The UK clamped down on migration. The LGBTIQ+ community was collateral
The Conservatives knew their immigration plan would disproportionately impact LGBTIQ+ people. They did it anyway
Growing up, Anna* always knew she was a lesbian. She also knew that her life would be at risk if anybody found out.
Anna lived in Georgia, where she says “most [people] are homophobic”. From a young age, she realised that her sexuality would be treated, at best, as a mental illness, at worst – in the words of one homophobic Georgian politician – a “perversion” and a threat.
Determined that no one would know her secret, Anna married a man and started a family. But the strain of hiding her sexuality while in an abusive marriage pushed her mental health to the brink – she lived with a constant fear and knew that she would be safe only if she fled not just her marriage, but her country.
Anna was eventually able to escape, becoming one of at least 86 LGBTIQ+ people from Georgia who applied for asylum in the UK between 2015 and 2023. Today, other Georgians in her position would not have the same opportunity. Though life in the country remains just as dangerous for LGBTIQ+ people, the British government has declared Georgia “safe” – meaning they can no longer successfully claim asylum here.
This is just one of the many ways that the UK’s hostile immigration policies have endangered LGBTIQ+ people around the world. openDemocracy has spoken to experts, filed Freedom of Information requests and trawled through Home Office datasets to reveal the pain inflicted on the community by legislative changes introduced by the Conservative government since 2022.
Laws that have disproportionately impacted LGBTIQ+ people fleeing persecution include the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA) and the Illegal Migration Act 2023 (IMA). Such an outcome was predicted by the government’s own assessment of its 2021 New Plan for Immigration, the policy platform that would go on to inform the two pieces of legislation.
The changes started with NABA, which introduced a need for LGBTIQ+ asylum-seeking people to provide enhanced evidence of their sexual or gender identity to support their asylum claims. The law also introduced a two-tier asylum system, which means a person’s right to asylum protections varied depending on how they arrived in the UK. Somebody entering the country via a so-called ‘irregular route’ – such as in a small boat or the back of a lorry – or after travelling through a ‘safe’ third country, would not be entitled to the same rights as somebody seeking asylum who came via a ‘safe route’, such as an official resettlement scheme.
This system was tightened further the following year with the IMA, which said a person arriving via an irregular route had no right to claim asylum.
The IMA also gave the home secretary heightened powers to add countries to an existing list of nations considered ‘safe’ without the need for parliamentary approval. Asylum applications from people of these nationalities are automatically judged inadmissible and will not be considered.
It was this power – Section 59 of the IMA – that the Home Office used in November 2023 to declare Georgia safe. But for Anna and many other Georgians, the country is anything but.
“There are two [things] that would happen if I stayed in Georgia,” Anna told openDemocracy. “My father would kill me because of my orientation, or my ex-husband would kill me because I left him and also because of my sexuality.”
Georgia is not the only country to have had its status changed via the IMA. India, whose LGBTIQ+ community continues to face violence and discrimination despite homosexuality having been decriminalised in 2018, was also declared safe.
Zehrah Hasan
Like Anna, Priya* grew up hiding her sexuality from her family in India, whom she said “would hurt or kill” her if they found out. In time, her parents arranged for her to marry a man, but her fiancé called off the engagement when she told him the truth about her sexuality. Though he agreed not to tell her family, it was not long before they discovered her secret.
A relative threatened to kill her or throw acid on her face, “as a punishment for dishonouring the family”, she said. Appeals to the police in India were fruitless. “My experience with reporting my concerns to the police showed me that even though the law has changed, people still do not accept lesbians, and there is no protection for people like me.”
With few options left, Priya flew out to the UK and claimed asylum. Although she was initially refused, she won an appeal and now has refugee status. But she worries about other lesbian women in her home country, who will find it much harder to get asylum in the UK.
“Being a lesbian woman in India is still a very dangerous thing,” warned Priya. “I know there is no way that I can go back and live safely in my country.”
