I'm always reluctant to get into this, "it's worse for these people than those people." I think, yes, that because of the gender discrimination issues, things are probably worse. Although, women, I think, are sometimes better able to conceal their identity than gay men are. And so, it's a mixed bag, but yes, I mean I think the anti, you know, the misogynist trends in society exist even when there aren't as strong homophobic trends. Yeah. So, how do you actually get people to come to you? Do you put out advertisements? Or do you use word of mouth? It's a really good question; we mostly use word of mouth. You saw a white South-African man, Bram there, who runs a group called Pass Up, which is in South Africa. So, part of what we do is to find organizations like Pass Up, that are doing on-the-ground work with LGBTI communities and have them help us to funnel folks our way. And that is easier in South Africa than it is in Jordan where there are no LGBTI organizations and so you have to kind of think to yourself, where do people go? There's a guy, who runs a bookstore, he's kind of closeted but not exactly. And the word gets out, and it's really a challenge, it's really a challenge. Yes. Factors like the credibility question, when they're trying to seek refugee status, how have... From your past experience, it seems like a pretty subjective process. From your past experience, what kinds of people have actually been granted refugee status for being gay and lesbian? Because it seems like the interviewees are being extremely flamboyant, or just like very convincing, because it's so subjective. Yes, I agree with all those things and that's part of why ORAM is doing this series of trainings in Malaysia and Turkey and the places, Johannesberg, the places where there are the most LGBTI refugees. Yes, I think that the men and women who "look" the most gay to the eyes of the culture that they're in, the country of transit, are most likely to... And sometimes you'll get very overt, I mean you'll get written death threat letters saying, you know, "I'm going to kill you faggot." And then that's a fairly easy case to make. It's much more difficult when there isn't documentary evidence like that, and your witnesses aren't willing to speak either, yeah. And you don't look like what they're expecting. Yeah. Especially on [inaudible] , there is a lot of gender discrimination with gay and lesbian associated with. We know that, like, in what cases like would someone try to fake or try to attain refugee status? Like why would there, like, need to be a credibility test? Yeah, no, that's a really great question. I have often and sometimes I wonder that right like, gee it's really, it's not good to be gay in these countries. So, why would you ever pretend? The thing is that refugees are often very, very desperate, each for their own reasons. And word travels quickly and not always accurately, in refugee communities about what works. How can I get out of here? And so to the extent that people hear, this is going to work, if you tell people that you're gay, you'll be able to get out, people sometimes are willing to try it. In fact, I think they are sometimes more willing to try it than the gay people, right? Because it's a little bit easier when you know that you're not a lesbian, to go in there and talk about being a lesbian in the hopes that it will get you out, knowing that as soon as you're out, you don't have to live as a lesbian, you can go back to living as a straight person. But it is an interesting, I think of it a little bit like the threat of the concerns about voting fraud here in the US. Yes, it does happen. Does it happen so often that we have to build a huge awful system around it? I'm not so sure. But, yes. You said that political asylum in the US like political some refugee asylum was determined by political considerations. Can you talk a little bit about that in relation to there's still a lot of dysphoria for gay rights in the country? How's that happening, if you could say right now? Yes, I mean now on the positive side, the US is being much more welcoming to gay asylum seekers and gay refugees. And you know maybe 10 or 15 years ago, we wouldn't let anybody who was HIV positive come into the country. And we certainly wouldn't have granted an asylum application based on sexual orientation persecution. In fact, we wouldn't grant it based on domestic violence persecution either. And these are all relatively new developments but... So, the anti-gay piece is there, I personally think, this is just my personal view, that politics probably play a bigger role at this point in terms of the country's domestic and foreign agendas and how they impact what, who they choose to allow in. I will say, though an interesting example is Russia. So, in Russia, there is this massive persecution. Russia is huge. So what exactly is the US going to do about it? Is it going to be a case by case. I mean those 70,000 would be consumed immediately, the 70,000 resettlement applications. So, activists are really, I've been on a series of calls struggling with what's the right approach? And some people have said, there's something called the P2 visa, which is basically how Soviet Jews came into the US. You don't have to prove your own individual status anymore you just, or your own individual persecution. You just have to show, I am a Soviet Jew and you can come to the US. So, the question was, could we get that for gays? Could we show I am a Russian