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Journal of Homosexuality
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjhm20
Undocuqueer Stress: How Safe are “Safe” Spaces,
and for Whom?
Jesus Cisneros & Christian Bracho
To cite this article: Jesus Cisneros & Christian Bracho (2020) Undocuqueer Stress: How
Safe are “Safe” Spaces, and for Whom?, Journal of Homosexuality, 67:11, 1491-1511, DOI:
10.1080/00918369.2019.1607684
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2019.1607684
Published online: 30 Apr 2019.
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JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY
2020, VOL. 67, NO. 11, 1491–1511
https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2019.1607684
Undocuqueer Stress: How Safe are “Safe” Spaces, and for
Whom?
Jesus Cisneros, PhDa and Christian Bracho, PhDb
a
Educational Leadership and Foundations, College of Education, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso,
Texas, USA; bEducation and Teacher Development, University of LaVerne, La Verne, California, USA
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
Exploring the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and
immigration status, this study explored the concept of minority
stress among 31 Latinx undocuqueer immigrants within the context of LGBTQ “safe” spaces. For participants, LGBTQ nightclubs
and relationships represented important physical and symbolic
spaces where they were able to understand what it meant to be
undocuqueer. Participants described experiences of fear, anxiety,
and rejection as they attempted to enter and exist within spaces
presumably “safe” for LGBTQ people. The cumulative effect of
feeling unsafe led participants to avoid certain spaces and inhibited their capacity to engage in relationships authentically. This
study raises implications for research and policy related to serving
LGBTQ and immigrant communities.
Undocuqueer; minority
stress; safe spaces;
undocumented; LGBTQ
On Saturday, June 12, 2016, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer
(LGBTQ) individuals were forced to question the concept of safety within “safe
spaces,” as they witnessed one of the deadliest incidents of violence against
LGBTQ people in modern U.S. history. At about 2 A.M., a gunman opened fire
on a crowd of almost 300 at Pulse, an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The
shooting left 49 dead and dozens of others injured. Among the victims were
several LGBTQ undocumented immigrants of Latin American descent (Chavez,
2017). Yet, despite national media coverage of the incident, the racial/ethnic and
immigrant identities of these victims were often erased or suppressed by
homonational1 formations that, instead, centered a homogenized and depoliticized LGBTQ experience (Duggan, 2002; Puar, 2007). Despite the fact that
Saturday night was Latinx night at Pulse, hierarchical social power dynamics
determined that victims’ racial/ethnic and immigrant identities were unimportant; thus, demarking distinctions between identities “deserving” and “undeserving” of being recognized.
The physical and symbolic erasure of Latinx LGBTQ undocumented immigrants within accounts of the Pulse shooting negotiates and commodifies the
salience of race/ethnicity and immigration status within LGBTQ discourses.
CONTACT Jesus Cisneros
[email protected]
Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA.
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Educational Leadership and Foundations, University of
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According to Puar (2007), U.S. national formations no longer unequivocally
exclude LGBTQ people from the status of the “good citizen.” Rather, they
depend on the legal and representational consolidation of homonormativity2
(Duggan, 2002) to uphold the expansion of state power to engage in the
surveillance, incarceration, and deportation of certain bodies, sexualities, and
expressions. The construction of deserving LGBTQ subjects depends on the
production of undeserving criminal bodies. Such othering “disaggregates
U.S. national gays and queers from racial and sexual others, foregrounding
a collusion between homosexuality and American nationalism that is generated
both by national rhetorics of patriotic inclusion and by gay and queer subjects
themselves: homonationalism” (Puar, 2007, p. 83). In this way, domesticated
homosexual bodies have provided ammunition to reinforce political stances
against immigration, and the discerning, othering, and quarantining of racial/
ethnic and immigrant bodies.
In recent years, for example, immigration enforcement practices have dramatically expanded the category of people classified as priorities for deportation
and rescinded all previous policy protecting low-priority immigrants from
enforcement (U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2017). Operationalized
through varied structures of criminalization, several states have similarly
adopted policies that force local governments and law enforcement agencies to
do the work of federal immigration officers, which includes identifying, arresting, and removing undocumented immigrants – including the estimated
267,000 adult undocumented immigrants who self-identify as LGBTQ (Gates,
2013; Strunk & Leitner, 2013). Linking criminal and immigration enforcement,
such measures have codified racial profiling into law and increased LGBTQ
undocumented immigrants’ vulnerability, as a result of overpolicing and fear of
reporting intimate partner and hate violence (Gruberg, 2017).
Given the ways race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and immigration status drive
social constructions of crime and safety (Gruberg, 2017), Latinx LGBTQ undocumented immigrants experience the stigma and stress of criminalization in
ways distinct from other LGBTQ populations. By addressing intersectional
oppression and acknowledging the complex dimensions of existing as
a “multiple minority,” this study seeks to contest what it means to be simultaneously LGBTQ and undocumented (i.e., undocuqueer) within presumably “safe
spaces.” Conceptualized in relation to LGBTQ individuals, the term “safe space”
refers to more than just physical locales. Goode-Cross and Good (2008), quoting
Holley and Steiner (2005, p. 50), operationalize safe spaces as environments in
which people “feel secure enough to take risks, honestly express their views, and
share and explore their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Safety, in this sense,
does not refer to physical safety. Instead (it) refers to protection from psychological or emotional harm.” Thus, in examining the ways Latinx undocuqueer
immigrants negotiate potential psychological and emotional harm as they engage
“safe spaces,” we demonstrate the unique forms of stress this group experiences.
