Gay immigrants need asylum from persecution at home

In El Salvador, Kassandra stood out.

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Kassandra faced a hard life in El Salvador.

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Bryon Large can relate to his clients.

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• Jeniffer Kassandra
• Bryon Large
• Donn Livingston
• Political Asylum
• LGBT Issues

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"I always acted like a little girl," she says in Spanish. "I would wear my mom's makeup. I liked my mom's clothes. I loved the kitchen and cleaning the house."

That wouldn't have been unusual, except for the fact that Kassandra was born a little boy named Rafael Guillermo Menjivar Guevara. Though she dressed as a boy, kept her hair short and went by Rafael, Kassandra knew always — siempre — that she should have been born a girl. Others noticed she was different, too. From an early age, Kassandra remembers being teased and called "faggot." And perhaps because of that, she was vulnerable.

The first rape happened when she was seven years old. Her sister's husband, alone in the house with Rafael while the rest of the family was at the hospital awaiting the birth of the couple's baby, forced himself upon the boy, who was left feeling dirty and confused.

Kassandra tried to change who she was, spending eight years studying to become a Catholic priest, but it didn't work. And since she continued to dress as a boy, and then as a man, her life was marked by a string of men — neighbors, relatives, classmates, work associates, lovers and gangsters — who perceived her as a gay man and subjected her to decades of brutal violence.

It didn't end until she fled to the United States in 2004 and wound up in Boulder, alone and speaking no English, but free. A year later, she mustered enough courage to reveal her true self: a beautiful woman whose auburn hair falls past her shoulders and curls at the ends, a woman who favors skirts and heels and manicured fingernails and whose chosen name, Jeniffer Kassandra, sounds regal when she pronounces it through painted lips: Yeniffer Ka-sahn-drrra.

But in 2009, Kassandra was arrested on a warrant for an outstanding traffic ticket — something that threatened to end her new life. Facing deportation at the immigrant detention center in Aurora, she decided to apply for asylum. Her application was late; asylum-seekers like Kassandra who enter the country illegally must apply within a year of arriving.

Still, a week before her court hearing in early April, Kassandra, 43, was hopeful. The chances of winning increase if the applicant suffered past persecution in his or her country.

"God has a reason," she said. "This is what we're going to show them."

*****

Sam never did anything illegal. Not in America, anyway.

When he came here in 2006, it was on a tourist visa to visit an American man he'd first met in his native Egypt. While in the U.S., Sam applied for and won a student visa, which he used to enroll in Colorado Technical University in Denver to study IT management. A few months before that visa was set to expire, he applied for asylum to stay here.

Dressed in skinny black jeans, Birkenstocks, and a black hiking shirt that zips at the neck, Sam, 36, doesn't stand out. His appearance and mannerisms are not stereotypically gay by Hollywood standards; his body language is masculine and his style is casual. He speaks with an accent that is neither gruff nor soft, though his voice is quiet.

But just because Sam is inconspicuous doesn't mean his life in Egypt was easy or just. "I know if I go back, I won't be able to live my life there," he says in English.

"They're going to try to force me to get married," he says of his family, who doesn't know that he's gay. "And then if I don't want to get married, they're going to ask, 'Why? What's wrong with you?' Here, I can live as a gay person. I can just fall in love and have a home and a place like everyone else. But there, I can't."

In Egypt, Sam's love life is forbidden. Though there are no explicit laws against homosexuality, the government routinely arrests gay men for violations such as "offending religion" and "habitual debauchery." Human-rights organizations report that the men are often tortured and subjected to forcible anal exams. In some instances, jailers have been known to attach telephone wires to men's penises and switch on the electricity.

That's why in Egypt, Sam was discreet. In the nine years between when he graduated from Cairo University and when he left for America, he had only one Egyptian boyfriend. In public, they acted like friends, and because of Sam's demeanor and appearance, he wasn't targeted by police.

But because Sam never came out to his family or friends, isn't known to authorities and was never arrested or tortured, his path toward asylum is likely to be more difficult.

A week after meeting with an asylum officer in late March, Sam was nervous.

"I was surprised she didn't ask more questions," he said. "I hope she didn't need to."

*****

Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States don't come here solely in search of the American Dream. Instead, they are fleeing their countries and must convince the government that they should be allowed to stay because they fear persecution in their native country based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. For decades, the seminal, United Nations-backed definition of "members of a particular social group" was people who have a "common immutable characteristic" that they cannot change.