Chapter 25 Evolving Bodies: Mapping (Trans)Gender Identities in Refugee Law Senthorun Raj Introduction Despite the increasing extension of protection obligations to sexual minorities, the international jurisprudence has yet to resolve the question of recognizing the queer mobilities of asylum claims on the basis of gender identity or expression. While the administrative and judicial decisions in anglophone jurisdictions evince a growing trend towards recognizing transgender or transsexual asylum-seekers, there remains considerable conceptual uncertainty about how this ‘particular social group’ (PSG) should be defined and about what ought to be considered as a ‘well-founded fear of persecution’ (UNHCR, 2010, p. 14). Despite the expansive analysis on sexual orientation-related asylum claims, current academic research and policy debates in relation to (trans)gender-identity refugees remain largely in their infancy. While domestic laws governing refugee determinations vary across jurisdictions, there remains little consistency about how the Convention definition is applied. Focusing on the historic US case Hernandez- Montiel v Immigration and Naturalization Service [2000], this chapter examines the definition of a PSG; the quantification of persecution; and how the nexus of gender identity- related harms is recognized to consider the queer mobilities possible for both refugees and the laws and processes that govern them. This chapter opens by examining how the veracity of gender-identity claims is assessed against immutable qualities or personal psychological narratives of gender dysphoria from early childhood. In quantifying persecution, decision-makers’ preference for identifying persecution in terms of state actors often obscures the complex domestic and familial contexts in which gender-diverse individuals experience violence and social opprobrium. The chapter concludes by seizing on some of these juridical and administrative limitations, and examines how consideration of gender identity-related asylum claims enables us to rethink the legal mobility of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) and the 1967 Protocol to offer protection to displaced individuals Comparing the differing interpretations of the Convention, this chapter reviews a limited number of publicly available administrative and judicial decisions from the USA and Australia to indicate some ways in which refugee Browne, Kath, and Gavin Brown. The Routledge Research Companion to Geographies of Sex and Sexualities, edited by Kath Browne, and Gavin Brown, Taylor and Francis, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, . Created from usyd on 2016-11-20 12:48:20. Copyright © 2016. Taylor and Francis. All rights reserved.