Intersectional geopolitics, transgender advocacy and the new media environment

This chapter presents a conceptual overview of these practices of queer migration. It uses the term queer’ to define queer migration’ in two ways. First, as an umbrella category to describe a range of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identities, queer migration refers to the migration of LGBTs such as same-sex partner migration and sexual identity-based asylum. Second, as a critical category that challenges normativity, queer migration refers to how the regulated norms of migration are constructed as irregular’ by discourses of border protection and its institutions of migration control. The chapter begins with a theoretical framing that calls for a critical approach to inclusion and mobility. It further demonstrates its new paradigm of queer migration using two case studies. The first is a historical look back at how Chinese migration to Australia. The second is a contemporary investigation into sexual identity-based asylum in Australia.