Sexual citizenship and Asian immigrants in post-marriage equality Australia

ABSTRACT

To date, few studies on sexual citizenship have explored how gender, sexuality, and ethnicity intersect to influence individuals’ migration and post-migration experiences in post-marriage equality Australia. This article argues that a more expansive concept of sexual citizenship is required when exploring the lived experiences of Asian immigrants in contemporary Australia because racialised contexts present various barriers to social inclusion. We posit sexual citizenship as an intersectional, multi-dimensional, and multi-scalar notion that encompasses transgender citizenship. We explore sociocultural stereotypes and sexual racism to highlight the intersectionality between SOGIESC and ethnicity in cross-cultural international migration. We further argue that, as SOGIESC is an integral dimension of immigrants’ lives and cannot be analytically separated from migratory processes and experiences, the concept of sexual citizenship remains central to migration studies. Furthermore, that sexual citizenship research would benefit from further critical engagement with issues of race, gender, sexuality, and immigration status of Asian Australians.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual citizenship
• Asian immigrants
• post-marriage equality
• Australia
• sexual racism
• LGBTQIA+

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The term, Asian Australian, refers to the diverse populations who have migrated from the Asian region as it is widely accepted and used in Australian social, political, and cultural discourses. This does not denote any pan-ethnic identification shared by all immigrants coming from Asia. It should be recognised that, apart from sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and sex characteristics (herein SOGIESC), the focus of this paper, considerable heterogeneity also exists regarding the birthplace, visa type, length of stay in Australia, etc. of those encompassed within this term.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for this research was provided by the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne.

Notes on contributors

Qiuping Pan

Qiuping Pan is Assistant Professor in Area Studies at the School of Foreign Languages, Shenzhen Technology University. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne.

Jay Song

Jay Song is Korea Foundation Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies and Research Coordinator of Gender, Environment and Migration at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne.

Ryan Gustafsson

Ryan Gustafsson is AKS Postdoctoral Fellow in Korean Studies at the Asia Institute, the University of Melbourne. They conduct research on histories and experiences of Korean overseas adoption, and phenomenological approaches to trans and environmental studies. 

Claire Maree

Claire Maree(PhD) is Associate Professor and Reader at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne. Her research spans the areas of gender/sexuality and language studies, media studies and queer studies. Claire publishes widely on these topics and recent books include, queerqueen: Linguistic Excess in Japanese Media (2020, OUP) and Discourse, Gender and Shifting Identities in Japan(Routledge, 2018 edited with Kaori Okano).