Queer refugees fleeing persecution in their homelands are facing a tough task to prove their sexuality to Australian authorities.
A study published in peer-reviewed social science journal, Sexualities, found that Department of Home Affairs officers assessing refugee status claims did not understand the complexities of some LGBTQI asylum seekers.
Victoria University researcher Brandy Cochrane and independent scholar Lotte Wolff found that Australia's refugee assessment system "perpetuates the forced categorisation (of) queer applicants into LGBTIQ+ labels".
Their research was based on interviews with several Australian legal representatives who were not named because they did not want to jeopardise the applications of their refugee clients.
One lawyer said Immigration Department officers had ingrained stereotypes of how gay refugees were supposed to behave.
"Definitely in terms of gay men, if you are someone that wants to sit at home and just meet people over dinner parties and you are not flamboyant and going out dating or on Grindr, a lot of department officers find that difficult to understand," the lawyer said.
Respondents said an expectation of these refugees "coming out" to prove they were legitimately gay, did not take into account the sometimes dangerous countries they come from, where homosexuality is criminalised.
AAP sought comment from the Home Affairs Department regarding the study's findings but did not receive a response.
Stereotypes extended to other sexual minority groups, the academic article said.
Another legal representative reported clients from Malaysia said culturally specific categories were hard to grapple with in the Australian context.
People identifying as pengkid in Malay culture sometimes bind their chest and are referred to as tomboys, lesbians or transgender.
They generally have female partners and are regularly targeted by Malaysian police for contravening strict religious laws which permit the punishment of caning for same-sex relations as well as for gender nonconformity.
"In Australia we try and put people into a particular box and say well if you're a pengkid, are you a lesbian or are you a transgender man or what? How can we define you?"
"And they just say ... I dress in these clothes which I guess are masculine type clothes, but I was born as a woman."
For Tongan asylum seekers who identify as fakaleiti or as a third gender, it can also be difficult to explain to Australian authorities, one lawyer explained.
Leitis in Polynesian tradition most closely correlate to transgender women but do not fit neatly into western definitions of sexuality.
"How on earth I am going to explain this to an immigration officer? I don't know. How am I going to fit this into the categories of gay and transgender?" the lawyer of a Tongan leitis said.
Some legal representatives described how the shepherding of clients into Australian labels was the path of least resistance.
"Unfortunately, we had to kind of explain the reality of the situation to them (asylum seekers) and encourage them to label themselves."
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