Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies

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Cast Out: “Gender Role Outlaws” Seeking Asylum

in the West and the Quest for Social Connections

Sarilee Kahn

To cite this article: Sarilee Kahn (2015) Cast Out: “Gender Role Outlaws” Seeking Asylum in the
West and the Quest for Social Connections, Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 13:1, 58-79,
DOI: 10.1080/15562948.2014.894169

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2014.894169

Published online: 11 Mar 2015.

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Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 13:58–79, 2015
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1556-2948 print / 1556-2956 online
DOI: 10.1080/15562948.2014.894169

Cast Out: “Gender Role Outlaws” Seeking

Asylum in the West and the Quest
for Social Connections

SARILEE KAHN
School of Social Work, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Since 1994, increasing numbers of persons are fleeing persecution

based upon their nonconformity with traditional gender roles. This
qualitative study explores the experiences of 14 men and women
from Islamic societies persecuted in their countries for resisting
gender-role norms and, ultimately, gaining asylum in the United
States. Findings suggest that “gender role outlaws” in resettlement
may be alienated from families and more traditional coethnic oth-
ers by their alignment, or perceived alignment, with Western con-
structs, and may also be marginalized by mainstream commu-
nities. Ultimately, findings contrast with received knowledge that
family and coethnic affiliation is possible and positive for Muslims
in resettlement and point to the need for alternative sources of social
support.

KEYWORDS Muslims, resettlement, LGBT, gender, social support,

asylum seekers

RATIONALE

Social support from family and coethnic community members has long been
considered a critical protective factor for refugees against the stressors inher-
ent in forced migration (Birman & Tran, 2008). Social relationships assume
heightened significance for certain stigmatized groups.
Whereas all refugees may be subject to prejudice and bias (Porter &
Haslam, 2005), Muslim refugees resettled in the West in the midst of the “War
on Terror” are arguably among the most vulnerable. Anti-Islamic prejudice,

Address correspondence to Sarilee Kahn, McGill University School of Social Work, 3506
University Street, #300, Montreal, QC H3A 2A7, Canada. E-mail: sarileek@yahoo.com

58
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 59

and even violence, has been well documented in the West, especially since
the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001, and the increase
in refugees to the West in the aftermath of the U.S. invasions into Afghanistan
in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 (Cainkar, 2006). For Muslim refugees, bonds with
families and coethnic others represent not only vital sources of support and
validation of sociocultural practices but may serve as a protective shield
against anti-Islamic sentiments (Yip, 2004).
However, as with all refugee populations, Muslims seeking refuge in the
West are not a uniform group. For example, among Muslims seeking refuge
in the West are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) persons
as well as heterosexual women resisting harmful cultural practices—both
groups fleeing persecution in their homelands for transgressing societal
norms governing gendered behaviors. Since 1994, U.S. immigration law has
allowed applicants who can prove their persecution was due to gender,
gender identity, or sexual orientation to claim asylum in the United States
(Musalo, 2007); the details of this policy follow later.
Homophobic violence and patriarchal practices are by no means ex-
clusive to any specific religion, cultural tradition, or society. Across all so-
cieties, women and sexual minorities are raped, beaten, forced into early
marriages, subjected to honor killings, or otherwise abused by both state
and nonstate actors for their gender, gender identity, or sexuality (World
Health Organization [WHO], 2012). Predominantly Christian countries, such
as Jamaica and Brazil, have gained notoriety for waves of brutal communal,
culturally sanctioned violence against LGBT persons, often perpetrated by
authorities, communities, and family members (International Gay and Les-
bian Human Rights Commission [IGLHRC], 2013). Homophobia was stirred
to a fever pitch by a group of American Evangelicals in Uganda (Gettelman,
2010) and Christian missionaries from the United States and the United King-
dom in Ethiopia, agitating for those countries to adopt the death penalty
for consensual same-sex acts (Nelson, 2013); at this writing, seven countries
impose capital punishment for, and 76 criminalize, same-sex sexual intimacy
between adults (International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission,
2013).
Similarly, in Christian as well as Islamic societies around the globe, the
ancient gendered practice of female circumcision, or female genital muti-
lation, as it is called by some human rights activists, persists. Despite its
inception in pre-Christian and pre-Islamic animist traditions, the belief that
female circumcision is mandated by religion contributes to its perpetuation
in some Muslim communities in Africa and the Middle East (United Nations
Children’s Fund [UNICEF], 2013). Indeed, the ritual endures even in countries
that have officially outlawed the practice, such as Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, and
Burkina Faso. Although such host countries as the United States and Canada
have also prohibited female circumcision (FC), some migrant families in the
60 S. Kahn

West send their daughters back to the homeland, where the circumcision
ritual can be carried out with impunity; women who refuse circumcision
for themselves or their daughters can be met with severe punishment by
their families and communities for resisting normative gender role practices
(United Nations Children’s Fund, 2013).
Ultimately, gender role nonconforming persons can be persecuted, and
banished from their societies, for transgressing cultural expectations. This
may occur even in countries where formal laws are set up to protect them,
as well as in those contexts where gender role nonconformity is considered
a crime. For those thus persecuted because of their refusal to conform to
traditional norms regarding sexual and gender role behaviors, fleeing to a
host country where they can petition for asylum may be the only recourse to
ensure safety and autonomy. While persons seeking asylum for these reasons
hail from societies around the globe, the increasing proportion of refugees
and asylum seekers from Islamic societies resettling in Western countries over
the past decade (United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees [UNHCR],
2013) calls for not only a thoughtful analysis of structural anti-Islamic bias
lurking in individuals, communities, and bureaucratic structures, but also
for increased attention to sociocultural dimensions and diversity of migrants’
experiences. This study contributes to the very limited empirical research that
challenges the view of Muslim refugees as a monolithic bloc by shining a
light on the nature of social support for gender role nonconforming Muslims
and considers how their experience differs from that of their more culturally
traditional compatriots. Ultimately, the findings will encourage future studies
of gender role nonconforming persons from across religious and cultural
systems.

