'Gay Tests' for Asylum Seekers Banned by E.U. Court

Citing a disturbing case of a Nigerian man being told by Hungarian officials that he wasn't gay, the E.U.'s high court takes action.

Neal Broverman

Neal Broverman is the Editorial Director, Print of Pride Media, publishers of The Advocate, Out, Out Traveler, and Plus, spending more than 20 years in journalism. He indulges his interest in transportation and urban planning with regular contributions to Los Angeles magazine, and his work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He lives in the City of Angels with his husband, children, and their chiweenie.

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Neal Broverman

January 25 2018 11:51 AM EST

January 25 2018 11:55 AM EST

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Asylum seekers will no longer be forced to take arbitrary tests to prove they're LGBT after the European Union's Court of Justice barred the practice of "gay tests" on Thursday.

The ruling was sparked by an anonymous Nigerian gay man seeking asylum in Hungary due to homophobic persecution in his home nation. The asylym seeker was asked intimate questions about his life by a Hungarian-appointed psychologist and even forced to draw pictures and take a Rorschach inkblot test to prove he was gay. The psychologist decided the Nigerian man was not in fact gay and his asylum plea was rejected; his appeal prompted the E.U. court ruling.

Hungary's ruling right-wing government has bristled at the acceptance of migrants and asylum seekers from areas outside Europe, according to the Associated Press.

The Luxembourg-based judges of the E.U. court ruled such random tests for homosexuality were an invasion of "the most intimate aspects" of life. "The performance of such a test amounts to a disproportionate interference in the private life of the asylum speaker," read the ruling.

The Court of Justice did state that it was acceptable to query experts on an asylum seeker's sexuality or gender identity, but that opinion must be obtained in a humane way and shouldn't serve as the sole reason for accepting or denying one's request for asylum.