gay person or I'm a Russian lesbian and then you come into the country? That's the kind of thing I don't think we would get through Congress, right? I mean, it's possible but it would require a majority of Congress to be willing to bring in more gay people into this country and you can sort of hear how that might play. So, is it foreign policy perspective, is it seen as a slight to the country to accept refugees from them? To accept P2 refugees, I think so yes. Because you're saying this country can't take care of its people. Individuals one on one, okay, this particular person was targeted, it's a little bit less of a slight. But it is a problem. I mean, it was a big problem in Guatemala, for example, when the US was involved, to some degree, in the political unrest that was creating refugees fleeing here. And the US government was sort of unwilling to say, yes, we ought to give these people asylum status. Because that would be sort of saying, yes, this situation that we created is problematic. So, yeah it's touchy that way. Yeah. What transgender neutrals people have to usually approve things? [inaudible] approved or discrimination. Because i feel like you can show, right. Yes. Right, So, there the question is more persecution. And there are some other issues there too. One of the problems is that if you go back to your country of origin it's viewed as an admission that you really don't have a subjective fear. Because you wouldn't have gone back if you were truly afraid. But if you're a transgender woman and you need to get your medication you may go back for that reason. Women are often caught in that dilemma because they go back for children, or to take to, you know, check in with elderly parents and then that's pretty much it for their application. Yeah. So, for transgender women who are in refugee camps, is there any infrastructure? Or is that just not possible? No, that is, that is absolutely what, what we and others are trying to do is to sort of make it more possible. There are interesting debates about whether you should have separate housing. I mean ironically, I think separate housing for women would probably be more safe. Separate housing for gay people in general tends to produce targeting. So, if you have, for example, refugee camps there is this idea, "oh, we could just put all the gay people in this one building", that makes the people living in that building completely labeled. They are now walking around with a big sign saying, "I'm gay." So how exactly to do that outreach is the problem. But that's part of why we're sort of traveling around, trying to train people on LGBT 101, to try to get some of those questions, get some of those systems better answered. And your question reminds me too, that people sometimes what people do is because they're really caring and they want to be considerate, what they do is to not mention it, because that seems the polite thing to do. In fact that's even more problematic, right? If you have somebody who is facing this kind of persecution, they're going to need to talk to you about it. They're going to need to tell you their story. So, to not ask them doesn't help either. So, that's part of the training is to teach people how to talk to transgendered people, for example, about what they need and what their situation is. Yes. How does the placement process work for refugees? I know you mentioned the man in Las Vegas. But I still see [inaudible] about perceptions of LGBT people. And I just feel like they're placed in one of those areas that is very mixed and that they could actually, in a lot of places, be just as bad. Yes, that's exactly right. And and you know particularly with this, sort of, streets are paved with gold phenomenon, right? Where when you're living someplace that's really awful. Your picture of what it's like to live in the US is just so beautiful that it's really quite tragic for people who experience that that's not the case at all and you're still going to get yelled at and maybe you won't be beaten up quite as much but it's still bad. It's a real problem because a lot of it has to do with where there are resources. So, we've actually been working on creating Guardian groups. You know sort of liberal religious institutions of all stripes who are willing to kind of take, be a community for gay refugees. That happens, you know, in the Bay Area as you might imagine the problem is the places with the most gay folks in them are also very expensive to live. And a refugee gets eight hundred dollars a month for eight months and then that's it. So, in that time you have to figure out, you have to learn how to speak English you have to, you know, make up for whatever your literacy situation is particularly for women, you have to find a way to make a living here and sort of start something out in the San Francisco Bay area. In many ways doesn't do them any favors. So, that's the dilemma. How can we find sort of gay positive places that are not also expense positive? That's a word. Yes. You have mentioned that some places that the children are actually taken away from the parents. How has that impacted that family structure and kind of those dynamics as well as what happens to the family? Yeah. Well that hasn't happened yet. And you know. God willing it won't. But if if that law is enacted in Russia, my understanding is that it's a pretty it's treated like the social service coming in and taking your kid right. You know you're basically the legislatures