Relevant Policy Governing Asylum

According to the Refugee Convention of 1951, persons fleeing their home
countries and seeking legal refuge in a host country must establish a
“well-founded fear of persecution” based upon one of five bases for
asylum—political opinion, race, religion, nationality, or membership in a
particular social group (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
[UNHCR], 1979). Whereas refugees prove “well-founded fear” prior to arrival
in the host country, asylum seekers petition after arriving (UNHCR, 1979).
Of these bases, “membership in a particular social group” was originally
constructed as a broad, and purposely vague, category in order to accom-
modate unforeseen circumstances (Grahl-Madsen, 1966–1972). Concerned
with survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and persons fleeing Communism, in
1951, the framers of the Refugee Convention did not consider gender and
sexual identity issues as bases for asylum or refugee status (Musalo, 2007).
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 61

Indeed, the problems of sexual minorities and women went unrecognized

until claims involving a gay man in the Matter of Toboso-Alfonso 20 I & N
(United States Board of Immigration Appeals [BIA], 1994) and a woman flee-
ing female circumcision (FC) in In re Fauziya Kasinga (United States Board of
Immigration Appeals, 1996) established legal precedents for winning asylum
as members of a “particular social group” (PSG). Since those initial cases in
1994 and 1996, persons whose persecution was related to sexual orientation
and gender have been predominant as PSG claimants in the United States
(Musalo, 2010).
More recently, cases involving lesbian women and transgendered per-
sons have become increasingly prominent, as have cases involving other
harmful gendered practices, such as forced marriage and domestic violence
(Immigration Equality, 2012; Musalo, 2010).

Theoretical Foundation for the Study

The study presented here constructs the theoretical paradigm of “gender
role outlaws” as a means of delineating a set of sociocultural characteristics
for those who share claims under the legal category of a “particular social
group”—that is, heterosexual women resisting gendered persecution and
sexual minorities resisting persecution because of their sexual orientation or
gender identities. The concept of “gender role outlaw” is based upon two
relevant and intersecting conceptual frameworks. Firstly, it borrows from
queer theorist Kate Bornstein’s (1995) description of persons as “gender out-
laws” when they transgress cultural norms of gender identity, desire, and
social roles. Secondly, it incorporates the sociolegal framework developed
by Millbank and Dauvergne (2011) and others, who contend that neither
LGBT persons nor women resisting gendered cultural practices conform to
expected gender role normative behaviors. Both groups may suffer perse-
cution in their home societies for gender role nonconformity, behaviors that
situate them “outside” at least the traditional norms of their societies and, in
some cases, outside the formal societal laws.
Moreover, the rationale for this theoretical paradigm is that these two
groups may incur the wrath of their traditional communities not simply be-
cause of who they are (e.g., “homosexual” or “feminist”) or what they think
(e.g., women should have choices about who they marry and whether to
undergo circumcision) but because of what they do (or don’t do). For ex-
ample, in some traditional societies, identity categories such as “lesbian” or
“gay” may have little or no relevance to women and men who engage in
consensual same-sex acts (e.g., Boellstorf, 2005); same-sex desire has often
been tolerated in traditional societies as long as expectations for hetero-
sexual marriage and procreation are fulfilled (e.g., Fanning, 2010). Instead,
as Law (1988) argues, it is the nonconformity with expected gender role
62 S. Kahn

behaviors that leads to societal disavowal of “homosexuals” and “feminists”

or advocates of “women’s rights.” The contention here is that when sex-
ual minorities or heterosexual women engage in behaviors that, when in-
terpreted through a traditional lens, violate religious and culturally based
gender norms, they are ousted from their social group and, thus, rendered
“gender role outlaws.” Furthermore, this category is a useful construct in
that it signals a shared phenomenon unique to these groups and suggests
specific and profound challenges not experienced by those who seek asy-
lum on other bases. Persons persecuted because of their political opinion,
religion, nationality, or race do not necessarily risk ruptures in relation-
ships with families, communities, cultural traditions, and their own religious
teachings.
Two subsets of gender role outlaws, both of whom seek asylum in
the PSG legal category, were chosen for this study—specifically, gay men
and circumcised women resisting FC for their daughters. These two sub-
sets were selected due to the author’s experience as a social work practi-
tioner with these two groups; the author’s access to a bifurcated sample of
gay men and heterosexual women fleeing in order to protect their daugh-
ters from FC; and anecdotal evidence to suggest a shared experience of
persecution by families and communities, as well as state actors, in some
cases.
Furthermore, the study focused on the particular experiences of gender
role outlaws from Islamic societies seeking asylum in the United States. As
highlighted above, persecution of gender role nonconformity occurs across
all societies and religious traditions. However, this study focuses on those
hailing from Islamic societies due to their intersecting vulnerabilities, involv-
ing not only refugee and gender role outlaw status but also their status as
members of a religious tradition often met with prejudice and suspicion in
the West. Multiply marginalized, this group is, therefore, susceptible to social
isolation and structural oppression. How this group then seeks and attains
social relationships was a key focus of this study.
Clearly, the two subsets chosen for the study presented here represent a
fraction of the overall PSG claimants and a segment of the total population of
asylum seekers fleeing persecution based upon gender role nonconformity;
further research is critical. Nonetheless, this exploratory study sought to bring
the voices of these little-studied and multiply marginalized “outlaws” to the
forefront, touching upon themes that may well resonate with practitioners
and policy makers aiming for deeper understandings.

