Passing through: Cisheteronormativity at the border

Borders can present particular challenges to members of the LGBTIQ+ community, particularly with regard to legal gender recognition, marriage migration, harassment by officials, asylum claims, heightened safety risks in immigration detention, and evacuation in times of war. In this session, speakers highlighted the dual threats of border regimes and cisheteronormative bureaucracies, based on observations and lived experience.

Speakers

Kelly, 27, was born and raised in Mauritius but moved to Malaysia at 19 to pursue her undergraduate studies in psychology. Currently located in the Netherlands working a full-time job, she is a proud mother of three cats and an advocate of seasoning food with more than just salt and pepper.

Anya Dahan is the founder and coordinator of Layalat, a network of transgender women sex workers and an active member of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects. She has dedicated her life to fighting for the rights and empowerment of sex workers in Morocco and is a founding member of the Regional Committee of Sex Workers and Gender Diversity in the MENA region.

Farah Abdi came to Europe in late 2012, fleeing fear of persecution because of her gender identity. Her work as an activist began as a way to combat the rise in xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia, and other forms of discrimination. Farah has worked relentlessly over the past decade to tell the unheard stories of refugees. Her first autobiography, Never Arrive, was published in 2015, and she has written columns on immigration for Malta Today and New Internationalist. She currently works at TGEU as a policy officer specialising in migration and asylum advocacy.

Natasha Jiménez is a Costa Rican trans/intersex activist and feminist who began her work in the HIV/AIDS field. She is a consultant on trans and intersex issues and general coordinator of Mulabi/Latin American Space for Sexualities and Rights, which is based in Costa Rica and develops projects and initiatives in the region. She was general secretary of ILGALAC (2019), was in charge of the intersex secretariat of ILGA World, is on the board of the International Trans Fund, and is an advisor to the International Fund for Intersex Human Rights.