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Undocumented Homos : the discrimination land

appeared in the of September 29, 1998

Many thanks to Marek Jasiok (jasiok@hotmail.com) who made the translation !

Like all other irregular immigrants, the homosexual and transgendered non-residents are engaged in constant struggle with the same administrative problems, exposed to the same indifference of public officials, to the same ill will, to the same xenophobic attitudes as their straight counterparts. At the same time, however, they are also subject to more specific discrimination. For one thing, even though  troubled with a great deal of suspiciousness from the part of the city councils, a straight couple living together may choose to marry and thus automatically obtain the regularization of stay for the non-resident subject. A solution inaccessible for gay and lesbian couples as the law does not permit same sex marriages. Christian and Hichem have lived together  as couple for six years; and yet, Hichem is considered by the administration as ‘single’. Does the administration take their actual situation into account?

No. The Ministry of Interior refused to process their case thus plunging them into incertitude.

Secondly, in several countries homosexuality is penalized by imprisonment, at times by death. In many other countries, even though they are not otherwise considered criminals, homosexuals are frequently exposed to bashing and humiliations; To escape this inferno, some choose France as their land of asylum. This was the case with Y. C. ho as fled Île Maurice, where the law persecuted homosexual relationships, and where he had lived under constant pressure and disapproval from both his family and his environment.

Has the administration taken this reality into consideration ? No.

And this regardless of the fact that cases like his fall into provisions of the ‘Chevènement Curriculum’ and the Réséda Act. Too restrictive interpretation of the provisions of the Curriculum, as well as possibilities of arbitrary decisions open by the new act bring gays and lesbians to the point where they cannot benefit from their right to family and private life. They are equally denied reception in France on the grounds of inhuman and degrading treatment they put up with in their countries of origin. Expelling homosexuals to homophobic countries makes France an accomplice. Such discrimination is homophobic in nature as homosexuals living with a foreign partner become, in fact, second class citizens. Constantly in danger of losing the loved one, they do not possess, in reality, the same rights as others; Such situation is, in our view, no longer tolerable.

The homosexual and transgendered immigrants have now united under the ‘Collectif des homosexuel(le)s et les transsexuel(le)s sans papiers’, supported by four organizations: Act Up - Paris,  ARDHIS, Centre Gai et Lesbien, and Droits Devant !! The objective of the Collectif is to alert the public officials and other citizens about this inequality, as well as to encourage the administration to  recognize the demands for residence filed by homosexual and transgendered persons on the grounds of either discrimination in their countries of origin or the affective links they have created in our country. The politicians and administrative officials have shown little attention toward  this initiative. It is true that the high officials of the ministries have kindly listened to the demands, at time making oral promises. Nevertheless, they generally neither confirm these promises in writing nor do they assume responsibility about them. Such attitude of ill will and cynicism, paired with overt arrogance of certain prefectures (displaced files, lost items, etc.) proves that homosexual sans papiers are always considered to have no rights. The time of shame, when homosexuals had to contend themselves with a substitute of citizenship has long been over and done with. The Gay Pride unites every year hundreds of thousands of demonstrators. A collective action as ours does not consist in the fight for half-rights, but for full  rights. Judging from its attitude towards homosexuals and sans papiers in general, it seems like the government has forgotten about the promises he had made to its electorate and has abandoned their left-wing values. By  refusing to take into account the situation of foreign friends and life companions of a great number of homosexual citizens, the government risks to incite their anger, as they find themselves again discriminated. The question of a foreign partner is the center of the debate: we are not ready to accept that foreign gays and lesbians - not more than foreign heterosexual common law partners - should be affected by the arbitrariness of law: we have no intention to allow that our beds and our lives be modeled on some national preference. We want a regularization of our status, whether through PaCS or other means, but without ridiculing the fundamental principles of the European Convention of the Rights of Man and human dignity.

Lionel Povert
President of ARDHIS
(Association under the 1901 Act for the Recognition of the Rights of Homosexual  and Transgendered Persons to Immigration and Residence)

The above document was equally signed and endorsed by the following persons and organizations:

Association Bagdam Café(Toulouse), Indi (Collectif des Homos Sans Papiers), Collectif du site web « zpajol » des sans papiers, Jean-Yves Cottin, (Comité des Sans-Logis), Françoise d'Eaubonne, Eric Fassin(enseignant et chercheur), Association les Imedianes Flora Leroy-Forgeot  (juriste), Nathalie Millet ( Présidente Centre Gai et Lesbien), Vincent Espagne (Droits Devant!!), Pierre Gandonnière (Commission nationale Gaie et Lesbienne des Verts), Jean-Luc Hennig (écrivain), Philippe Mangeot (Président Act Up-Paris), Henri Maurel (Président Radio FG), Serge Guichard (dirigeant national du PCF), Aline Pailler (députée européenne), Pierre et Gilles (artistes), Françoise Gaspard (Professeur à l'EHESS), Claire Czinczenheim (Du côté des femmes, Lille), Coordination nationale lesbienne, Sylvain Ladent (Comité pour la Reconnaissance Sociale des Homosexuels), Bruno Mègre, Pierre Verdrager, Pascal Bonète (technicien), Christophe Renaudot(étudiant), Axel Maxys, Scott Shaughnessy, Ph.D., Hans Stuifbergen (chefa redaktero di La Kordiego Geyal, letro di novaji en Ido-linguo), Pascal Estèbe, Ludovic Guyot, Jean-Christophe Berche (Educateur - Rlf NANCY), BEN LAHOUCINE Tony (MJS 45 et Collectif Loiret pour le PACS), Valérie Schriber, Bernard VALGAEREN (Professeur de Physique-Chimie), Juliette Sançois, Michael Reed, Don DuPont & Brian Hiller, ...

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