ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to take the reader to the research fieldsite by closely following respondents' narratives, from their lives in the countries of origin to their lives in the UK. It presents some of the most striking data from the ethnography that resonates with the conflicting relation between respondents' lived experiences and the broader political terrain in which they are positioned. The chapter focuses on the subjective processes of self-understanding, self-presenting, and the feelings that respondents shared in relation to their lives before, during, and after asylum. Three main areas of their biographical narratives will be considered: being aware and living with one's difference, self-understanding and expressing one's gender and sexuality, and experiencing psychological vulnerability in the country of arrival. All the respondents expressed self-awareness of their (sexual/gender) difference when they were living in their countries, and of the material risks they could encounter if that self-perceived difference would have been given a name in public.