Existing Research
All asylum seekers endure separation from their cultures, families, and kin-
ship networks. For some from interdependent non-Western societies, family
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 63

separation may be as psychologically distressing as prior persecution and

torture experiences (Rousseau, Mekki-Berrada, & Moreau, 2001). However,
those seeking asylum on the basis of race, religion, nationality, or polit-
ical opinion may reunify with families, establish affiliations with diaspora
communities, and maintain ties to faith-based institutions to mitigate against
isolation, despair, and existential anxiety in resettlement (e.g., Shoeb, We-
instein, & Halpern, 2007); they may have access to social networks in the
host country that facilitate access to formal services (McMichael & Mander-
son, 2004). In contrast, gender role outlaws have been cast out from their
cultures, communities, and kinship groups and, as a result, may lack these
benefits.
To date, a small body of empirical studies provides an important founda-
tion examining the experiences of gender role outlaws, Muslims or otherwise,
in the diaspora, and their social relationships with family and/or community.
Researchers highlight strains within family relationships for nonrefugee gay
Muslims in the West (e.g., Jaspal & Cinnirella, 2010; Minwalla et al., 2005).
Moreover, as Chavez (2011) learned in a study of LGBT migrants, those with
HIV-positive status may also fear revealing this fact within the coethnic com-
munity. Circumcised African Muslim women resettled in the West can suffer
feelings of victimization, alienation from mainstream health care providers,
and social isolation (Khaja, Lay, & Boys, 2010; Berggren, Bergstrom, & Ed-
berg, 2006).
Certain observers, primarily legal scholars and anthropologists, argue
that Western standards for persecution under PSG represent an unduly high
bar for those claiming asylum due to gender role nonconformity. For exam-
ple, Yoshino (2006) notes that gays often survive persecution in their home
countries by “covering” their sexual identity, while in the host country they
must overcome their fear of exposure and prove they are “gay enough” to fit
Western norms (Hanna, 2004–2005, p. 914). Similarly, women seeking asy-
lum based on past harmful gender-related practices and/or their resistance
to, or fear of, future harmful gender-related practices in their countries of ori-
gin may be required to embody unfamiliar or unnatural Western notions of
female victimhood and supply narratives accordingly (Mehta, 2011). Thus, in
addition to focusing on the experiences of relationships to family and com-
munity in the home and host countries, this study also exposes the social
costs to gender role outlaws of “performing” according to Western constructs
of homosexuality or feminine victimhood. It explores whether, as Kobayashi
and Peake (1994) suggest, the social consequences of such enactments are
durable and persistent.
The specific experiences of claimants’ encounters with the immigration
system and asylum adjudicators are important and will be discussed by
the author in future papers. Ultimately, however, the research questions
emerging here are: For this sample, does hailing from a Muslim society
afford productive social connections with coethnic others? What are the
64 S. Kahn

social costs of being gender role outlaws? How do those costs or benefits
express themselves throughout the asylum-seeking experience?

METHODOLOGY
Recruitment and Sampling
Participants were identified through outreach via private immigration attor-
neys and social service agencies in New York City, northern New Jersey,
and Washington, DC. The study utilized purposive sampling (Padgett, 2008)
for recruitment of circumcised African women fleeing the threat of FC to
their daughters and of gay men from Islamic societies in the Middle East
and Africa, as exemplars of gender role outlaws. Further inclusion criteria
included (a) subjects were granted asylum in the United States at least 1
but not more than 6 years prior to interview; (b) they were adults at least
18 years of age at the time of the asylum grant; (c) they described themselves
as comfortable speaking English; and (d) they had no history of hospitaliza-
tion for mental illness. Regarding the required time span since the asylum
grant (i.e., 1–6 years), the goal was to recruit participants for whom the event
was not so fresh as to risk retraumatization, but not so long after the asy-
lum grant that wide disparities in adaptation among participants would be
likely.
Eight men and eight women qualified and agreed to participate. Of
these 16, one male and one female served as participants in pilot interviews;
the remaining 14 made up the total sample. The sample size was considered
large enough for this preliminary inquiry into the experiences of a virtually
unstudied population, enabling the collection of a diversity of experiences
over the course of two in-depth interviews per participant. Data collection
proceeded in accordance with protocols approved by the New York Univer-
sity Human Subjects Committee.
From two pilot interviews, each with persons who met the inclusion
criteria but were not included in the sample, an in-depth semistructured
interview guide was developed (Padgett, 2008). Multiple data sources were
utilized (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), including verbatim transcripts as the primary
data source and observational notes to document use of language, nonver-
bal behaviors, anecdotes, actions, and descriptors of the setting (Charmaz,
2006).
Data analysis followed grounded theory protocols put forward by Char-
maz (2006). Analysis included open coding, axial coding, and development
of themes; 683 pages of transcripts of 28 interviews were analyzed. Strate-
gies for rigor to enhance data trustworthiness involved prolonged engage-
ment (i.e., two interviews per participant); multiple data sources; a peer
debriefing group for co-coding to reduce researcher bias; member check-
ing (i.e., follow-up phone calls and review of emerging findings with study
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 65

