First migrant to win asylum in UK on the grounds they are non-binary says they feel ‘blessed’ and praises ‘open minded’ people of Liverpool who pay compliments and make the city ‘feel like home’
- Arthur Britney Joestar, 29, ‘blessed’ to live in Liverpool after being given asylum
- Non-binary Joestar fled to UK in 2017 after being subject to abuse in El Salvador
- After winning a landmark tribunal judgement Joestar is enjoying life in Liverpool
A non-binary person who was granted the right to asylum in the UK because they were persecuted at home in El Salvador has spoken of their ‘positive’ experience living in Liverpool.
Arthur Britney Joestar, 29, said that they feel ‘blessed’ to live in the city which ‘feels like home’ after winning their case to settle in Britain in a landmark upper tribunal judgement in September.
The Britney Spears fan fled to the UK in October 2017 after being persecuted and subject to daily abuse at home in El Salvador, where transgender women have a life expectancy of just 35.
Now free to live as they wish Joestar has praised the ‘open minded’ people of Liverpool who pay compliments to their hair and ‘really take care of me’.
Equality activists have hailed the landmark upper tribunal judgement in the case of Arthur Britney Joestar (pictured) and said it was likely to make it easier for non-binary people to find a safe home in Britain
Joestar told Vice: ‘I couldn’t be more grateful to be here in Liverpool. Liverpool is one of the best places here in the UK.’
They added: ‘I can go out and girls stop me and say, ”OMG I love your hair!’ I’m glad I’m trying to make this place my home.’
Whilst walking home from university in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, in 2013, Joestar was stopped and attacked by police who accused them of being not normal.
Officers punched them on the chest and pushed them to the floor, saying they would teach Joestar ‘how to be a man’ as people walked by leaving Joestar laying bleeding like a ‘dying dog’, they told Vice.
Now free to live as they wish Joestar has praised the ‘open minded’ people of Liverpool
Joestar arrived in the UK in October 2017 to escape daily abuse in El Salvador, where transgender women have a life expectancy of just 35
Joestar added that they have also experienced people throwing rubbish and even a plastic bag full of urine at them in El Salvador, where the UN has repeatedly called for more to be done to tackle such violence.
The UK ruling states that a return to their home country would like see Joestar face threats of physical and sexual violence.
However, Joestar had been refused UK asylum twice before, first in November 2018 when the police brutality described was said to have ‘amounted to no more than discrimination’.
Then again nearly 18 months later, their second claim on the basis of non-binary identity was initially refused by upheld on appeal.
Joestar previously told the Guardian: ‘The way the judge handled the case: she just understood me – all the tiny details … she saw the whole picture.
Joestar also experienced people throwing rubbish and even a plastic bag full of urine at them in El Salvador
‘At the end, she turned to look at me and started speaking to me in Spanish, to tell me she granted me the right to stay in this country and the right to be who I want to be. I just started to cry. I felt like I was born again.’
In another recent case in Joestar’s home country, hailed as a landmark in July, three police officers were each sentenced to more than 20 years in prison after being found guilty by a judge in San Salvador of the the murder of Camila Díaz Córdova.
It was the first conviction for a hate crime against a transgender woman in El Salvador.
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