Truths, fakes and the deserving queer migrant

Abstract

This article explores the role of truth within queer migration. By analysing a host of cultural production – including the verbatim theatre performance Rights of Passage by Claire Summerskill, the short film Crypsis by Christopher McGill, the ethnofictional film Samira by Nicola Mai, and the film The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson – I will challenge the necessity of attempting to discover the truth of queer migrants as sexual and gendered subjects, particularly as related to asylum claims. Yet if questions are raised about the importance of truth, this also demands analysing the role of faking sexuality and gender, and ‘fake’ queer migrants more broadly, referring to those who allegedly fabricate their sexuality and gender to claim asylum. Instead of suggesting faking implies the possibility of undeservingness, I use faking as a theoretical tool to understand the demands of truth, and how faking may become means to subvert the grounds of who is considered a deserving queer migrant seeking asylum. By disrupting the binary between truths and fakes, the very notion of there being truths of queer migrants (and the subject more broadly) will be questioned.