participants); negative case analysis (i.e., searching for contradictory pat-

terns); and keeping an audit trail (Padgett, 2008).

Characteristics of the Sample

Table 1 describes countries of origin, age range, educational background,
and employment status of all participants, as well as a range of incidents
experienced in their home countries related to their gender role nonconfor-
mity.
Three female study participants were married (n = 3), three were di-
vorced or separated (n = 3), one was single (n = 1). Five female participants
had one or more children living with them in the United States (n = 5), and
one participant was expecting her first child. Of the women with children,
three also had at least one child living in the home country (n = 3). Of
male study participants, one was cohabitating with his long-term, same-sex
partner (n = 1), two participants reported noncohabitating on-going rela-
tionships with one same-sex partner (n = 2), two stated they were seeking
a same-sex partner (n = 2), and two indicated they were not involved in
seeking a same-sex partner and were considering a heterosexual relationship
(n = 2).

FINDINGS

In resettlement, the experience of social relationships had the follow-

ing broad trajectory: upon arrival, female participants sought informa-
tion from coethnic community members to assist with accessing services,
while gays in the sample shunned heteronormative compatriots, often turn-
ing instead to individual gay American citizens for emotional and practi-
cal support. Locating trustworthy mainstream legal and/or social service
providers was typically a turning point, providing a proxy for lost fam-
ily relationships as well as essential services and ultimately a sense of
hope. However, some men avoided explicitly gay organizations, fearing
exposure.
As the asylum process evolved, both males and females in the sample
experienced the phenomena of “reverse-covering” (Yoshino, 2006)—that is,
the requirement to declare their gender role nonconformity in immigration
proceedings. Tension with, or alienation from, heteronormative, patriarchal
coethnic community members in the Muslim diaspora existed for all par-
ticipants. For men, establishing ties with gays from the Anglo community
was tinged with bias and racialization, while women in the sample had only
limited interactions with the larger community. For both groups, grief over
strained or estranged relationships with kin in home and/or host countries
persisted over time.
66 S. Kahn

TABLE 1 Sample Demographics

Male Participants Female Participants Total (n

(n = 7) (n = 7) = 14)

Age
20–25 0 1 1
30–35 3 4 7
35–40 2 0 2
45–50 2 2 4
Length of Time Since Asylum Grant
6 years 3 1 4
4 years 3 1 4
2 years 1 2 3
1 year 0 3 3
Country of Origin
Afghanistan 1 0 1
Egypt 2 0 2
Iran 2 0 2
Iraq 1 0 1
Senegal 1 0 1
Guinea 0 1 1
Burkina Faso 0 3 3
Gambia 0 2 2
Chad 0 1 1
Highest Level of Education
University 4 2 6
Professional school 0 1 1
High school graduate 1 2 3
Middle school graduate 0 1 1
No formal education 2 1 3
Employment Status
Homemaker 0 2 2
Unemployed/seeking 0 2 2
Hairbraiding/nurse/taxi driver 3 2 5
White collar professional 3 0 3
Full-time student 1 1 2
Community-Sanctioned Gender
Practices (Women Only)
Female circumcision 7 7
Forced marriage 3 3
Domestic violence 3 3
Community-Sanctioned
Persecution (Men Only)
Bullying/ostracism 6 6
Sexual assault/attempted sexual 5 5
assault by peers
Childhood sexual abuse by 3 3
clergy/nonfamily adults
Sexual exploitation by 2 2
authorities
Arrest or threatened arrest for 2 2
same sex-sexual relations
Communal violence 1 1
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 67

Leveraging Social Networks for Information and Assistance

None of the female respondents reported knowledge of asylum processes
prior to arriving in the United States. All but one female respondent learned,
through informal interactions with coethnic community members, about the
existence of immigrant health and social services organizations. These in-
teractions did not include discussions of involving FC or asylum but often
touched upon how to get “papers” and avoid deportation. Several women
described a process of discerning accurate information from rumor, as one
female participant describes:

Because in my community it’s like a circle, right? When you first come
to the U.S. they’ll tell you what’s happening, what’s going on . . . And
sometimes it’s not true.

