejection in 48% of negative decisions.

Findings call for a reorientation: from verifying identity to assessing persecution risk, from closed questioning to open-ended dialogue, and from a single expected narrative to culturally sensitive procedural fairness.

Session 2: Asylum reception and post asylum challenges

Chair: Rebecca Thorburn Stern

Mads Ted Drud-Jensen, Danish Refugee Council

Beyond Asylum: Integration Pathways and Psychosocial Well Being among LGBTQI+ Refugees in context of the Danish Welfare State

Research and policy on LGBTQI+ forced migration have largely centred on vulnerabilities and protection needs during the asylum phase. Yet less attention has been given to the period following recognition of refugee status, when LGBTQI+ individuals navigate the complex transition to integration within host societies. This session presents insights from the Danish organisation LGBT Asylum’s mentorship programme, a peer based support model designed to strengthen belonging, empowerment, and access to rights for LGBTQI+ refugees after obtaining asylum.

Drawing on findings from the programme’s evaluation and broader experiences from a Danish integration context, the session highlights how the post asylum phase introduces new forms of precarity. While formal safety is achieved, many continue to face isolation, mental health challenges, structural barriers linked to homo- and transphobia, limited social networks, and unfamiliarity with welfare institutions.

The mentorship programme demonstrates that sustained, identity affirming social support can mitigate these challenges by fostering trust, community connection, and improved navigation of everyday life in Denmark. Integration policies not always accommodate the specific needs of LGBTQI+ refugees. Considering this, LGBT Asylum’s mentorship model shows that tailored community-based interventions can promote long-term well-being and social inclusion.

By shifting the lens beyond the asylum system and towards integration trajectories, this session invites a broader conversation about how welfare states and civil society can underpin safer, more inclusive futures for LGBTQI+ refugees.

Jon Martin Larsen, Kristiania University of Applied Sciences

Between Vulnerability and Voice: Rhetorical Silence among Migrant and LGBTQ+ Youth in Municipal Welfare Services

This presentation draws on findings from a digital school survey among 15–16-year-olds and participatory workshops with youths as well as municipal staff to examine attitudes towards refugees and migrants and LGBTQ+, and particularly how rhetorical silence emerges among migrant and LGBTQ+ youth in Nordic welfare contexts. More than one third of surveyed youth report minority backgrounds related to migration, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. The data reveal high levels of negative attitudes as well as bullying, violence, and identity-based harassment, alongside low trust in adults’ and municipal services’ ability to provide support. Many young people respond by withholding information about discrimination, violence, or identity, indicating silence as a protective and strategic practice rather than disengagement. The analysis conceptualizes silence as shaped by institutional unpredictability and power asymmetries in welfare encounters. Findings from municipal staff surveys and workshops show wide variation in competence, comfort, and routines related to gender, sexuality, and diversity. Where support depends on individual employees rather than shared structures, youth experience welfare services as inconsistent and risky, reinforcing silence The presentation will argue that inclusive welfare provision requires a shift from person-dependent inclusion to systemic predictability. Policy-relevant recommendations include building shared baseline competence across services, formalizing routines and accountability, and normalizing diversity in everyday municipal practice. Strengthening institutional trust is presented as central to enabling voice, safety, and participation among marginalized youth in the welfare state.

Gustavo Machado, University of Essex

Listening to the queer diaspora: decolonial and symbolic reconfigurations of psychosocial care for queer refugees

This abstract presents a research project on psychosocial care for queer refugees, conceived through an intersectional, interdisciplinary, and decolonial lens. The research examines how psychologists, psychiatrists, primary care physicians, and professionals working in the psychosocial field develop situated responses to the challenges faced by forcibly displaced queer individuals, who are often confronted with institutional violence, ruptures in affective networks, and linguistic and cultural barriers. The central objective is to map how these professionals reconfigure their care methodologies in response to the plurality of migratory trajectories, proposing innovative forms of clinical listening and collective work.

