“There is Absolutely No Discrimination Based on that Allowed”: Marriage, Migration, and Equality Rhetoric as a Justification for Harm

Abstract

This article contrasts talk surrounding queer marriage and migration with the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people who have petitioned for status in the United States based on their relationships. I find that people use the concept of equality or being “the same” to dismiss testimonies of harm, and to hold individuals instead of systems and laws responsible for harms when they are acknowledged. I place this rhetoric in the context of US family immigration as a colonial and racial project. Through a mixed methods analysis, the article draws a link between the interactions queer and trans people are having online, their personal and couple narratives, and the colonial history and harm endemic to this often idealized immigration pathway.

Race, Gender, and Violence

“…The scholarship on sexuality and intersectionality in the extant u.S. literature, however, revolves largely around kinship and familial lives as well as the context of marriage migration. For instance, Brainer (2022) contends that mixed-status binational queer and trans couples in the united States expose the u.S. family immigration policies as a colonial, gendered, and racial project. She interrogates family migration law as gendered, heteronormative, and colonial, given the refusal of the appeals of noncitizen trans (as opposed to cis) and LGBTQ+ individuals (as opposed to heterosexuals) to migrate to be with their partners and/or to provide care for their conjugal families in the united States.…”