The European Union and the politicization of gender and sexuality in the reforms of the Common European Asylum System (1999-2020)

The history of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) is often considered to be tightly intertwined to that of European security, and late developments in European cooperation indeed seem to demonstrate that asylum has become first and foremost a matter of security in Europe. Yet, this tightening of policies contrasts with the flourishing of proposals claiming to mainstream equality throughout European legislation. This dissertation examines the way a politicized issue in the field of equality—LGBTI rights—has become incorporated into a cooperation mechanism that is itself divisive among Member States, the CEAS. It answers the following question: what does the European LGBTI asylum debate demonstrate about the role played by politicization in shaping the meaning and form taken by equality in European policies? Through a qualitative inquiry, it shows that while the CEAS has been a key space of renegotiation of LGBTI equality in Europe, this deepening came at the cost of the disarticulation of LGBTI emancipation from migrants’ rights. Contrarily to what has been assumed by the literature on homonationalism, this disarticulation was not strategically constructed by LGBTI activists. It rather originated from the predominance of the paradigm of “migration governance”, which depoliticizes exclusions and divides causes to better manage populations. Consequently, even though politicization is often perceived as a negative phenomenon by policymakers, this dissertation shows that what is needed to make the CEAS hold its promises of protection is not less, but more political debate. Only through this re-politicization will new and collective forms of equality emerge.