‘We are taboo everywhere’: how LGBTIQ+ people, and their children,
become stateless

   13 août 2020, 03:27 CEST
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    1. Thomas McGee
       PhD researcher, Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, University
       of Melbourne

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   This isn’t just a singular case. For many children born to same-sex
   couples through international surrogacy, there is a risk they could
   become stateless — unable to gain citizenship in the country where they
   were born, or their parents’ home countries.

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     couples and one for the children of straight couples.

What does statelessness mean?

   Statelessness is defined under international law as not being
   recognised as a citizen by any of the world’s 195 recognised states.
   According to the UN’s conservative estimate, there are some 12 million
   stateless people globally.

   In practical terms, stateless people face many challenges due to their
   lack of citizenship. While these differ significantly from one context
   to the next, common experiences include the inability to access vital
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   Cases like the Kivitis’ daughter have brought high-profile attention to
   the risk of statelessness associated with LGBTIQ+ parenting situations.

   Similar cases have been compiled by campaigners in Europe, where
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   An Irish-Polish lesbian couple, for instance, gave birth to a daughter
   through IVF in Spain in 2018. The girl, Sofia, is currently stateless
   because neither woman’s country will recognise her right to
   citizenship. Her Spanish citizenship is still pending.
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   And before international commercial surrogacy arrangements were banned
   in India and Thailand, the children of many same-sex couples born in
   these countries were at risk of statelessness.

   However, statelessness is also a problem that LGBTIQ+ people themselves
   may face. My recently published research has identified scores of
   stateless LGBTIQ+ people around the world.
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Stateless LGBTIQ+ people face double marginalisation

   Eliana Rubashkyn. Wikimedia Commons

   Why do we hear so little about their experiences? Indeed, this was the
   question that motivated me to study the links between statelessness and
   sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex
   characteristics (relating to a person’s physical sexual anatomy).

   Having worked on statelessness for the last decade, I have attended
   many conferences with little consideration given to LGBTIQ+ people. In
   contrast, much research has been conducted on the experiences of
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   As Eliana Rubashkyn, an intersex person from Colombia who experienced
   years of statelessness before receiving asylum and citizenship in New
   Zealand, explained to me:

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     is a chronic violation of human rights.

   My research highlights that stateless LGBTIQ+ people often face a
   significant double marginalisation. They are discriminated because of
   their sexuality or gender expression, as well as their lack of
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   For example, one stateless queer man in Lebanon described fears of
   being arrested on grounds of public immorality (a common charge against
   the LGBTIQ+ community) and lacking the necessary paperwork to establish
   his identity. While he is not the only stateless person in his family
   (due to gender discrimination in Lebanese citizenship law), the risks
   are compounded in his case.

     It goes without saying that being stateless can also make any
     problem I encounter due to my sexual orientation and gender identity
     much worse. And vice versa.

   While no statistics are available, for some LGBTIQ+ people,
   discrimination is what caused them to become stateless in the first
   place.

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   Desperate to prevent officials from deporting her back to Colombia,
   where she had suffered persecution, she ultimately renounced her
   Colombian citizenship, making herself stateless. She was later
   resettled in New Zealand and gained citizenship in 2018.

Asylum requests are often denied

   Within asylum contexts, research shows both statelessness and LGBTIQ+
   situations are often missed or misunderstood during the process of
   assessing claims for protection.
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     convinced.

   The lack of attention paid to “rainbow statelessness” in the media and
   policy debates may further lead governments to question the credibility
   of statements made by stateless LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers.

   This is why it’s critical to bring more attention to the links between
   statelessness and sexual orientation or gender identity.

   Better understanding this intersection is necessary to improve laws and
   policies that discriminate against LGBTIQ+ people, and sometimes render
   them, or their children, stateless.
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     * Gay rights
     * LGBTIQ
     * statelessness

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