Kylie and Cocktails: Constructing Sexuality and Gender in the Asylum Tribunal

Abstract

This paper combines insights from gender studies, asylum law and more recent literature in gender and judging to consider how sexuality and gender are constructed in asylum. It starts by developing a non-essentialist methodological base for looking at how and why identity matters in judging. It then moves on to applying this to the unique role of the asylum judge and considers where hegemonic norms are produced and reproduced. This leads to a textual analysis of two appeals in the Upper Tribunal, demonstrating how judges rely on their own experiential knowledge to inform their work, along with their interactions with other social actors in the asylum process and the persistence of institutionalised norms. The paper ends by noting the importance of diverse perceptions and situated standpoints if stereotypes at the heart of law’s categories are to be subverted.