Abstract
Transgender-identified refugees living in South Africa, rather than accessing safety and refuge, continue to experience significant hindrances to their survival comparable with the persecution experienced in their country of origin. What welcomes gender refugees in South Africa is not a gender-free egalitarian utopia but rather a society constructed in similar ways to the ones they have left—with concomitant gendered norms and expectations. The only difference is the presence of rights, healthcare, and perhaps a term of self-description in slightly wider circulation—transgender. In day-to-day life, readings of sex/gender in interactions with communities and individuals continue to be based on ‘common sense’—classification based on the assumption gender is obvious, clear, and legible and coheres to male/masculine/man and female/feminine/woman. This ‘common sense’ reading reignites the processes of exclusion experienced in countries of origin ensuring that, rather than being acknowledged and protected, gender refugees, because they are read as violating the rules of normative gender, find themselves paradoxically with rights, but unable to access traditional asylum support structures.
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Notes
- 1.
Geoffrey C Bowker and Susan Leigh Starr do not actually give a concise definition of common sense themselves, but draw on George Lakoff to give content to their use of “common sense”:
My guess is that we have a folk theory of categorisation itself. It says that things come in well-defined kinds, that the kinds are characterised by shared properties, and that there is one right taxonomy of the kinds. It is easier to show what is wrong with a scientific theory than with a folk theory. A folk theory defines common sense itself. When the folk theory and the technical theory converge, it gets even tougher to see where that theory gets in the way, or even that it is a theory at all. (Source: George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things in Geoffrey C Bowker and Susan Leigh Star, Sorting Things Out (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2000) (pp. 195–227, Chapter 6: “The Case of Race Classification and Reclassification under Apartheid”). Cambridge: MIT Press (original work published 1987, University of Chicago Press).
- 2.
‘A classification is a spatial, temporal, or spatio-temporal segmentation of the world. A “classification system” is a set of boxes (metaphorical or literal) into which things can be put to then do some kind of work’—Bowker and Star, Sorting Things Out, 10.
- 3.
I utilise ‘common sense’ as it pertains to gender here in a Gramscian sense to suggest that it inheres in “everyday unconsidered conceptions … that which is taken for granted, understood, implicit, nonpropositional, and tacit in our way of understanding the world”. Source: Alexis Shotwell, Knowing Otherwise: Race, Gender and Implicit Understanding (Penn State Press, 2011), 33.
- 4.
Bowker and Star, Sorting Things Out, 201.
- 5.
Here I am referring to my use of necropower in Chap. 4, defined by Achille Mbembe as: “the various ways in which, in our contemporary world, sovereign power imagines itself and is deployed in the interest of maximum destruction of persons and the creation of deathscapes, new and unique forms of social existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead”. Source: Christian Holler and Achille Mbembe, ‘Africa in Motion: An Interview with the Post-Colonialism Theoretician Achille Mbembe | Mute’, Metamute, 17 March 2007, http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/africa-motion-interview-post-colonialism-theoretician-achille-mbembe.
- 6.
I use ‘liveability’ here in the Butlerian sense of the term. A liveable life is affected by both socio-economic conditions—shelter, food, and employment—and conditions of intelligibility. As Butler states, “When we ask what makes a life liveable, we are asking about certain normative conditions that must be fulfilled for life to become life. And so there are at least two senses of life, the one that refers to the minimum biological form of living, and another that intervenes at the start, which establishes minimum conditions for a livable life with regard to human life. And this does not imply that we can disregard the merely living in favour of the liveable life, but that we must ask, as we asked about gender violence, what humans require in order to maintain and reproduce the conditions of their own livability. And what are our politics such that we are, in whatever way is possible, both conceptualizing the possibility of the livable life, and arranging for its institutional support?” Source: Judith Butler, Undoing Gender (New York: Routledge, 2004), 39.
- 7.
Kendall Thomas, ‘Afterword: Are Transgender Rights Inhuman Rights?’, in Transgender Rights, ed. Paisley Currah, Richard M Juang, and Shannon Price Minter (London: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 316.
- 8.
Arthur.
- 9.
Jennifer Rumbach and Kyle Knight, ‘Sexual and Gender Minorities in Humanitarian Emergencies’, in Issues of Gender and Sexual Orientation in Humanitarian Emergencies: Risks and Risk Reduction, ed. Larry Roeder (New York: Springer, 2014), 48.
- 10.
Ali Brizan Okollan, Interview with Ali Brizan Okollan from Upper Rift Minorities (URM) based in Kenya—An organisation assisting LGBT asylum seekers currently living in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, interview by B Camminga, 1 June 2014.
- 11.