From this trial-and-error approach, six of the seven female respondents

learned of free social services available to them. From these social services
providers, participants in the study were referred to competent attorneys
and only then learned of the validity of their FC-related claims. One female
respondent encountered fee-based lawyers who exploited her vulnerability
and lack of knowledge; she eventually located a highly respected attorney
who helped her lodge a successful PSG claim.
Five of the seven male study participants had learned about asylum prior
to their flight to the United States, through Internet-based communications
with gay asylum advocates. After arrival, each male respondent reported they
were reluctant to approach heteronormative coethnic community members
with queries about legal representation for fear of “outing” themselves. One
male study participant, originally from Iran, and his partner did initially
attempt to secure legal representation through their coethnic community,
with disastrous results:

Because this person [respondent’s intimate partner] was very closeted

we chose not to go through the gay community. That was the biggest
mistake. Because we went to an Iranian lawyer, and we sat there, it took
almost an hour to spell it out what our problem was . . . We could not
say the word “gay.”

In general, however, men in the study relied upon individuals from

either the mainstream or immigrant gay community for support and ac-
cess to competent attorneys. One male participant revealed the level of
reliance upon an intimate partner, a gay American citizen, stating, “Every-
thing I knew was through [partner’s name],” but acknowledged the partner’s
lack of knowledge about available psychological support. This respondent
went on to state:
68 S. Kahn

One thing is for sure, 100% sure: Even if I knew there was [a psychosocial
support program], I never would have gone by myself .

Because of their gender role nonconformity, and their resulting reluc-

tance to expose themselves fully to a wider swath of fellow community
members for fear of judgment or reprisal, respondents in this sample may
not have benefitted fully from the potential social capital of coethnic others
with longer tenure in the host country (Beaman, 2012). Native-born citizens,
even those with a sincere desire to help, may not have been fully aware of
the specific services available to asylum seekers.

The Asylum Process

This study of gender role outlaws seeking asylum brings empirical support
to the phenomenon Yoshino (2006) describes as “reverse-covering” (p. 160).
Both males and females in the sample were faced with the paradox of
relinquishing their historical coping methods of silence. As one gay asylum
seeker explained: “You know, before, everything I do in secret, I scared to
talk about anything.” Relating facts about sexual desire, sexual relationships,
and sacred parts of their bodies proves exceedingly difficult for participants,
for whom disclosure is tainted by stigma and shame.
Essentially, however, they are required to “out” themselves, in order to
create a detailed narrative for asylum claims. Five women in the study had
adapted to their traditional cultures by a form of “covering,” as well, allowing
peers to falsely assume that either they were not circumcised or that circum-
cision did not hinder their sexual desire or cause them sexual pain; they also
learned to “cover” their resistance to the practice. Once in the United States
and moving through the asylum process, however, they were required not
only to justify fears for their daughters but to prove they, themselves, were
circumcised, and it caused them suffering. In contrast to more general in-
teractions with health care providers, women in this study were referred by
their attorneys to gynecologists trained to provide medical assessments for
gender-related asylum cases. The significance of her encounter with a female
physician examining her for evidence of FC is indicated by one respondent:

So they just looked at all my body, checked everything . . . they were

very concerned about my circumcision . . . they say it’s so—really, really
bad. They don’t know [why] people do that [to] me, but . . . they didn’t
appreciate it.

In contrast to those seeking asylum on other grounds, these respondents

were required to publicly reveal intimate experiences otherwise kept private.
Moreover, their private experiences, feelings, and desires, while necessary to
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 69

declare in the public forum of the asylum process, defined them as gender
role outlaws in their own families and communities.

Service Providers as Transitional Kinship Proxies

Establishing supportive relationships with legal and/or psychosocial care
providers in perimigration was typically experienced by study participants
as a turning point, providing glimmers of hope and validation. For the ma-
jority of study participants, forming these relationships was tantamount to
recreating ruptured familial bonds. Throughout the transcripts, participants,
all of whom had hailed from traditional interdependent cultures, portrayed
trustworthy providers as synchronous with kin. A woman from Chad de-
scribes her first encounters with social services agency staff assisting asylum
seekers from around the world: “When I see, um, people smiling to me. You
know . . . it was to me like finding a new family.” A male study participant
conveyed his experience of building trust with his counselor at an immigrant
social service agency:

You cannot believe how I love her, how I respect her . . . I never talk
to anyone . . . that way. I don’t feel shy when I talk to her. I just tell her
everything. And . . . and I listen to her, I believe in what she say, I trust
in what she say.

Finding helpers in the host country who could create a safe space in
which to tell their stories was particularly meaningful to these participants;
in their home countries, simply being themselves elicited persecution and/or
societal expulsion.

Navigating Family Relationships

After gaining asylum and beginning to establish new lives in the United
States, the matter of family and kinship relationships remained of signifi-
cant concern for all participants. Respondents discussed the challenges of
negotiating relationships with family members, whether in their country of
origin or in the United States. Five female respondents had been ostracized
by family in the home country, as the quote below illustrates:

Yeah, because they say that I don’t follow their rules. Some of them they
don’t talk to me. Even now they don’t talk to me . . . They want me to
take [daughter’s name] to do the same thing to her.

Two other women developed communication strategies to minimize

contact with family, thus avoiding familial pressure to return their daughters
70 S. Kahn

to be circumcised. A woman from Burkina Faso, who hid the reason for
leaving her home country, relates:

Sometimes I find an excuse if I do talk to them, but I don’t want to call

them all the time or give them my situation so they don’t know why I
am unhappy there and why I’m here.