holding that just being gay and having a kid is mistreating your child and therefore they will take the child away and put the child up for adoption and, you know, the results of that can be devastating. The interesting conundrum, there are many interesting conundrums, but is that so if you have a lesbian couple and a gay man who are all sharing parenting of the child and the child there's the threat that the child will be taken away. So, these three folks all want to leave. But will the US recognize that family constellation and allow all of them to leave. That's not clear. And myself included gay people often build sort of unusual family structures. And trying to fit that round peg into the square hole of, you know, US social policy is going to be very challenging. When is the decision supposed to come out? They put off voting on it. They were supposed to vote on it this month and they put off voting on it we believe until next year next spring. So, that's why the theory is that they're trying to you know there was more outcry around the Olympics than they expected with the first anti-gay legislation. So, they're trying to get past that. Yes. So, the kids to be refugees. So, say you did marry in home country, just sort of how, and then you do prove that you are lesbian or gay and you're seeking refugee status, will they allow you to take your child with you to be resettled? Yes. These are all excellent questions so, part of it depends on how you got where you are. So, if you fled the country, you need to establish your case with your child for example then you both are refugees and it's not so hard. We have a client now who fled, who came to the US for a conference and then stuff blew up in her country and she was portrayed in a film that got released and she thought it wouldn't get to her country and it did. So, she decided to ask seek asylum here in the US but her partner and her infant daughter, their infant daughter, are both still in the country and trying to get out. And so eventually in the process if she becomes an asylee and her application is accepted, then she can bring other family members in. But that's a long process. I mean it could take a couple of years. And meanwhile her child is still subjected to the same danger. So, there are a few rare ways that you can actually get from your country of origin directly to the US, it's called humanitarian parole and you have to get the US State Department involved, and, so they're trying to do that for the partner and the baby. Yes. I was interested that the film was funded by the State Department. Now, what is the special interest that the State Department would have needed to fund this? You know the State Department is very interested in equitable refugee systems, and in participating in addressing refugee crises. And so they have actually this is the second round of funding that ORAM has gotten from them to really try to make things fairer. And actually, what they're really funding is not the individual work but the sort of advocacy work of trying to make sure that things change. Because State Department has a really vested interest in having things work in a fair measured way. I would say, particularly this State Department. And then there are other organizations that are looking at particular populations, for example, organizations like ORAM that could be looking at people who are members of religious minorities. Is there an ORAM type organization that is looking at lesbian, or women's issues, certain women's issues in general, like domestic violence? Right. I don't know if any of them are looking at domestic violence in particular. Yes, there are definitely religious focused groups, particularly Jewish groups that sort of cut their teeth on the Soviet Jewry problem and have now moved on to other religious minority groups, particularly in Iran and Iraq. So, there are other groups for sure. And then there are kind of just generalized refugee activist organizations around the world each with their own perspectives. Yeah. I read there are certain that can be LGBT refugees just because of yes where they're situated geographically? Yes, where they're situated geographically and their relative liberal liberalism. So, South Africa has terrific gay laws on the books. It's not really a great place to be in that double jeopardy situation of being a foreigner and gay. And that's what happens to a lot of our clients as they come to this place because it seems to be very liberal. But the community is very opposed to gay people coming in who are from other countries. And so the violence is the same. Jordan is sort of the same way as, as of all the countries in that area of the Middle East. It's probably the most socially liberal, and so there are a lot of gay refugee from Iran and Iraq and now Syria who tend to go there. Any other countries? Turkey also received a lot, excuse me, of refugees from Iran and Iraq and, to some degree Malaysia because if you live in one of the more strict Muslim countries you are permitted to travel easily to Malaysia. But Malaysia is a more, sort of, liberal Muslim country and so people sometimes go there and then seek refuge. One of the big questions with Russia is where are people going to go? First of all, depending where you live in Russia you can't just sort of you know walk a hundred miles and get over a border. And some of the countries right around there are possibly worse, so, that's still a question we don't really know.