Arguably a physical manifestation of the borderland. In the Kakuma Camp, LGBT asylum seekers are currently kept together in a separate area in the camp, easily identifiable to other asylum seekers as targets of violence. See: Thom Senzee, ‘Four Questions Reveal Horrifying Situation for LGBTs in Kenyan Refugee Camps’, The Advocate, 16 August 2014, http://www.advocate.com/world/2014/08/16/four-questions-reveal-horrifying-situation-lgbts-kenyan-refugee-camps; Emmanuel Igunza, ‘Gay Ugandans Regret Fleeing to Kenya’, BBC News, 10 November 2015, sec. Africa, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34764968.
- 12.
Cape Town Tourism markets the City as The Pink Capital, “for visitors who are out and proud, and looking for a city that embraces this freedom, Cape Town is where it’s at for a weekend of ‘fabulous’”. See: Cape Town Tourism, ‘Pink Capital Cape Town Says Hello Weekend’, Capetown (blog), 24 March 2017, http://www.capetown.travel/members/member-news/members-blog/pink-capital-cape-town-says-hello-weekend.
- 13.
‘Sasha. Interview with ‘Sasha’, 2008. ‘Gender Dynamix Collection—GAL108’. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action Archive William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand.
- 14.
The Triangle Project, an NGO based in Cape Town, runs the Triangle Transgender Support Group. Several participants have been members of this group at various stages. Trans-specific health services like support groups are limited in South Africa. See: SAPA, ‘Support Service for the Transgender Community Are in Short Supply Says GDX’, enca.com , 16 December 2014, https://www.enca.com/south-africa/support-service-transgender-community-are-short-supply-says-gdx.
- 15.
Daniel.
- 16.
Alex.
- 17.
Akraam.
- 18.
Akraam.
- 19.
Akraam.
- 20.
Serena Parekh, Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2008), 40.
- 21.
Parekh, Hannah Arendt, 34.
- 22.
Parekh, 25.
- 23.
Alex.
- 24.
Akraam.
- 25.
Akraam.
- 26.
Vivian K Namaste, Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 136.
- 27.
The exact figures are: 11,342 in 2012, 14,858 in 2013, and 19,251 in 2014. Figures for 2015 and 2016 were unavailable at the time of writing. Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), ‘UNHCR Global Resettlement Statistical Report 2014’, 2015, http://www.unhcr.org/52693bd09.pdf, 52.
- 28.
Her body is covered in scars: she has been attacked at least five times since moving to Cape Town. She is now applying to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees for resettlement to a third country, a torturous process which can take several years. Mark Gevisser, ‘Love in Exile’, The Guardian, 27 November 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/nov/27/-sp-transgender-relationship-jail-exile-tiwonge-chimbalanga.
- 29.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (The World Publishing Company, 1962), 297.
- 30.
Arendt, The Origins, 295.
- 31.
Hannah Arendt, ‘The Perplexities of the Rights of Man’, in The Portable Hannah Arendt, ed. Peter Baehr (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 34.
- 32.
Arendt, ‘The Perplexities of the Rights of Man’, 34.
- 33.
Arendt, ‘The Perplexities of the Rights of Man’, 35.
- 34.
See: Jack Byrne, License to Be Yourself (New York: The Open Society Foundation, May 2014).
- 35.
Thomas, ‘Afterword: Are Transgender’, 317.
- 36.
Arendt, The Origins.
- 37.
Thomas, 316.
- 38.
Hannah Arendt, ‘We Refugees’, in Altogether Elsewhere Writers on Exile, ed. Marc Robinson (London: Faber and Faber, 1994), 118–119.
- 39.
Arendt, The Origins, 296.
- 40.
There are currently no policies addressing the placement of transgender people within the shelter system in South Africa, although there are several reports addressing this issue. See: People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) and Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, ‘Economic Injustice: Employment and Housing Discrimination Against LGBTI Refugees and Asylum Seekers in South Africa’ (Open Society Foundation, 2013), http://www.leitnercenter.org/files/2013_Leitner_SouthAfricaLGBTreport.pdf.; Gender DynamiX (GDX), ‘“We Fight More Than We Sleep”: Shelter Access by Transgender Individuals in Cape Town, South Africa’ (Cape Town, 2013), https://genderdynamix.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GDX-Shelter-Report.pdf?x91330.
- 41.
Established in 1994, the centre takes its name from Bishop of Piacenza, John Baptist Scalabrini, who founded the order in 1887 to care for the welfare of migrants. See: ‘Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town’, Scalabrini Centre, accessed 1 April 2018, http://scalabrini.org.za/.
- 42.
Stella.
- 43.
According to Koko Guillain, former Project Coordinator of the LGBTI Refugees Advocacy and Support Project, at People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP): “As … asylum seekers it is still a little bit difficult for them to get jobs because they may go to the place … where there is a vacancy of employment and some of the requirements of employment is the contract is for one year at least. So when someone is a temporary permit for two months or three months as is the case for most of them, cause asylum seeker is temporary permit it is not a refugee status, they are not qualified for jobs. So they are still unemployed. When they are unemployed they can’t afford rent. So most of them they just stay at the place where it is not safe and they are assaulted and attacked”. Koko Guillain, Wynberg Offices: First Interview with Koko Guillain Director PASSOP LGBT Refugee wing, interview by B Camminga, 28 September 2012.