For men in the study, family relationships varied. In their more “liberal”
families, three male respondents reported that a parent might ignore the
participant’s homosexuality:

And my dad never asks me, you know, like a typical Middle Eastern
father, or any father when their son’s 38, “So when are you getting
married.”

However, four male respondents were faced with complete ruptures—or

fear of ruptures—in family bonds because of their homosexuality:

You know you sit there with your sisters, and feel guilty, you know,
because my lifestyle is different. So it’s very hard for me to communicate
with my relatives, with my own brothers . . . It’s just like a completely
cut-off, between, between us.

For displaced persons in general, family connection represents a critical

pillar for anchoring psychological welfare and identity, particularly for those
with histories of trauma (Rousseau, Mekki-Berrada, & Moreau, 2001). While
all displaced persons may be subject to separation from family members, the
emotional bonds are not necessarily severed by forced relocation as they are
with this sample of gender role outlaws. For them, family alienation, or fear
of alienation, is a particularly resonant phenomenon.

Navigating Nonkin Coethnic Relationships

For all participants, social relationships outside of the family presented on-
going challenges after asylum. Female respondents lived in coethnic or pan-
African enclaves in or around large urban centers. Despite their proximity,
however, five female participants were wary of affiliating with coethnic oth-
ers, fearing ostracism, punishment, or criticism because of their resistance
not only to female circumcision but to a broader range of traditional gender
role norms; as well, only one woman in the sample attended a mosque. One
female respondent, from Guinea, reported that she avoided coethnic social
connections entirely:
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 71

That’s why I always try to stay alone, far from the African people, because
the African people are never trust . . . I appreciate it more American
people, I prefer with American people.

Another female study participant, from Burkina Faso, whose views

against FC were embedded in more global resistance to other gender prac-
tices in her culture and religion that she considered oppressive, revealed
why she did not attend a mosque:

You know, I am Muslim. I told you I am Muslim but people who pray
in the Mosque they don’t like me. They don’t like me because they say
I am not Muslim . . . I say, “why?” but they say because I always wear
pants and I . . . don’t use veil, I don’t use this.

Not all female participants shunned coethnic affiliation entirely. In fact,

three of the seven women were married to members of their coethnic com-
munity; however, these men tolerated and even supported the anticircum-
cision stances of their wives. All of the male respondents gravitated toward
large cities with diverse populations but avoided coethnic heteronormative
enclaves; none reported attending mosques.
For men, jockeying worlds of coethnic versus mainstream, gay versus
straight, and homophobic versus homoaffirmative social groups in the quest
to build community presented complex challenges. Of the three men in the
sample engaged in exclusive intimate relationships, two were partnered with
gays from Muslim or Christian societies in the Middle East, while the third
avoided coethnic gays altogether and chose an Anglo-American as his in-
timate other. Two respondents stated they were seeking same-sex partners
from either inside or outside their coethnic gay community; the remain-
ing two sought heterosexual partners, preferably from within their coethnic
communities.
In terms of nonintimate coethnic friendships, one participant achieved
social relationships with both gay Middle Eastern and heteronormative Mid-
dle Easterners, Muslims and non-Muslims, alike, in the large progressive city
where he resides, stating: “I don’t ask about their sexual relationships and
preferences, and they don’t ask me.” This appeared to be an exception. Six
of the male participants conveyed feelings of alienation from Muslim coeth-
nic heteronormative community members in resettlement, with one gay male
from Africa, stating:

They like if I’m coming dancing, singing for them. They like that, but
they don’t like who I am . . . They don’t like gay people.

Avoidance of coethnic affiliation entirely was also a strategy employed

by an Afghan male respondent:
72 S. Kahn

I like people from other cultures, to be honest with you . . . I don’t have
no Afghani friends . . . No, you will not see on any telephone I have that
I communicate with any Afghani.

While Bhui (2012) has noted that displaced persons accessing support
from their coethnic cohort experience reduced trauma-related mental health
symptoms and improved social mobility through coethnic affiliation, persons
in this sample clearly had difficulty connecting with their diaspora communi-
ties and, thus, may be at a disadvantage when compared with those whose
asylum is based on other categories.

Navigating Relationships With the Wider Community

Gender outlaw asylum seekers in the study struggled to form meaning-
ful friendships and social ties outside of their coethnic communities. Male
respondents were much more likely to have explored both intimate and
platonic relationships with Anglo-American gays. However, connecting with
White European or American-born gays in their community was also a com-
plicated endeavor:

Most people go through the initial phase of, “Oh, this is so cool.” But it’s
not—it’s not cool. It’s them trying to look cool, you know, like to prove
to themselves that they are open-minded . . . like you’re exotic animals
and we want to come visit you in the zoo, and then it’s like, okay, now
it’s time to go home [Laughs].

In terms of formal organizations, two men in the study expressed their

concern that affiliation with an explicitly LGBT group would “out” them to
their coethnic community members, as exemplified by the following quote
from a respondent from Afghanistan:

I’m not a person that go out with the gays. No, I have to respect my
brothers, I have to respect my family.