Methodologically, the project is structured around three main axes: (1) the archiving and analysis of artistic materials produced by queer refugee artists, enabling the identification of symbolic registers of resistance and identity reconstruction; (2) the organisation of clinical writing workshops with care professionals, aimed at moving beyond normative formats of clinical knowledge production by taking the aesthetic relationship with refugee artists’ works as a starting point; and (3) an interdisciplinary literature review. In its initial stages, the research seeks to build an archive of artistic works and to develop a robust literature review on the topic. The examination of these works reveals subtle forms of everyday resistance through which queer refugees produce counter-hegemonic narratives of survival and belonging. The project also aims to develop social innovations grounded in the practices of frontline actors, highlighting the importance of collaborative methodologies that are attentive to the effects of coloniality, gender, and sexuality in contemporary immigration contexts.

Kirill Polkov, Södertörn University

Labor-market integration of Russian LGBTQ+ migrants in Sweden: Is the state promoting inclusion or perpetuating uncertainty?

Drawing on 20 biographical and semi-structured interviews with Russian LGBTQ+ migrants in Sweden conducted in 2024-2025, the paper aims to analyze Russian queer migrants’ experiences of labor market integration in Sweden by focusing on the challenges and affordances do Russian queer migrants encounter in the process of finding work and the experiences of navigating them. Using reflexive thematic analysis, the paper shows how Russian queer migrants who arrived in Sweden via the diverse pathways of asylum, study, and family reunification permits are caught between two restrictive legislative regimes. Escaping increasing repression on the basis of sexual identity and gender expression in Russia, where belonging to LGBTQ community has been equated with extremism since 2024, they are subject to tightening migration policies in Sweden. The 2022 Tidö Agreement has deepened Sweden’s post-2015 shift toward restrictive migration policy, aiming to align the asylum rules with the EU minimum. The paper argues that the individualizing focus of labor integration policy on “activation” and the emphasis on successful integration in the asylum/migration policy obscure structural difficulties and lack of opportunities faced by LGBTQ+ migrants in Sweden. It details how Russian queer migrants find themselves constrained by multiple migration statuses despite internalizing the need for activation; fail to translate social capital into labor market integration despite well-developed social networks and become exposed to liminality and state-imposed uncertainty.

Sarah Scuzzarello, University of Sussex

Revisiting “Sexual Migration”: —Intersectionality, Migration, and LGBTQ+ Experiences

Much research in migration studies tends to disregard the significance of sexuality and gender identity in shaping migration pathways. The burgeoning research that is sensitive to LGBTQIA+ experiences, while not presenting a shared understanding of what “queer migration” is, points to the importance of understanding how migration is motivated, fully or partially, by the sexuality of those who emigrate, which has been labeled “sexual migration.” This chapter draws on and develops research on sexual migration in two ways. First, it engages in a dialogue with trans* migration studies to bring attention to the differential human experiences and materialities affecting gender-normative and trans* migrants, respectively. Second, it advocates for centering intersectionality in the analysis of emigration drivers and settlement experiences.

Marie Sigrist, University of Fribourg

LGBTIQ+ individuals with an asylum background in Switzerland: discriminations in collective assigned accommodations and private rental housing

This presentation examines the multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination experienced by LGBTIQ+ individuals with an asylum background in Switzerland. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis of 24 in depth interviews with 12 participants, we show how they face a wide spectrum of discriminatory acts in two key residential settings: collective assigned accommodations (federal asylum centres, cantonal shelters, emergency housing) and private rental housing.

Participants report experiences ranging from provocations, contemptuous looks, judgments, and rejection to harassment, material degradation, physical assaults, sexual violence, misgendering, and objectification. These experiences are not isolated incidents but are rooted in heterocisnormativity and binary gender norms, as well as colonial-modern and racial norms that shape everyday interactions. Our analysis highlights how these dominant normative systems intersect and manifest differently across residential spaces, whatever public or private. We demonstrate how they structure relationships, nourish narratives and justificatory discourses related to minoritized gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, sex characteristics and race. By tracing the practices that produce discrimination over time, the study sheds light on the ways in which discriminatory structures shape the lived experiences and spatial trajectories of LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers and refugees in Switzerland.

These results are part of the SNSF-funded InMIND’s qualitative participatory research, which aims to raise awareness of the experiences of discrimination and prejudices of multiple-minoritized individuals in the context of asylum, but also in the broader context of migration in Europe.

