ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a framework for analysis of sexual orientation based asylum claims that aims to accommodate both common themes and divergent outcomes across the range of jurisdictions grappling with these issues to date. Between 1955 and 1967 there were at least nine complaints made under the European Convention on Human Rights by men in Germany and Austria, all designated ‘X’ in their communications, who had been imprisoned for terms between 15 months and six years for the crime of consensual gay sex. While there are thousands of written decisions on sexual orientation available worldwide in English alone, there remains very little reliable data on outcomes or reasoning in most receiving nation. Through ‘discretion reasoning’ claimants may be required, expected or assumed to be capable of (re)concealing, or relocating and thereby reconcealing, their sexuality in their home country order in order to avoid persecution. Discretion logic has shown itself to be extraordinarily resilient.
