Transgender Immigrants Research Articles

East coast kitchen party - Creating an inclusive community for queer and transgender immigrants through cooking and conversation in Halifax, Canada

East coast kitchen party - Creating an inclusive community for queer and transgender immigrants through cooking and conversation in Halifax, Canada

Advocating for Transgender Immigrants in Detention Centers: Cisnormativity as a Tool for Racialized Social Control

Despite public concern over immigration enforcement, little attention has been given to transgender immigrants, who are disproportionately at risk for arrest and deportation. Organizations dedicated to protecting LGBT people’s rights and immigrant rights have been working to address this issue and shape policy decisions to better protect transgender immigrants in detention centers; however, research has not investigated how these organizations frame transgender immigrant detainees and their experience in detention to accomplish their goals. This current study uses a content analysis of public documents spanning 2009–2021 from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Transgender Law Center (TLC) to investigate how two legal advocacy organizations frame the issue of transgender immigrants within detention centers. The ACLU rarely discusses transgender immigrants and thus upholds cisnormativity. When they do discuss transgender immigrants, their transgender identity is referenced as a singular issue in isolation from other facets of their identity. The TLC, on the other hand, frames immigration detention for transgender immigrants as part of a larger web of oppression. Through a comparison of the ACLU and TLC, this study underscores the role of cisnormativity as a tool for racialized social control. Findings highlight the importance of a critical, intersectional approach to immigration advocacy and scholarship that challenges the cisnormative assumptions guiding the current immigration system. Implications for future research and service provision are discussed.

“They already hate us for being immigrants and now for being trans—we have double the fight”: A qualitative study of barriers to health access among transgender Latinx immigrants in the United States

Introduction Latinx transgender people who are also immigrants experience barriers to health services and comprise a marginalized group at risk for poor mental health. Greater understanding of transgender Latinx immigrants’ health needs and experiences with the U.S. healthcare system is needed to improve their access to health services. Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of transgender Latina immigrants (n = 10) in the Seattle, WA area. Analysis of the qualitative data involved a data-reduction process in which emergent themes were identified and coded to yield a set of core themes. Results Analyses revealed that Latinx transgender immigrants experience multiple levels and forms of rejection and discrimination depending on their contexts and the spaces they navigate. These experiences highlighted how participants confront frequent shifts in privilege and oppression, which shaped their access to health and mental health services. Conclusions Efforts to develop linguistically and culturally appropriate health and mental health services for the Latinx transgender immigrant community must take into account the multiple contexts and communities that they inhabit. Strategies to enhance the health of transgender Latinx ­immigrants should also harness the unique strengths and resilience of the community.

Classification and Coercion: The Gendered Punishment of Transgender Women in Immigration Detention

AbstractAlthough transgender immigrants are a highly vulnerable and growing population, little sociological or criminological work has examined their experiences. This paper begins to fill that gap through in-depth life history interviews with thirteen transgender women migrants in detention and a survey of fifty-five transgender women migrants who experienced detention. Though the detention system allows trans migrants to be classified as such for housing and immigration relief (e.g., asylum), we show that the classification processes that trans women encounter continue to marginalize them and expose them to particularly gendered forms of punishment. We thus argue that adding new categories does little to ameliorate gendered inequalities without a concomitant commitment to shifting organizational cultures of classification. To support these claims, we show that being classified as transgender can serve as a punishment itself, and secondly, that such classification still exposes transgender women to unique forms of gendered violence while in detention. We conclude with implications for the gendered nature of punishment and organizations, suggesting that carceral settings are not only gendered but cisgendered, favoring cis experiences and bodies in ways that disadvantage and punish trans people.