Linda Sólveigar og Guðmunds, University of Iceland

Hopeful Horizons and the Politics of Loneliness: SOGIE Liminal Experiences of Safety, Belonging-in-Difference, and Resistance

Iceland has increasingly been branded as a “gay paradise,” which is a re-creation of older images of Nordic exceptionalism, positioning the country as a commercialized “pink destination.” Iceland’s connection to racism is nonetheless characterized by demonstrations of innocence. These trends make whiteness, socioeconomic status, and EU/EEA citizenship crucial factors for inclusion in the state. This study applies feminist, queer, and transnational methodology, along with qualitative approaches. It implements theories of utopianism relating to educated hope, belonging-in-difference, vulnerability in resistance, and the politics of loneliness. This article analyses interviews with 18 SOGIE refugees and asylum seekers from Southwest Asia, East Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe. Eleven identified as non-heterosexual cis-men, five as non-heterosexual cis-women, and two as pansexual or heterosexual trans or non-binary individuals. Three themes were carved out of the analyses, relating to trauma and a hope for the future; a sense of (un)belonging; and social participation, loneliness and resistance. The findings emphasize that safety alone is insufficient for establishing a livable life; instead, social infrastructure, community connections, and equitable laws hold equal significance. Iceland’s potential lies in transcending mere symbolic gestures of queer exceptionalism, by establishing conditions that enable SOGIE refugees to not only survive but also flourish.

Annamari Vitikainen, The Arctic University of Norway

Refugee integration and queer refugee integration: Taking LGBTIQ+ concerns seriously

This paper discusses the normative bases and contents of our duties towards queer refugees *after admission*, and provides suggestions and parameters for the catering of successful integration of queer refugees in western liberal democracies. The paper highlights some of the specific circumstances of queer refugees – including typical risk factors (e.g. family, country of origin community) that, in relation to other (cis-straight) refugees are often seen as supporting their wellbeing and prospects of success in their new home society. While finding safety from persecution, LGBTIQ+ individuals may nevertheless not find safety from homo- and transphobia, prejudice, discrimination, or other SOGIESC -based disadvantages even in the most LGBTIQ+ friendly countries in the world. To the contrary, the disadvantages encountered by queer refugees are often exacerbated by intersecting factors, including racism, cultural and religious prejudice, or negative attitudes towards refugees in general. This chapter shows how these experiences and circumstances of queer refugees should guide our policies of refugee integration, pointing towards the need for partially separated integration avenues for queer and cis-straight refugees. These integration avenues should be properly attentive both to the basic concerns of LGBTIQ+ individuals for e.g. safety from SOGIESC-based violence and harassment, as well as for their need for more informal support mechanisms and networks that are able to account for their often multiply marginalized positions as newcomers in society, as minorities among refugees, and as queer individuals whose understandings and experiences of being queer might be worlds apart from the common understandings and experiences of LGBTIQ+ communities in the west.

Poster session

Florent Choissère, CNRS - Géographie-Cités

Rethinking “vulnerability”: How LGBT+ refugees are made vulnerable by restrictive migration and asylum policies in France

Over the past twenty years, the paradigm of “vulnerability” has taken a prominent place in asylum policies (D’Halluin, 2016). This has been particularly the case for LGBT+ refugees, who are considered a vulnerable group among others, thereby justifying certain adaptations in institutional practices. In France, this recognition of “vulnerability” has led to adaptations in the procedures for examining asylum applications based on sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI). SOGI “vulnerability” is also mentioned in policies that regulate the material living conditions of asylum seekers during the examination of their applications, but with a much more ambiguous application of such recognition in this context. This poster invites a reconsideration of the analysis of the “vulnerability” of SOGI asylum seekers in France. It draws on feminist theories that call for a contextualized, relational, and intersectional understanding of vulnerabilization (Fineman, 2017; Reilly, Bjørnholt, & Tastsoglou, 2022), as opposed to an essentialist approach to “vulnerability.” The poster argues that the recognition of “vulnerability” in the SOGI asylum system obscures how LGBT+ asylum seekers and refugees are made vulnerable by the effects of restrictive migration and asylum policies in the first place. To demonstrate this, it shows how material precarity, administrative insecurity, exposure to institutional suspicion, and categorization as an asylum seeker constrain the ways in which they negotiate hetero- and cisnormativity in their everyday lives.