Women’s relationships within the wider community were primarily rep-

resented by social ties with noncoethnic service providers. None in the
sample reported opportunities to develop or pursue intimate or platonic
friendships within the nonimmigrant community. Ultimately, due to a lack
of access and/or the presence of racial or cultural bias, attempts to construct
crucial socially and psychologically beneficial relationships in the broader
community were complicated for both male and female respondents.
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 73

DISCUSSION

The results of this study suggest that more-nuanced appraisals of coethnic

and family affiliations as sources of social support for refugees, and
specifically for Muslim refugees, may be warranted. The gender role
outlaws in this study experienced (a) family alienation/banishment; (b)
tension with/estrangement from their coethnic community; and (c) lack of
affiliation/ambivalent affiliations with mainstream community members. Re-
searchers have shown that such factors combined with past trauma histories
and anti-Islamic bias in the host country can jeopardize positive adjustment
and mental health outcomes for Muslim refugees in resettlement (e.g.,
Shoeb et al., 2007). While the participants in this study often experienced
positive affiliations with mainstream service providers, who served as virtual
kinship proxies during the asylum-seeking phase, these relationships faded
after the asylum grant, even as participants strove to find alternative sources
of social connection.
Sources of social support and the nature of social relationships appeared
to shift over time. Early in their asylum-seeking experiences, some respon-
dents sought information through their coethnic social networks with vary-
ing results. For some respondents, securing appropriate legal counsel came
only after encounters with predatory or incompetent attorneys and discern-
ing facts from myths and rumor circulating in their coethnic communities.
This phenomenon underscores the vulnerability of all newly arrived asylum
seekers to those, both within and outside of their coethnic communities,
who would prey upon their naı̈veté.
Once connected with competent professionals, relationships with in-
dividual providers—attorneys, therapists, and social workers—served as a
hedge for study participants, albeit a time-limited one, against social isolation
and familial banishment. For study participants accessing providers within a
larger organizational structure such as a not-for-profit or community-based
organization, the organization itself served as a kinship proxy, offering a
nurturing network where deep bonds and emotional attachments could de-
velop with staff members at all levels. Moreover, relationships with individual
service providers offered essential support throughout the asylum process,
which was made particularly difficult through its requirement that applicants
break their adaptive patterns of silence. Men who had learned to maintain
secrecy about their sexual desire and women who had learned to remain
silent about their own circumcision and subsequent opposition to FC found
that supportive attorneys, therapists, and social workers helped ease open
discussions in the asylum process.
Several male respondents mentioned reluctance to attend a “gay orga-
nization” for fear of exposure to coethnic community members. This finding
echoes those of Reading and Rubin (2011), suggesting that shame, fear, and
religious and cultural barriers may prevent Muslim LGBT asylum seekers
from seeking services.
74 S. Kahn

Significantly, for gender role outlaws in the study, resistance to tradi-

tional gender role behaviors and practices led to loss of or feared loss of
relationships with kin and community. Seeking asylum necessitated that the
men and women in the study align themselves with Western categories (e.g.,
“homosexual” or “gay”) or with Western gender role norms (e.g., condemna-
tion of traditional gender role practices deemed in the West to be harmful)
that may not have precisely reflected their authentic personal or cultural
identities. Moreover, although all respondents found asylum to be validating
and welcome, embracing the Western constructs embedded in the process
further alienated them from their diaspora communities.
To sustain relationships with coethnic others, some women learned to
“cover” or modulate their liberal views, returning to coping mechanisms
they utilized in their countries of origin. Other women disengaged from co-
ethnic communities entirely. The majority of gay respondents coped with
intransigent homophobia in diaspora compatriots by avoiding coethnic het-
eronormative communities altogether.
Relationships with the wider community proved somewhat elusive for
men and virtually nonexistent for women in the sample. The impact of
socioeconomic and class factors, social mobility, or employment opportuni-
ties can be surmised from the data but not confirmed. Levels of education
and English-language skills, or lack thereof, impacted the experience of all
those in the study, a finding well established by others (e.g., Fazel, Reed,
Panter-Brick, & Stein, 2012). Those who had least access to the dominant
community, Internet sources of information, and knowledge keepers in their
own coethnic communities, were more likely to experience social isola-
tion. Racism and essentialism were more overtly experienced by the Muslim
male respondents; they encountered microaggressions from the dominant
heteronormative community, the heteronormative coethnic community, and
the dominant homonormative culture. The female respondents did not re-
port such experiences, but the question of racism and bias toward them, as
African women, remains.
These findings, while preliminary, suggest that gender role outlaws are
a particularly vulnerable subset of asylum seekers, since they may tend to
experience a dearth of trustworthy and sympathetic social relationships with
friends and family members who, along with remunerative employment and
residential stability, are key predictors of improved mental health outcomes
for dislocated persons (e.g., Bhui et al., 2012). Even those respondents who
reported having an intimate partner reported a sense of social dislocation
that persisted after the grant of asylum.

