CRS Seminar: The Legal and Social Landscape Surrounding Queer Asylum in Japan

Thursday, March 13, 2025

1:00pm - 2:30pm (Toronto)

This is a hybrid session

In person: 857 Kaneff Tower, Keele Campus

Zoom: https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/XG9ZP7CpSrKVVc7ZBMi49w

Guest Speaker: Haruko KUDO, Visiting Scholar, Centre for Refugee Studies and Associate Professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies- Kobe University, Japan

Discussant: David Murray, Professor, Department of Anthropology, York University

This presentation examines how sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) asylum claims are understood within Japan's refugee and asylum system, an area that remains understudied despite international recognition of SOGI asylum. Through an analysis of SOGI cases in Japan since 2004, drawing from government press releases, media reports, and court decisions, the presentation highlights both the partial protections available to queer asylum seekers and the limitations in the country's domestic legal framework and administrative procedures for recognising SOGI-based persecution. This document review, while constrained by the small number of claimants and limited access to case information, is also contextualised within the broader social recognition of “LGBTQ+” people in the society. Although some developments in the legal and social landscape surrounding queer people seem to reflect global sexual politics, the issue of queer displaced persons has not yet gained significant prominence within Japan. This discussion demonstrates how these dynamics contribute to inconsistent interpretations of SOGI asylum cases.

Haruko Kudo (Ph.D. in Sociology) is a Visiting Scholar at CRS and an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, Japan. She previously worked with UNHCR offices in Turkey and Egypt, specialising in protection and the prevention of gender-based violence and sexual exploitation and abuse. Her research focuses on queer migration, and her recent book, Refugees and Sexuality: Inclusion and Exclusion of Sexual Minorities in the U.S. (2022, Akashi Shoten [Japanese]), historicises the discourse around the “protection of vulnerable LGBT refugees and asylum seekers” while examining how asylum politics intersect with the experiences and performativity of queer asylum seekers in the United States.

Her most recent work is available online:

Kudo, Haruko. 2024. “From Security Threat to Subject of Protection: Examining Global Sexuality Politics in the Refugee Protection Regime.” Journal of Gender Studies, 23–40. Ochanomizu University. (DOI: 10.24567/0002004239)