Proving You No Gay in Uganda Proving that You are gay in the UK

                                                                              

 Too Gay to be Alive, Uganda

In March, Theresa May, the UK’s Home Secretary, ordered a review of gay asylum policy in the country after confidential Home Office documents revealed some of the humiliating questions asylum seekers face. In one five-hour interrogation, case workers asked a male asylum seeker a series of lurid questions, which included, “When x was penetrating you, did you have an erection?” and “Did x ejaculate inside you?”  The results of that review will be released imminently.

This fixation on sexual conduct glosses over the reality that being gay encompasses much more than sex. It’s one reason that May has insisted that an asylum seeker’s identity be established “through questions about sexual orientation, not sexual behavior”. 

“The majority of individuals are not caught in a sexual act by religious police,” says S Chelvan, a barrister who specialises in asylum cases. “It’s the fact that they don’t conform to a heterosexual narrative that makes them identifiable.” With that in mind, Chelvan has developed the Difference, Stigma, Shame, Harm (DSSH) guidelines, which have been endorsed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and been tested by authorities in Cyprus, Finland and Germany, among other countries. His system consists of trigger questions that lead to further investigation, and that don’t stray into the ­pornographic.

The first question he poses to clients is, “When did you realise you were different?” “The majority of LGBT people can identify a narrative of difference that predates sexual awakening,” he says. “Straight boys cannot do that.”

It’s a simple starting point that cuts across borders. Bosco, the Ugandan asylum seeker, experienced difference from the age of six, when he wanted to dress up like his sister and desperately believed an old wives’ tale. “It said if you sleep under the sun then you will turn into a girl,” he says. “During break time at school, instead of playing with the other kids I would lie there so the sun would cross over me.” Stigma, the second step in the narrative, stems from the claimant realising that family members, friends, or religious leaders deem their conduct or identity as wrong or immoral. It may also involve knowledge of anti-LGBT laws and their consequences. That naturally leads to the third category – shame. “We’re not talking about psychiatric illness,” Chelvan says. “It’s a natural human emotion that if you feel hated you feel shame. You may not feel shame during the sexual act, but afterwards it’s a matter of, ‘What will happen to me?’”

The fourth category – and what makes someone a refugee – is harm, which can come from state and non-state actors, and may take the form of criminalisation, mob violence and honour killings. For Bosco, harm came in September 2008 when the UK government deported him back to Uganda, arguing that he could live “discreetly” and avoid persecution. “By the time I landed in Uganda, my picture was on the front page of the newspaper,” he says. Police threw him in a concrete cell and accused him of selling his body to men in England. “I was beaten by the police, and then I was beaten by the inmates.”

Thankfully, a High Court judge ruled that Bosco’s forced removal was “manifestly unlawful”, as it occurred before a review of his case had been completed, and ordered his return to the UK six months later. Since then Bosco has worked as a support worker in a mental health organisation and volunteers with Friends Without Borders in Portsmouth. He counsels gay asylum seekers in the same facility where he was detained, helping them prepare for the gruelling line of questioning they may face from case workers. He tries to help them understand that talking about their sexuality is not stigmatised in the same way as it is at home, even if the questions can seem cruel. “Today I feel like I am in heaven, he says. “I don’t have to worry about neighbours or police. I wish that everybody could taste that freedom.” 

Rebecca Vassie AP/PA