Queer(y)ing Asylum

About Queer(y)ing Asylum

Queer(y)ing Asylum is a podcast about LGBTIQ+ asylum: the stories, the politics, and the everyday realities behind the headlines. Hosted by Dr Diego García Rodríguez, each episode brings together scholars, practitioners, artists, and people with lived experience to explore forced migration through an intersectional lens: credibility and “proof”, borders and bureaucracy, faith and sexuality, mental health and structural violence, housing and detention, activism and survival, and the everyday strategies people use to endure and to remake community. Subscribe for new episodes <3

Publisher

Queer(y)ing Asylum Network

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Feb 2024

Latest episode

11 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

21 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Jul 2026

   The Queer(y)ing Asylum Podcast S3E4: LGBTIQ+ Rights, Forced Migration and Solidarity in Russia and the EECA Region, with Georgy from Coming Out

   In this episode of Queer(y)ing Asylum, Diego speaks with Georgy from Coming Out, an organisation supporting LGBTIQ+ people from Russia and the wider EECA region. Coming Out's main goal is to help LGBTQ+ people in Russia and EECA region to live normal, safe, and dignified lives — institutionally and socially. They have been working towards it since 2008. Together, Diego and Georgy discuss the increasingly hostile legal and political context for LGBTIQ+ people in Russia, including the impact of anti-LGBTIQ+ legislation, the designation of LGBTIQ+ organising as “extremist”, and what this means for people’s everyday lives, safety, community and access to support. The conversation also explores forced migration and asylum, trauma-informed and queer-affirming care, evidence gathering, and the role of international solidarity. Georgy reflects on how Coming Out supports people at different stages of their journeys, from those still inside Russia to those who have left and are trying to rebuild their lives elsewhere. This episode is a conversation about risk, care, resistance and hope, and about what it means to support LGBTIQ+ communities in contexts where visibility, solidarity and organising can carry serious consequences. Relevant links Coming Out: https://comingoutspb.org/en/ (https://comingoutspb.org/en/) Human Rights Watch article, “Russia: LGBT Rights Groups Further Criminalized”: https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/05/28/russia-lgbt-rights-groups-further-criminalized (https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/05/28/russia-lgbt-rights-groups-further-criminalized) Register for the Queer(y)ing Asylum Conference in Madrid, 29 and 30 October: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=as2-rtQxAUuVzoJ0r-hT2TDz_sAKJslMiCtH2lLJqbVUQ1hGQ0lLWkcwT0ZYWEtRODVHVThRSDVGMC4u&route=shorturl (https://forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=as2-rtQxAUuVzoJ0r-hT2TDz_sAKJslMiCtH2lLJqbVUQ1hGQ0lLWkcwT0ZYWEtRODVHVThRSDVGMC4u&route=shorturl)

2. 

   2 Mar 2026

   The Queer(y)ing Asylum Podcast S3E3: Queering UK Refugee Law with Alex Powell

   In this episode of the Queer(y)ing Asylum Podcast, Diego speaks with Dr Alex Powell (https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/people/alex-powell/) (Associate Professor in Law at Warwick Law School) about his book Queering UK Refugee Law: Sexual Diversity and Asylum Administration (https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/queering-uk-refugee-law) and what it reveals about how the UK asylum system recognises, and routinely misrecognises, queer lives. Together, they explore how contemporary culture-war politics and anti-migrant narratives shape asylum decision-making, influencing who is seen as believable, “grievable”, and deserving of protection. Drawing on Alex's socio-legal research with people seeking asylum, legal practitioners, and third-sector organisations, the conversation examines the everyday realities of credibility assessments: the pressure to fit narrow expectations of sexuality and gender, racialised assumptions about queer identities, and the practical challenges of producing the kinds of evidence decision-makers often expect. The episode also reflects on practice and change, discussing how lawyers, advocates, and community organisations work within a hostile environment while trying to protect people, and what more just and humane approaches to asylum could look like in policy, legal culture, and public discourse. Dr Alex Powell’s work sits at the intersections of law, gender, sexuality, and migration, using critical and socio-legal methodologies to challenge dominant understandings of refugee law and asylum administration.

3. 

   31 Dec 2025

   The Queer(y)ing Asylum Podcast S3E2: Asylum isn’t “obvious”: queer migration, mental health, and structural violence with Satrio Nindyo Istiko / Tiko

   In this episode of Queer(y)ing Asylum, Diego is joined by Satrio Nindyo Istiko — Tiko (he/she) — an independent public health social scientist and writer working at the intersections of migration and health. Together, they unpack a core idea that often gets missed in public debates: asylum is not a universal or self-evident route to safety. For many LGBTIQ+ people on the move, “asylum” is something they only learn about after migration, often through peers, informal networks, NGOs, or online spaces, and that timing shapes mental health, risk, and decision-making. The conversation explores: Why the decision to seek asylum is frequently non-linear, delayed, or never taken, even when persecution is present. How structural violence, and not just individual trauma, shapes everyday wellbeing and the “choices” people appear to make. The role of services and support systems, including how they can unintentionally reinforce narrow ideas of the “ideal” asylum seeker through gatekeeping and narrative expectations. What decolonial approaches look like in practice, and how creative/visual methods can shift what counts as knowledge. What happens after status, including the tensions of being positioned as a representative or “peer voice”, and what meaningful power-sharing could look like beyond box-ticking representation. About Tiko Satrio Nindyo Istiko or Tiko (He/She) is an independent public health social scientist and a writer, working in the intersections of migration and health. Tiko is interested in the politics of migration-health research, sexual health and wellbeing of LGBTIQ+ people on the move, decolonial and participatory methodologies, and storytelling as a tool for public health intervention, teaching, and advocacy. Visit Tiko’s website: https://writtenbytiko.com (https://writtenbytiko.com) Read more (articles mentioned in the episode): Satrio Nindyo Istiko, Understanding key priority areas of mental health among queer asylum seekers and refugees in Australia through the lens of structural violence: A modified Delphi method study (Journal of Refugee Studies) https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/37/3/750/7735332 (https://academic.oup.com/jrs/article/37/3/750/7735332) Satrio Nindyo Istiko, Elite Actors: Understanding Representation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities in the Australian Health System Through an Intersectional Lens (Stolen Tools) https://stolentools.com/index.php/Journal/article/view/24 (https://stolentools.com/index.php/Journal/article/view/24) Satrio Nindyo Istiko, Statutory of Declaration (Other Terrain Literary Journal) https://www.otherterrainjournal.com.au/genres/non-fiction/statutory-of-declaration/ (https://www.otherterrainjournal.com.au/genres/non-fiction/statutory-of-declaration/) Florent Chossière, ‘I knew about political asylum, but not about asylum for gay people’: How queer exiles come to apply (or not) for SOGI asylum in France (Journal of Refugee Studies) https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrs/feaf003/8020945 (https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrs/feaf003/8020945)

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

1 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

15 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 29 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

38

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

51