Shirin Heidari, Ryan Whitacre, Jinan Usta, Meric Caglar, Thanasis Tyrovolas, Aesha Rajan, Monica A Onyango, ‘Liminality and transactional sex among queer refugees: Insights from Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Switzerland’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2024
Abstract
People of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, and expressions who have been forcibly displaced (hereafter referred to as ‘queer refugees’) encounter liminal conditions along their displacement journeys that reinforce their marginalization. We conducted interviews with 46 queer refugees in four countries: Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Switzerland. We found that restrictive border controls, migration and refugee policies, asylum processes, and integration efforts structured queer refugees’ liminalities. In turn, they employed survival strategies, including engaging in transactional sexual practices, to meet their basic needs; however, these practices introduced health challenges for which they had limited access to services. In many instances, queer refugees engaged in transactional sex under exploitative and abusive conditions that heightened the risk of sexual and gender-based violence. Thus, we conclude that forced displacement emplaced queer refugees in states of multidimensional liminality that reinforced their marginalization.feae047