- 44.
Many potential employers are apprehensive regarding employing asylum seekers because they view their stay in the country as volatile. There are still many factors that constrain the ability of non-citizens to work productively in South Africa. The most significant institutional factor limiting migrant employment is delays in the processing of documentation by the DHA, which affects everyone from skilled foreign employees to asylum seekers and refugees. Furthermore, the documents issued to asylum seekers and refugees often hinder their ability to secure employment, even as they are intended to grant the right to work. This is because of the short time frames for which the documents are issued before they must be renewed (1–3 months for asylum seekers), limited public information for employers on the renewability of these permits and the timeline that applies if an application for asylum is eventually rejected, and because of the format, which is not recognised by many employers. (Source: Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa, ‘Protecting Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants in South Africa’ (Johannesburg, 18 June 2008). For LGBT-specific experiences see People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP) and Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, ‘Economic Injustice’.)
- 45.
Living in stealth refers to a transgender person who may not be known as transgender.
- 46.
Arthur.
- 47.
See: Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of the Law (Brooklyn, NY: South End Press, 2011).
- 48.
Stella.
- 49.
Stella.
- 50.
The beating of gay or transgender tenants is seemingly not uncommon. See: Tariro Washinyira, ‘Family Beats up Their Gay Tenant’, Ground Up, 12 June 2013, https://www.groundup.org.za/article/family-beats-their-gay-tenant_1016/.
- 51.
Stella.
- 52.
Ava.
- 53.
Parekh, 28.
- 54.
Arendt, The Origins, 294.
- 55.
Bowker and Star, 209.
- 56.
Alex.
- 57.
Kelly.
- 58.
Ava.
- 59.
Paisley Currah and Tara Mulqueen, ‘Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Transgender Bodies at the Airport’, Social Research 78, no. 2 (2011): 561.
- 60.
Ava.
- 61.
Eithne Luibheid, Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 144.
- 62.
Ava.
- 63.
Tey Meadow, ‘“A Rose Is a Rose”: On Producing Legal Gender Classifications’, Gender & Society 24, no. 6 (December 2010), 832.
- 64.
Ava.
- 65.
Ava.
- 66.
Irma van der Ploeg, ‘Written on the Body: Biometrics and Identity’, ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society 29 (1999): 37–44.
- 67.
van der Ploeg, ‘Written on the Body’, 38.
- 68.
Ava.
- 69.
Bowker and Star, 305.
- 70.
Bowker and Star, 305.
- 71.
Tricia.
- 72.
Tricia.
- 73.
Chifundo.
- 74.
Bobbie.
- 75.
Tricia.
- 76.
Nelly.
- 77.
Tricia.
- 78.
Tricia.
- 79.
Arendt, ‘The Perplexities of the Rights of Man’, 41.
- 80.
Arendt, ‘The Perplexities of the Rights of Man’, 43.
- 81.
Nelly.
- 82.
It should be noted here that it is generally agreed that trans women and transgender people who are non-binary face greater struggles globally. It is often harder for them to pass, to find access gainful employment and to be treated with respected. This, as Julia Serano, notes can be attributed to the fact that: “Women’s appearances get more attention, women’s actions are commented on and critiqued more than men, so in that world it just makes sense that people will focus more on trans women than trans men”. See: Charlotte Alter, ‘Trans Men Confirm All Your Worst Fears About Sexism’, TIME.com, 13 June 2016, http://time.com/transgender-men-sexism/.
- 83.
Arthur.
- 84.
Arthur.
- 85.
Toby Beauchamp, ‘Artful Concealment and Strategic Visibility: Article Transgender Bodies and U.S. State Surveillance After 9/11’, Surveillance & Society 6, no. 4 (2009), 359–360.
- 86.
Arthur.
- 87.
Arthur.
- 88.
Arthur.
- 89.
Arthur.
- 90.
Arthur.
- 91.
Though this is not to negate that in large part due to the access to patriarchy and the privilege afforded masculinity trans men the world over do generally find access to economic stability easier than trans women or other non-cisgender individuals. See for instance: Kristen Schilt, ‘Just One of the Guys?: How Transmen Make Gender Visible at Work’, Gender & Society 20, no. 4 (August 2006): 465–90.
- 92.
Arthur.
- 93.
Ayten Gu ̈ndog ̆du, ‘Statelessness and the Right to Have Rights’, in Hannah Arendt: Key Concepts, ed. Patrick Hayden (Durham: Acumen, 2014), 112.
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Camminga, B. (2019). Finding Community, Finding Rights: The ‘Common Sense’ Paradox. In: Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa. Global Queer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92669-8_6
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