Six more reasons Canada might decide you’re not gay (Part 2) |

December 7, 2015 – Reported by Daily Xtra – When the Liberal government announced gay men from Syria will be prioritized for refugee status, we began to look at previous LGBT refugee claims made to Canada’s Refugee Appeals Division (RAD). The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has guidelines for how front-line workers should try to determine the sexual orientation of refugee claimants. These include suggestions like exploring applicants’ experiences of difference or shame instead of asking detailed questions about their sex lives. But a look at judgments from the RAD shows that immigration officials sometimes don’t follow that advice. Instead, they will often nitpick statements and discredit the testimony of refugees based on unfounded ideas of how sexual orientation works. We’ve included the judgments from the RAD and the relevant sections, summarized and re-stated for length and clarity, so you can see for yourself what the process can look like — here are six more reasons why some applicants claiming persecution for their sexuality were denied refugee status…story continues below…