Concept and Lead
Dr. Mengia Tschalaer, School for Sociology, Politics, and International Studies, University of Bristol
Mengia Tschalaer is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York, a Research Fellow at Brunel Law School and an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. She has taught courses related to gender and sexuality law, identity and culture, and intersectionality at the City University of New York and Columbia University. She was also a visiting scholar at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia University and has published extensively on socio-legal resistance, human rights, Islam and gender in India, and on queer asylum politics and practice in Germany. Between 2018-2020 she led a EU-funded project that examines the experiences of LGBTQI+ people with Muslim background within Germany’s asylum system.
Dr. Nina Held, University of Sussex, SOGICA
Nina is a Research and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Sussex. As a postdoctoral researcher she is currently working on the ERC-funded project SOGICA – Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Claims of Asylum. Before coming to Sussex, Nina worked in different voluntary organisations. She worked as the Development Worker at Trafford Rape Crisis for two years and as the Centre Co-ordinator at Freedom from Torture North West for five years. For seven years, she was the chair and a volunteer for the Lesbian Immigration Support Group in Manchester.
Collaborators
Dr. des. Harpreet Cholia, Refugee Council Hessen
Harpreet Kaur Cholia is an independent researcher, lecturer, practitioner and advisor in the field of critical migration studies, feminism, empowerment, anti-racism and anti-discrimination. As the president of the Refugee Council of Hessen, Germany, Cholia has been working for the rights of refugees and their rights to remain in Germany. She has been recently appointed to head of the new and innovative department “Diversity and Democracy” at the social enterprise GFFB in Frankfurt am Main, where she is working on anti-racist, feminist and diversity in the framework of democracy building. Cholia is also a psycho-social counsellor at “Response. Hessen” at the Education Centre Anne Frank in Frankfurt. There she provides one to one counselling to victims of right-wing and racist violence.
Danijel Ćubelić, European Coalition of Cities Against Racism
Danijel Benjamin Ćubelić is Head of Antidiscrimination at the Office for Equal Opportunities of the City of Heidelberg, Germany. He serves on the advisory board for “Acceptance and Equal Rights” of the state of Baden-Württemberg and as a deputy board member of the German Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency. He is also an adjunct lecturer at the Department for the Study of Religions, Heidelberg University and Speaker of the Islam research group of the German Association for the Study of Religions. Since January 2020, he is managing director of the European Coalition of Cities against Racism.
Mohammad Dalla, Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld
Mohammad Dalla is a research assistant at the Federal Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld (BMH) and the University of Potsdam. Since starting his studies in Germany in 2016, Mohammad has been active in several projects addressing “Special Vulnerable Groups” of refugees with different organizations such as the Foundation Social Pedagogical Institute Berlin (SPI), Lesbians and Gays Association (LSVD) Berlin-Brandenburg, and the Gunda-Werner-Institute of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation. Mohammad is currently pursuing his Master’s degree in Cultural Studies with a focus on identity politics, gender and refugee studies at the University of Potsdam and has been working in the Department of Social Participation and Antidiscrimination of the BMH, Berlin since February 2019.
Dr. Marie-Luise Löffler
Marie-Luise Löffler is the Women’s and Gender Equality Officer of the City of Heidelberg, Germany, and part of the team of the Office for Equal Opportunities (City of Heidelberg). As such, her activities on the local, state and federal level of Germany as well as on the EU-level are strongly shaped by her academic background within the fields of gender, intersectionality and anti-racism on which she has researched and lectured extensively (University of Leipzig, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley). Her current work has a particular focus on the issue of violence against women and the Istanbul Convention – from 2019-2021 she carried out one of first German pilot projects of the local implementation of the Istanbul Convention with the EU Commission (GUIDE4YOU). She serves on the advisory board of several EU-projects on gender diversity and intersectionality and is a member of the Gender Equality Committee of the Association of German Cities and the Federal Association of Women’s and Gender Equality Officers
Magdalena Müssig
Magdalena Müssig holds a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Studies with a focus on gender, queer postcolonial and migration studies from the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) and has been working for several organisations and initiatives that advocate for gender equality, queer rights and the right to asylum.