The Politics of Transgender Asylum and Detention

Immigration procedures related to asylum and detention are based on sex/gender binaries. Such binaries frame the bodies of undocumented transgender asylum seekers as unintelligible to immigration law and subject them to intense trauma. The experiences of trauma and death of transgender detainees within detention centers is a spatialized experience. The assignment of detention cells based on birth gender, denial of hormones and live saving treatments constitute a racialized and gendered torture upon the body of the transgender detainee. The article attends to the narratives of transgender detainees within detention cell by analyzing the script of “ Tara's Crossing,” a play based on the narratives of transgender detainees and asylum seekers. The play was produced by LGBTQ immigrant right activists soon after the attacks on 9/11 and the intensification of detention and deportation as a part of national security procedures. Drawing upon the script of Tara's Crossing, along with activist archives such as flyers, newsletter articles, and radio interviews of Balmitra Vimal Prasad, the protagonist of the play, the article analyzes the ways in which the sex/gender binary is reiterated within the detention cell, as well as asylum procedures. I turn to the activism around Tara's Crossing and the present-day activism of transgender immigrants in order to show how trauma experienced by transgender detainees holds potential for creating coalitional oppositional politics.

Fluxos migratórios, comunicação e cidadania: vivências de imigrantes LGBT na cidade de São Paulo

O trabalho objetiva refletir acerca das experiências de vida de imigrantes lésbicas, gays, bissexuais, travestis, transexuais e transgêneros que residem no Brasil, mais especificamente, na cidade de São Paulo. O enfoque recai sobre as dinâmicas comunicacionais e sua relação com o exercício da cidadania por parte desses/as imigrantes. Para tanto, tomamos como objeto empírico suas próprias vivências, acessadas por meio de narrativas autobiográficas. Apresentamos e analisamos aqui os relatos de uma mulher lésbica americana e de uma mulher transgênero finlandesa. No que concerne aos procedimentos metodológicos, eles estão pautados na realização de entrevistas semiestruturadas e em uma análise textual, orientada pela análise do discurso de linha francesa. Os apontamentos principais problematizam as discriminações, precariedades e violências a pessoas lésbicas, gays, bissexuais, travestis, transexuais e transgêneros em nosso país, as (in)visibilidades presentes no processo migratório e as questões de cidadania aí englobadas.

Acculturation Experiences Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Immigrants in Canada

In the current study, we used a grounded theory methodology to understand the acculturation process of LGBT immigrants in Canada. Results revealed two parallel themes: Cultural Identity Development and Sexual and Gender Identity Development. Heterosexism and cissexism in the culture of origin was a central phenomenon in the development of the cultural, sexual, and gender aspects of LGBT immigrant identity. Moreover, LGBT immigrants’ culture of origin and Canadian culture influenced their sexual and gender identity development before and after immigration. Results suggest that many LGBT immigrants assume a Western orientation as a coping response to heterosexism and cissexism in their culture of origin, even before immigration occurs. The current study identified the perceived challenges and advantages that LGBT immigrants experience during the acculturation process as well as various acculturation outcomes. We discuss clinical implications and future research directions in light of the results.

The war on solicitation and intersectional subjection: quality-of-life policing as a tool to control transgender populations

The selective enforcement of solicitation laws on transgender individuals—often referred to as “walking while trans”—has an especially pernicious effect on transgender people of color, immigrants, and the poor. Intersectional subjection—the interaction between multiple categories of identity and diffuse power and sources of authority within contemporary American society—facilitates processes of governmentality and makes some transgender individuals more vulnerable to forms of social control such as trans-profiling. Using intersectional subjection to analyze the selective enforcement of solicitation laws exposes how trans-profiling (1) works to marginalize and remove transgender people of color and transgender immigrants from public spaces; and (2) enforces raced and classed gender norms and reifies white cis-heteronormative privilege. The concepts of intersectionality, subjection, and governmentality elucidate the mutually constitutive relationships among informal and formal actors and institutions in sanctioning the profiling of individuals for “walking while trans” as a tool for mitigating the threat transgender people of color and trans-immigrants pose to dominant power structures and narratives.

Latino Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Immigrants in the United States

Latinos and Latinas (Latin@s) lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBTs) attempting to enter into the U.S. experience significant challenges that are systemic in the processes and application of the U.S. immigration laws. Latin@s are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States according to the Office of the U.S. Census 2010 data. The foci of this article are to review the challenges in obtaining entry and a U.S. visa from those in Latin America, to examine the extent of reported violence experienced by Latin@ LGBTs, to understand the major ways LGBTs are targeted in Latin America that motivates them to seek refuge, and to illustrate ways health and human services providers can intervene.