Transgendered Asylum and Gendered fears in US Asylum law and Politics

Individuals have been making gender-and sexuality-related asylum claims for almost as long as there have been asylum provisions in the United States, which started with the United States Refugee Act of 1980. These cases would fit into the “social group” category of the 1951 United Nations (UN) definition of a refugee as someone outside of their home country with a well-founded fear of persecution relating to their “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” (UN 1951, 36). But, as many legal scholars have noted, the social group category is challenging because before you can make