Abed Al Rahman Arab, Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld
Abed Al Rahman Arab is a student assistant at the Federal Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld in the department “Society, Participation and Anti-Discrimination”. He is studying rehabilitation education at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Since his arrival in Germany he has been involved in many social, societal and political programs and workshops that reject racism and discrimination. Since January 2020 he is part of the project ‘Men Standing up for Gender Equality’ of the organization ‘Terre des Femmes’. Since April 2019 he is a member of the ‘HU Welcome Tandems’ program at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Lilith Raza, Lesbian and Gay Association in Germany
Lilith is a Transwoman with migration background. She is working for the rights of LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers in Germany since 2015. Since November 2017 she is working for the German wide LSVD e.V Project “Queers Refugees Deutschland”. The aim of the new LSVD project “Queer Refugees Germany” is to network the structures existing throughout Germany as well as refugee LGBTI activists and to support them in their work.
Dr. Gesa Teichert, Bundesstiftung Magnus Hirschfeld
Dr. Gesa C. Teichert is the scientific advisor at the Department Society, Participation, and Anti-Discrimination of the Federal Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld (BMH), where she coordinates the project Refugees & Queers. Gesa holds a PhD in Cultural Studies with a focus on gender, cultural heritage, and the construction of normality from the Philipps University Marburg. She has been working in several positions at universities as a scientist, a scientific advisor at a research center für gender, and as an equal opportunities officer. She is an activist for the rights of queer families and disabled queers.
Knud Wechterstein, Rainbow Refugees Frankfurt
Knud Wechterstein is a founding member of the “Rainbow Refugees Frankfurt Verein” established in October 2015 and was a member of its board from 2016 – 2019. Knud is currently the coordinator of „Rainbow Refugees Support“ at the AIDS-Hilfe, Frankfurt. He further supports LGBT*IQ refugees with their asylum claims, and their access to queer groups as well as medical and psychological treatment. He further advices LGBT*QI refugees on issues pertaining to residence permits and employment.
Anbid Zaman, Representative of the ILGA Youth Steering Committee for Europe and Central Asia
Anbid Zaman is a LGBTQI Human Rights defender currently living in Cologne, Germany. From the age of sixteen, he started his engagement in LGBTI human rights, gender equality, environmental and social justice in Bangladesh. He worked for the first ever Bangladeshi LGBTI magazine publishing organisation Roopbaan. Since living in Germany, Anbid started working with both German and other European organisations. He joined the executive board of Aktionsbündnis gegen Homophobie e.V. on March 2017 and recently got elected to represent Central Asian and European LGBTI Youth to the ILGA World Intersectional Committee focusing on LGBTI youth globally.
Supporters
Prof. Dr. Bridget Anderson, Migration Mobilities Bristol, University of Bristol
Bridget Anderson is the Director of the Bristol Institute on Migration and Mobility Studies and Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship at University of Bristol.
Dr. Ines Kappert, Gunda-Werner Institute
Dr. Ines Kappert is the head of Gunda-Werner-Institute for Feminism of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Feminism for immigration society, refugees and Women, Peace and Security. She is the author of the book “Der Mann in der Krise. Oder: Konservative Kapitalismuskritik im kulturellen Mainstream (Transcript, 2008). From 2007-2015, Dr. Kappert was the head of the opinion-desk of the German daily taz.
Prof. Dr. Uta Ruppert, Feminisms and the Global South, Goethe University
Uta Ruppert is a professor of Political Science and Political Sociology with a focus on Global South and Gender Studies at the faculty of Social Sciences at Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany. She is a member of the board of directors of the Cornelia Goethe Centre for Gender Studies. Her research focusses on transnational feminisms, transnational solidarities and civil society in transnational and transregional processes of social and political change. Her (trans)regional focus is on East and Southern African countries respectively on African-Asian relations (together with Ross Anthony she edited the volume Reconfiguring Transregionalisation in the Global South. African-Asian Encounters, Palgrave 2020). With regard to theory and praxis of solidarities across borders and in the field of asylum her focus lies on European, especially feminist and queer feminist contributions to the discourse.
