Abstract
This chapter questions the challenges trans refugees encounter when beginning the integration process in Italy. It finds out that both refugee-specific challenges and the challenges valid for transgender persons generally render their integration a complex process. First, the chapter analyses the challenges faced by refugees in the integration process, due to both the lack of an institutional system and a hostile social environment. It then focuses on how the lack of an institutionalised integration process is even more problematic for vulnerable refugees and trans refugees in particular. In the second section, the chapter describes the situation of trans people in Italy, outlining the discrimination problems and drawing parallelisms between the integration challenges faced by refugees and ones faced by trans individuals. The article furthermore analyses a number of challenges faced solely by trans and gender non-conforming refugees. Lastly, a number of recommendations are made to the Italian organisations in order to overcome the lack of institutional help in the integration process.
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In this chapter, the term trans will be used as an umbrella term aimed at including people that identify as transgender, transexual and non-binary trans.
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Corte Costituzionale, sentenza n. 221, [2015].
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C-13/94 P v. S and Cornwall County Council; C-117/01 K.B. v. NHS Pensions Agency.
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“Federatie van Nederlandse Verenigingen tot Integratie van Homoseksualiteit COC Nederland”.
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Bassetti, E. (2019). Integration Challenges Faced by Transgender Refugees in Italy. In: Güler, A., Shevtsova, M., Venturi, D. (eds) LGBTI Asylum Seekers and Refugees from a Legal and Political Perspective. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91905-8_17
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