Implications for Practice

Practice implications derived from the findings suggest that mainstream
providers and immigrant and resettlement organizations should resist a
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 75

“one-size-fits-all” approach to resettlement schemes, outreach and service

provision to refugees and asylum seekers. In some instances, resettlement
of gender role nonconforming persons within coethnic communities in the
host country may be contraindicated, family reunification impossible, and
even referrals to local mosques or churches fraught with complexities.
As sources of social support and social capital might not rest within
families or diaspora communities, it would seem important for organizations
serving gender role nonconforming asylum seekers to expand outreach ef-
forts to general medical and social service providers as well as to other
coethnic gender role nonconforming persons with longer residence histo-
ries in the United States. These groups may function as cultural “bridges”
to services for vulnerable asylum seekers or refugees who may either be
uninformed, misinformed, or uncomfortable with accessing services.
Furthermore, organizations may seek to mitigate the social isolation of
gender role nonconforming asylum seekers through group therapy programs
(e.g., Reading & Rubin, 2011), and more informal programs that promote so-
cialization opportunities. Groups specifically serving the LGBT community-
at-large, however, should be aware that some gay asylum seekers from
Islamic societies may be reluctant to attend explicitly “gay” organizations be-
cause of discomfort with more visible expressions of homosexuality and/or
fear of “outing” themselves by affiliation. Similarly, some migrant women
from traditional societies may privately align themselves with a Western
feminist agenda, but may be reticent to publicly affiliate with advocacy orga-
nizations aimed at gender equality or women’s global rights. In order to reach
gender role nonconforming asylum seekers, LGBT affirmative and women’s
human rights organizations should consider decentralized alternatives, in-
fusing organizations perceived as neutral spaces—including medical, social
services, and legal clinics—with specialized mental health and psychoso-
cial support services. Organizations holding women’s groups might explore
opportunities to create spaces where sexuality for circumcised women, as
well as resistance to cultural norms and its consequences, may be safely ex-
plored. However, before embarking upon such programmatic strategies, the
presence of homophobia, patriarchy, and/or racism, whether latent or overt,
among staff and/or embedded within the institution itself must be frankly
explored and addressed. Explorations of how “homo-nationalism,” (Puar,
2007)—the tendency to create homonormative ideals that may racialize and
exclude Arabs, Muslims, and others as “terrorists”—may be institutionalized
within some agencies and within the asylum process; efforts to counteract
such tendencies might need to be expertly led.
This study reinforces previous findings emphasizing the need for prac-
tice approaches for female migrants of color that promote social mobility
and job opportunities (e.g., McMichael & Manderson, 2004). Women es-
tranged from both their family and coethnic community may be particularly
bereft of social capital generated from union with the diaspora community.
76 S. Kahn

Being aware of such realities, service providers can strive to establish special
avenues for economic survival for gender role nonconforming women.
For all gender role nonconforming persons seeking asylum, psychoso-
cial services should be available throughout the asylum process and continue
to be available after asylum is granted. Social isolation persists, along with
challenges navigating kin and community relationships, and may intensify in
the months and years following the attainment of asylum status.
Ultimately, this study adds empirical evidence to support observations
that gender role nonconforming migrants, regardless of religion or country
of origin, may face ostracism from coethnic diaspora communities in exile
(Potocky-Tripodi, 2003) and racism in gay-affirmative communities (Han,
2007).
It not clear that such insights have yet translated into practice and pol-
icy approaches. Further research with these groups and with the range of
providers who serve them is indicated to better inform practice and policy
initiatives aimed at addressing the complex needs of gender role outlaws in
resettlement.

Study Limitations and Strengths

There are inherent limitations in this exploratory inquiry. Inability to com-
municate with study participants in their native languages was a limitation.
Relying upon a nonnative language tends to erode the acuity of qualita-
tive data. Moreover, English-language skills varied within the sample. At the
time of the interviews, female study participants were generally less fluent
than male participants, many of whom spoke English relatively well prior
to flight. This disparity is also a limitation. Additionally, the study included
only Muslims and only two subsets of gender role nonconforming asylum
seekers. The experiences of lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered persons, and
women fleeing other harmful cultural practices from other religious traditions
are not addressed herein. Furthermore, the study was limited to those who
had secured competent legal representation and were ultimately successful
in their asylum claims. The number of gender role nonconforming persons
representing other subsets, and those seeking asylum without the benefit of
such support is unknown; their needs may be quite different.
Among its strengths, this study engages the voices of Muslim gender
role outlaws, themselves, in producing new knowledge directly applicable
to enhancing interventions for others in the future. Participants’ experiences
offer service providers and policy makers a rich source of data upon which
further improvements to interventions and policies for vulnerable asylum
seekers can be built. Furthermore, these results, while not generalizable,
offer a glimpse into a hidden population about which more could, and
should, be studied.
 Social Support for Gender-Dissident Muslim Asylees 77

SUMMARY

This study challenges received knowledge that affiliation with family and
coethnic community is a protective factor for Muslims against the stressors
of resettlement and structural anti-Islamic prejudice in the West. Gender role
nonconforming asylum seekers may be banished from kinship and com-
munal networks in home and host countries, and may experience durable
social ruptures, negating access to traditional sources of positive support
in resettlement. Whereas relationships with compassionate service providers
may serve as kinship proxies, providing spaces to explore hitherto “secret”
aspects of the self and one’s experiences, those relationships are temporary.
Thus, gender role nonconforming asylum seekers are at risk of long-term
social isolation, lacking critical resources known to mitigate stressors asso-
ciated with asylum seeking and resettlement. When planning psychosocial
interventions for this vulnerable group, providers should be sensitive to po-
tential barriers to social connections with familial and/or coethnic networks,
as well as to mainstream communities in the host country.

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