A coalition of LGBTIQ+ and migrant rights activists is now asking the Labour government to repeal the IMA. While the ruling that Georgia and India are safe has not yet come into force, other parts of the UK’s immigration legislation are already being used to limit asylum claims from LGBTIQ+ people from around the world.
The plight of LGBTIQ+ asylum seekers reveals how the caricaturisation of all people arriving into the UK as dangerous, criminally-minded single men, in sections of the press and political discourse, has justified increasingly draconian legislation that threatens the lives and liberties of vulnerable individuals seeking safety, in the hope that the United Kingdom lives up the values that it claims to espouse.
Prove you’re gay
While people applying for asylum on the basis of being LGBTIQ+ have long been required to “prove” their gender or sexual identity in their asylum applications, they now face a higher evidence threshold – meaning they must show they are ‘more likely than not’ to face persecution in their home country.
Before this change was introduced in the 2022 Nationality and Borders Act, asylum-seeking people had to prove only “a reasonable degree of likelihood” of persecution. The Home Office previously said this lower evidence threshold was necessary “because of what is potentially at stake – the individual’s life or liberty – and because asylum seekers are unlikely to be able to compile and carry dossiers of evidence out of the country of persecution”.
In a country where the laws criminalise LGBTIQ+ people’s existence, any attempt to obtain ‘proof’ of one’s sexual and gender identity is fraught with danger. The UK Home Office faced criticism in the mid-2010s for relying on Western stereotypes of gay men when it came to demanding proof, but even today, the situation has barely improved.
Asylum applicants often feel pressure to supply messages from partners, screenshots from dating profiles, or share a “coming out” story – all of which is often impossible if they were hiding their sexuality in their home country. Having been forced to conceal their true selves, many LGBTIQ+ people seeking asylum do not have sufficient ‘proof’ of their sexual or gender identity.
Sian Norris
openDemocracy’s analysis of government data suggests this change and others introduced in NABA reduced the number of LGBTIQ+ people attempting to claim asylum in the UK. In 2022, the year NABA was passed, there were 2,711 asylum claims made where people mentioned possible persecution as a result of their sexual orientation. The following year, this fell to 1,377 claims,
The changes came as countries including the US, Russia, Georgia, Ghana, and even EU member states such as Hungary cracked down on LGBTIQ+ freedoms. In Uganda, the attack on LGBTIQ+ people has been particularly severe, with the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act imposing enhanced criminal sanctions on the community, causing widespread fear and violence.
The new Ugandan law “effectively invalidates our very existence,” said John Grace, a non-binary transgender person from Uganda Minority Shelters Consortium, which supports victims of violence and homelessness in Uganda’s LGBTIQ+ community.
They detailed how the legislation has led to a surge in homelessness, worsened mental health crises, fuelled family rejection, and triggered a wave of violence, harassment, and unemployment targeting LGBTIQ+ people.
“I know of a trans woman who arrived at a hospital haemorrhaging, only to be denied surgery because the doctors refused to acknowledge her existence as a trans person,” Grace said. “People seeking mental health support are routinely told that their homosexuality is the root of their problems.”
“Children and adults are subjected to forced anal examinations – a brutal form of torture – to ‘prove’ they are gay,” they added. “LGBTIQ+ individuals are lured into traps on apps like Grindr, invited to what they believe are dates, only to be violently attacked.”
A total of 540 LGBTIQ+ Ugandans have been given asylum in the UK since 2015. In 2022, the year NABA was passed, 61 Ugandans claimed asylum on the basis of sexuality. The number of claims dropped to 35 in 2023, despite this being the year the AHA was passed.
Small boats and falling claims
All of these risks were predicted. The Conservative government was warned that its New Plan for Immigration – the policy platform that shaped NABA and the IMA – would have a particularly devastating impact on the LGBTQ+ community.