Johanna Vanto, University of Turku

Scripted identities: queer asylum decision-making in Finland

Non-presenting authors: Åbo Akademi (Finland): Hedayat Selim, Pia Lindblad, Mia Helenelund, Elvira Eilittä, Eveliina Paimala, Jenny Skrifvars, Jan Antfolk, Julia Korkman, Elina Pirjatanniemi; University of Turku (Finland): Anne Alvesalo-Kuusi

To qualify for asylum based on sexual orientation, applicants must prove – through words alone – that they are genuinely queer. But what counts as a credible queer story, and who decides? This presentation synthesises five studies examining how the Finnish decision-makers evaluate queer asylum claims, revealing structural and cultural biases operating at every level of the system.

The first study shows that the DSSH (Difference, Stigma, Shame, Harm) model primes decision-makers to expect a linear, Westernised identity narrative. It risks functioning as a filtering mechanism that excludes applicants unable to perform its script. The second study finds that queer rights organisations occupy an uneasy position within the migration control apparatus: they may unintentionally become participants in the very system they seek to challenge.

The third study – a quantitative analysis of 68 negative decisions – finds that 69% of claims were rejected because the applicant’s sexual orientation was disbelieved, for insufficient detail, inconsistency, or implausibility. Every claim of sexual identity development was rejected. The fourth study reveals that only 12% of 13,000 interview questions (in 129 cases) were open-ended, while 57% focused on sexual identity.

The fifth study shows that nearly half of applicants in delayed disclosure cases (45%) were unaware that sexual orientation constitutes a valid asylum ground, yet late disclosure was cited as a factor in rejection in 48% of negative decisions.

Findings call for a reorientation: from verifying identity to assessing persecution risk, from closed questioning to open-ended dialogue, and from a single expected narrative to culturally sensitive procedural fairness.

Kirill Polkov, Södertörn University

Labor-market integration of Russian LGBTQ+ migrants in Sweden: Is the state promoting inclusion or perpetuating uncertainty?

Drawing on 20 biographical and semi-structured interviews with Russian LGBTQ+ migrants in Sweden conducted in 2024-2025, the paper aims to analyze Russian queer migrants’ experiences of labor market integration in Sweden by focusing on the challenges and affordances do Russian queer migrants encounter in the process of finding work and the experiences of navigating them. Using reflexive thematic analysis, the paper shows how Russian queer migrants who arrived in Sweden via the diverse pathways of asylum, study, and family reunification permits are caught between two between two restrictive legislative regimes. Escaping increasing repression on the basis of sexual identity and gender expression in Russia, where belonging to LGBTQ community has been equated with extremism since 2024, they are subject to tightening migration policies in Sweden. The 2022 Tidö Agreement has deepened Sweden’s post-2015 shift toward restrictive migration policy, aiming to align the asylum rules with the EU minimum. The paper argues that the individualizing focus of labor integration policy on “activation” and the emphasis on successful integration in the asylum/migration policy obscure structural difficulties and lack of opportunities faced by LGBTQ+ migrants in Sweden. It details how Russian queer migrants find themselves constrained by multiple migration statuses despite internalizing the need for activation; fail to translate social capital into labor market integration despite well-developed social networks and become exposed to liminality and state-imposed uncertainty.

Linda Sólveigar og Guðmunds, University of Iceland

If I Go Back, I Will Be Killed: Legal Standards for SOGIE Asylum Claims in Iceland

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other individuals with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and expressions (SOGIE) face heightened risks of violence, persecution, and discrimination globally. For many, the only means of survival is to seek international protection abroad. While Iceland has a strong human rights record and is a signatory to key international conventions, SOGIE applicants for asylum continue to encounter certain legal and procedural challenges that may compromise their right to safety, dignity, and non-discrimination. This presentation will discuss findings from a report that is part of the research project Queer Refugees in Queer Utopias: Inclusions and Exclusions, funded by the Icelandic Research Fund under RANNÍS. Drawing on international human rights law, UNHCR guidance, and Iceland-specific qualitative data collected between 2022 and 2024, the report offers a set of nine guidelines to ensure the rights of SOGIE applicants for international protection are upheld throughout the asylum process in Iceland. Each guideline combines legal analysis with testimony from SOGIE refugees and professionals working within the Icelandic asylum system.

