Mariza Avgeri is a qualified lawyer in Greece and an Associate lecturer in Law, Culture and Society, International Law and Public Law at the Open University, UK. She has graduated with a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Political Science from VU Amsterdam. She is has completed her PhD in Maynooth University at the Law Department working on transgender asylum claims and jurisprudence in the context of the European Union and was awarded the first prize for best thesis in 2023 in European Law by the European Law Faculties association. She was a John and Pat Hume fellow for the duration of her doctoral studies. In the past, she has worked as a legal researcher, a case worker at the Greek Asylum Service and a member of the Appels’ Committees. She has participated in many civil rights initiatives regarding migrant rights and LGBT rights, both as a lawyer and as a member of the queer community.
Publications
Academic publications
- A transgender studies approach to gender identity and expression-based asylum claims based on a critical doctrinal and discourse analysis of CJEU and ECtHR jurisprudence. PhD Thesis. Maynooth University 2023 - open access.
- Trans*it: Narratives of trans and non-binary asylum applicants in the broader West, Sexualities Special Issue (Here Vs There), April 2021 - open access.
- Assessing trans and gender nonconforming asylum claims: Towards a Transgender Studies Framework in Particular Social Group and Persecution, Refugees and Conflict in Frontiers in Human Dynamics, Refugees and Conflict, April 2021 - Award of open access publication fees.
- An EU-US Comparative Legal Analysis of Transgender Asylum Adjudication (UnLocal’ Queer Immigrant project online report, July 2023 - open access.
- Accepted: ‘MB vs Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (European Union): A Transgender Studies rewriting of the MB judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union.’ In Ferreira, N, Moscati, M, Raj, S. (Eds) Queer Judgements Project. Counterpress, forthcoming - open access.