The Home Office’s Equality Impact Assessment – a tool used to ensure new policies and legislation don’t inadvertently discriminate against protected groups – raised concerns over the creation of a tiered asylum system, in which those arriving via ‘safe and legal’ routes or resettlement schemes receive better protections.
It pointed out that the majority of these routes and schemes are available only for those fleeing war zones (with one exception for British nationals in Hong Kong). LGBTIQ+ people in peaceful countries, including Iraq and Iran, and those designated as “safe” – such as Georgia, India and Albania – would struggle to find a route to safety in the UK.
The assessment also queried “how accessible safe and legal routes [to the UK] would be – in particular where the protected characteristics of sexual orientation or gender reassignment are engaged”.
Responding to the assessment at the time, the government said the home secretary may use their “discretion” to allow individuals to come to the UK when they face immediate danger and are not eligible for resettlement. After seven months of stalling on openDemocracy’s questions over how many times this discretion has been used to resettle LGBTIQ+ people, the Home Office ultimately refused to answer.
openDemocracy’s analysis of government figures reveals the impact this ban has had on LGTBIQ+ asylum-seeking people from countries most likely to arrive in the UK on small boats: Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Vietnam, Sudan, Eritrea and Iraq.
In 2021, there were 120 asylum applications made by Iranians on the basis of sexuality. By 2023, that number had dropped to 19. Similarly, there were 171 claims from LGBTIQ+ Iraqis in 2021, dropping to 10 in 2023. Applications based on sexuality rose slightly as a proportion of overall claims, from 2% in 2022 to 3% in 2023.
Life did not dramatically improve for LGBTIQ+ people in Iraq and Iran between 2021 and 2023 – in fact, by 2024, Iraq had criminalised same-sex relationships. Rather, the IMA’s changes meant that LGBTIQ+ people coming to the UK on small boats from these countries were unable to have their claims heard and processed.
The Labour government has repealed the ban on small boat arrivals claiming asylum from the IMA. However, LGBTIQ+ and migrant rights campaigners are now urging the government to do more.
Minesh Parekh, policy and public affairs Manager at Rainbow Migration, a charity that supported Anna and Priya, told openDemocracy that now is the time for Labour to reverse the harms of NABA and the IMA, and “make the UK a place of refuge for LGBTQ+ people”.
“Imagine facing violence just for being LGBTQ+, fleeing your home, hoping for refuge in the UK, only to be told your country is ‘safe’ when you know it isn’t,” he said. “Being sent back isn’t just unfair, it’s cruel.
“Now the government must go further and repeal the Illegal Migration Act (IMA 2023) in full. The IMA is inhumane legislation that punishes people simply for seeking safety.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “This government is committed to maintaining an asylum system that is fair, efficient, and sustainable. No asylum seeker found to be at genuine risk of serious harm will be expected to return to their country of origin.”
Those claiming that a person’s asylum application should be rejected because their home country is ‘safe’ often fall back on arguments about the country in question being an enjoyable holiday destination for Western tourists, rather than a warzone.
In a YouGov survey of British adults conducted in February 2024, for example, 54% of respondents said they would consider India safe for a holiday, and 52% said they would consider it safe for people living there. When the same questions were asked about Syria, just 2% felt it would be a safe place to holiday, and 5% felt it would be safe for people living there.
But no country is safe for everybody. For too many LGBTIQ+ people, countries promoted as attractive holiday destinations or backpacking adventure spots are places of danger, hostility and violence.
Many in the UK will best know Georgia for its fine wines, mountainous landscapes and Black Sea coastline. But for Anna and other LGBTIQ+ Georgians, it’s the place where the 2021 annual Pride event was cancelled due to threats – and where far-right thugs still gathered on the streets, egged on by Orthodox priests, to attack dozens of journalists, activists, and even one Polish tourist whom they suspected was gay.
As Anna told openDemocracy: “My life isn’t safe in my country. I’m especially afraid after the news that happened in Georgia, my return there means death.”
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