Malin Ekelund, Åbo Akademi

Same Evidence, Different Legal Decisions: Credibility Assessments of Identical Sexual Orientation-Based Asylum Claims

Credibility assessments are central to refugee status determinations (RSD), yet little is known about how decision-makers reason through and justify these judgments in sexual orientation-based claims. This study examined how 383 mock asylum decision-makers justified their credibility assessments in writing, using qualitative data drawn from a larger experimental study. After reading a case file, participants completed a written rationale for their credibility judgment, which we analyzed using template analysis. This design allowed for a more direct examination of how credibility judgments are cognitively constructed. In most RSD systems only negative credibility assessments require detailed written justification, whereas positive credibility assessments are typically accepted without explanation. As a result, the reasonings for favorable credibility assessments are rarely documented, leaving significant gaps in our understanding of how evidence is weighed in support of applicants. This study addresses this key limitation by providing both positive and negative assessments.

We identified a high degree of individual discretion: the same evidence was frequently used to both support and undermine credibility across key domains including sexual history, intimate relationships, marriage, and LGBTQ+ community participation. This suggests that commonly used credibility indicators may not carry stable probative value, and that credibility assessments depend as much on interpretive framing as on the evidence itself. More research is needed on how credibility judgments — including positive ones — are made and justified, to support more transparent and fair decision-making in this legal context.

Marie Sigrist, University of Fribourg

LGBTIQ+ individuals with an asylum background in Switzerland: discriminations in collective assigned accommodations and private rental housing

This presentation examines the multiple and intersectional forms of discrimination experienced by LGBTIQ+ individuals with an asylum background in Switzerland. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis of 24 in depth interviews with 12 participants, we show how they face a wide spectrum of discriminatory acts in two key residential settings: collective assigned accommodations (federal asylum centres, cantonal shelters, emergency housing) and private rental housing.

Participants report experiences ranging from provocations, contemptuous looks, judgments, and rejection to harassment, material degradation, physical assaults, sexual violence, misgendering, and objectification. These experiences are not isolated incidents but are rooted in heterocisnormativity and binary gender norms, as well as colonial-modern and racial norms that shape everyday interactions. Our analysis highlights how these dominant normative systems intersect and manifest differently across residential spaces, whatever public or private. We demonstrate how they structure relationships, nourish narratives and justificatory discourses related to minoritized gender identities and expressions, sexual orientations, sex characteristics and race. By tracing the practices that produce discrimination over time, the study sheds light on the ways in which discriminatory structures shape the lived experiences and spatial trajectories of LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers and refugees in Switzerland.

These results are part of the SNSF-funded InMIND’s qualitative participatory research, which aims to raise awareness of the experiences of discrimination and prejudices of multiple-minoritized individuals in the context of asylum, but also in the broader context of migration in Europe.

Moira Dustin, University of Sussex

Refugee women and ‘lived experience’: ethical and participatory approaches to knowledge exchange and evidence-based policy

The starting point for this presentation is the conviction that research, including academic research, has a valuable role to play in informing policy and practice regarding asylum and refugee protection. Bridging the research-practice gap is therefore necessary and here I explore the opportunities but also the obstacles to doing so in the context of the rights of asylum-claiming women, including LBT women. My context is the UK but I hope there are lessons for other states and jurisdictions.

My talk incorporates theory and practice, drawing on some early feminist and related theory that interrogates positionality and power hierarchies and which is relevant when applied to the context of gender and asylum. I address some of the practical opportunities and also the obstacles to realising the learning from this literature in research and knowledge exchange with and for refugee women. I conclude with some positive examples of research and knowledge exchange that starts with values of inclusivity and participation.

Pip McKnight, University of Birmingham

Transnational Liminalities: Navigating Queer Identity and Risk in the UK Asylum System

This paper uses the concept of liminal transnationalism (Beichelt, 2020) to examine how queer people navigate hostile systems and negotiate identity within the UK asylum regime. Using a liminal transnational lens, we analyse how participants navigate overlapping thresholds of legal status, identity, and cross-border obligation. Their experiences are shaped not only by the UK asylum process but also by ongoing ties to countries of origin, co-ethnic communities, and concerns about future mobility and return. We argue that queer people seeking asylum inhabit a condition of double liminality, suspended between states and between culturally situated forms of queerness, requiring constant negotiation of visibility, safety, and belonging.

