The integration of Homosexual Migrants Into a Italian Gay Community: Recognition and processes of Sexual Racialization

Queer theory, focusing its attention on the deconstruction of gender and sexual identity, has rarely addressed the issue of ethnic and racial differences. Just as the first feminist writings have been criticised for reflecting the experience and concerns of white women in North American societies, theory today takes too little account of the lives of women and men from other parts of the globe, whose social and cultural origin can not be assimilated into a single universal LGBT condition. And yet such attention is today compelling, as the Fleeing Homophobia report warns us that every year in Europe 10,000 foreign LGBTs apply for international protection for sexual orientation and gender identity (Jansen and Spijkerboer, 2011). If Italian research starts to deal with this issue, the LGBT community in our country has only recently become aware of the problems faced by homosexual migrants. This essay examines the experiences and life stories of male homosexual migrants in Italy, particularly by assessing their degree of integration into the Italian gay community. The analysis of social representations will enable us to understand how homosexuals address the problems of expressing their sexual orientation in the immigration country, taking into account the ties they have with their country of origin, and in particular with their fellow countrymen. In order to evaluate the integration process of foreigners into the local gay community, we collected and examined evidence from workers of those Italian association that have activated services to meet the needs of homosexual migrants who apply for asylum in Italy because they are persecuted In their homeland for their sexual orientation