In this Book

Decolonizing Queer Migration: Iranian Voices in Exile

Book
Moira Dustin, Nuno Ferreira, Kamran Matin, Mehran Rezaei-Toroghi, Isabel Soloaga
2026
Published by: Bristol University Press
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
summary

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

What happens to sexual and gender identities when crossing borders under duress?

This book offers an unprecedented account of how forced migration shapes the lives of queer Iranian individuals. Tracing movements from Iran through transition countries to Western resettlement, the book explores how identities are expressed, negotiated, silenced, and reimagined along the way. Engaging de/postcolonial theory and participatory methods, the authors centre the voices of non-heterosexual and non-cisnormative Iranians in exile.

This is an essential study for scholars of sexuality, migration, and Middle Eastern studies seeking to understand queerness in global displacement.

Table of Contents

open access

Front Cover

Half Title Page, Series Page, Title Page, Copyright, Dedication

Table of Contents

Series Editors’ Preface

pp. viii

List of Figures and Tables

pp. ix

List of Abbreviations

pp. x

Foreword

pp. xi-xiv

Preface

pp. xv-xvii

1 Escaping Iran

pp. 1-13

2 Reframing Queerness: The International Formation of Queer Identity in Iran

pp. 14-33

3 From the Amrad to ‘the Gay’: The Making of Queer Identity in Iran

pp. 34-56

4 Methodology and Ethical Issues

pp. 57-80

5 Language, Queer Vocabularies, and Self-​identification

pp. 81-101

6 External Factors Shaping Queer Iranians’ Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, and Migration Decisions

pp. 102-126

7 Drawn into a Legal Web

pp. 127-159

8 Conclusion

pp. 160-171

Notes

pp. 172-175

Bibliography

pp. 176-206

Index

pp. 207-213
Back To Top