Drawing on interviews with people in the asylum system and specialist LGBTQI+ asylum support services, we show that participants face heightened risks of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) across multiple sites, including asylum accommodation, legal settings, and support services. Individuals making claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) must demonstrate their queerness according to Eurocentric norms that may be culturally unfamiliar or unsafe (Danisi et al., 2021; Gartner, 2015). In the absence of alternative evidence, claimants are compelled to perform and document their identities to meet Home Office expectations, often at the cost of personal safety. These risks are intensified by precarious legal status, exclusion from co-ethnic and LGBTQI+ networks, and the demand to remain visible for credibility while concealing identity for safety.

Rafał Majka, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University

HIV literacy among GBMSM and trans* migrants and refugees: notes from the German and French research contexts.

This poster presentation examines health literacy related to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and treatment as prevention (TasP/U=U) among migrants and refugees who are GBMSM (gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men) and trans* people. HIV literacy is understood here as the capacity of individuals and communities to access, interpret, and practically use HIV-related knowledge in their everyday sexual and health practices.

The empirical material draws on qualitative research conducted in two European contexts. In France, the study involved 20 semi-structured interviews, email exchanges, and participant observation at community-based AIDES service sites. In Germany, 22 interviews were carried out alongside multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in community spaces and support organizations.

The analysis reveals significant structural barriers to accessing both knowledge and preventive services. In France, a universalist republican model tends to overlook the specific needs of migrants and refugees in public health campaigns, reducing their effectiveness. Community-based organizations (including AIDES and ENIPSE) play a crucial role in building trust and health literacy through culturally embedded and relational tools. In Germany, the findings reveal how institutional LGBTQ+ frameworks are often informed by white, gay, non-migrant positionalities, which subtly structure whose experiences are centered and whose are rendered peripheral.

The conclusions stress the importance of “technologies from below” in public health policy and the need to strengthen initiatives led by affected communities as a condition for effective HIV prevention in contexts of multiple exclusion.

Rieke Schröder, University of Münster

Beyond Queer Refuge: Empirical Findings and Policy Implications from Berlin and Copenhagen

This poster presents findings from my PhD thesis exploring how LGBTIQ+ refugees and support organisations navigate the refugee regimes in Berlin and Copenhagen. Based on semi-structured interviews with refugees, volunteers, and staff, the research questions the common belief that queer-friendly cities provide neutral or sufficient protection for LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers. The findings reveal that asylum credibility assessments systematically disadvantage individuals whose lives do not align with stable, Western-recognisable LGBTQ+ identities. Refugees are pressured to present linear, essentialised narratives of their sexuality or gender identity, narratives influenced by colonial logics that persist within both legal frameworks and support organisations. In support spaces, racial, gendered, and colonial hierarchies influence who receives assistance and under what conditions. Trans, intersex, and non-binary refugees face particular exclusion, experiencing othering even within spaces ostensibly created for their protection. Precarious legal status further exacerbates these vulnerabilities, as temporary residence permits limit refugees’ capacity to establish stable lives. Simultaneously, refugees are not passive; many strategically navigate, negotiate, and resist these dynamics, often at significant personal cost. These findings have direct implications for the implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and the EUAA Practical Guide. Effective LGBTIQ+ asylum support requires credibility frameworks that go beyond fixed identity narratives; dedicated support pathways for trans, intersex, and non-binary refugees; safeguarding standards that address power imbalances within volunteer-refugee relationships; and secure residence permits as a basis for meaningful integration.

Visiting Sweden

Sweden is part of the Schengen Area. Depending on your nationality, you may require a visa to enter Sweden, while citizens of many countries can enter for short stays (up to 90 days) without a visa.

We strongly recommend that all international delegates check the visa requirements that apply to their country of residence well in advance of travel. Official and up-to-date information on entry requirements can be found via the Swedish Migration Agency.

Participants who require a visa may need an official invitation letter for their application. If you require such a letter, please contact the organising committee after your abstract has been accepted.

By train or flight

Information on how to travel to Uppsala by train or plane can be found here.

The website also provides details on the different options for travelling from the airport to Uppsala city centre.

If you have any questions or would like further information about the conference, please contact Thomas Wimark at: Thomas.wimark@kultgeog.uu.se

Organizing committee:

Thomas Wimark, conference lead and co-founder of QUEEN network, Uppsala University

• Marlene Spanger, Aalborg University
• May-Len Skilbrei, University of Oslo
• Rebecca Thorburn Stern, Uppsala University
• Danielle Drozdzewski, Stockholm University