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Undocuqueer immigrants, minority stress, and safe spaces
Undocuqueer, as a discursive formation, refers to the intersection of gender,
sexuality, and immigration status among LGBTQ undocumented immigrants.
Emphasizing the similarity between coming out of the closet as LGBTQ and
coming out of the shadows as undocumented, undocuqueer immigrants highlight the vulnerabilities and ongoing criminalization of gender, sexuality, and
immigration status within the current sociopolitical context of the U.S.
(Cisneros, 2018, 2019). Federal immigration law and state and local immigration
enforcement have worked together to construct the shadows by imposing fear,
shame, and stigma on the immigrant experience (Villazor, 2013). Similarly, at
different points in history, federal and state laws have operated to construct the
closet by forcing individuals to conceal their sexual and gender identities in order
to avoid criminal prosecution, exclusion, and deportation (Foss, 1994).
Today, undocuqueer immigrants are targets of surveillance, criminalization,
and incarceration in a society replete with restrictive anti-LGBTQ and antiimmigrant laws and policies (Cisneros & Gutierrez, 2018). The permanence of
their criminalization bolsters enforcement actions that push individuals further
into the closet and the shadows and prioritize them for legal violence (Cisneros &
Bracho, 2019). In this sense, the constant threat of deportability runs parallel to
blatant attacks on individuals’ sexual orientation and gender identity, as
responding to incidents of violence increases undocuqueer immigrants’ exposure to local and state agencies that simultaneously enforce federal immigration
laws. Dragnet policing and strict immigration enforcement practices perpetuate
undocuqueer immigrants’ vulnerability across different states, thereby depriving
them of feeling safe or secure in their everyday lives.
In response to these conditions, undocuqueer immigrants engage visibility
schemas and make strategic choices to reveal or conceal their identities across
different contexts (Cisneros & Bracho, 2019). To be visible as undocuqueer,
individuals often have to manage multiple coming outs and constantly assess the
risks and vulnerabilities that come with identification. Social and political contexts across a variety of spaces require undocuqueer immigrants to be pragmatic
and careful, due to the potential dangers associated with coming out and being
outed. The contradiction between participants’ physical and social presence as
undocumented, in addition to the many covert inequalities and biases based on
gender and sexuality, make the process of coming out particularly stressful in
ways that are both complex and layered.
Defining minority stress
Meyer (1995) originated the term minority stress in a study exploring the
“chronic stress” gay men experience as a result of living in a society dominated by heterosexual norms and institutions. In Meyer’s conceptualization,
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minority stress refers to the confluence of internalized homophobia, perceived stigma, and actual experience with prejudice – each of which affect
overall well-being. Several studies have explored these dimensions and found
that minority stress can lead gay men, in particular, to perform particular
masculine ideals and/or engage in risky behavior (Hamilton & Mahalik, 2009;
Kimmel & Mahalik, 2005; Lick, Durso, & Johnson, 2013). Like Meyer’s study,
however, these studies are limited by their lack of racial, ethnic, and gender
diversity, and rarely explore the psychological or emotional impact of existing at the intersection of multiple identities.
Balsam and Szymanski (2005) also use the minority stress concept to examine
the experiences of women in same-sex relationships, and notably critique their
own study for its lack of racial diversity, a problem rectified in a subsequent
study (Balsam, Molina, Beadnell, Simoni, & Walters, 2011). Balsam et al. (2011)
created quantitative instruments designed to assess multiple minority stress
amongst LGBTQ people of color (POC), who must navigate the compounded
effects of being part of more than one minority or stigmatized group. The
authors make the case that, since minority stress theory tends to focus on
cumulative effects, it makes sense to explore microaggressions empirically within
the lives of LGBTQ-POC, who must negotiate multiple layers of racism and
discrimination as a result of their intersectional identities. In a qualitative study
exploring the experiences of Black lesbian women, for example, Bowleg, Huang,
Brooks, Black, and Burkholder (2003) also advance a discussion of multiple
minority stress, describing what they call “triple jeopardy”: the experience of
enduring the intersecting discriminations related to race, gender, and sexual
orientation. The experiences of Black lesbians reveal that they must contend
with mundane extreme environmental stress (MEES- a term analogous to the
concept of microaggressions), as they negotiate the multiple layers of discrimination associated with their complex identities. These studies point to the
importance of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) as a conceptual lens for
researchers exploring the complex lived experiences of minoritized individuals
living at the intersections of social identities and oppressive structures. Studies
which adopt an intersectional approach can help articulate the long-term effects
of enduring daily and sustained prejudice as members of various minority or
stigmatized groups, as well as the ways their complex identities provide them
with mechanisms or resources for resilience or coping (Torres, 2010).
Some studies have explored the added dimension of immigration as
a factor in minority stress. Sirin, Ryce, Gupta, and Rogers-Sirin (2013), for
example, highlight the experience of acculturative stress – “the potential
challenges immigrants face when they negotiate differences between their
home and host cultures” (p. 737) – the sum of which can lead to increased
anxiety, depression, and a desire to withdraw from social interactions. In
a qualitative study with gay Latino immigrants, for example, Gray,
Mendelsohn, and Omoto (2015) found that the combined effects of multiple
JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY
1495
stressors related to ethnicity, sexuality, and citizenship engender psychological and emotional conflicts related to fear, rejection, and criminalization.
More research is needed, however, to explore how citizenship status intersects with other layers – such as gender and sexuality – producing unique
experiences of minority stress, particularly for undocuqueer immigrants who
must contend with feeling targeted and unsafe across various physical and
symbolic spaces.
What is a safe space?
Over the last half-century, the term “safe space” has become ubiquitous across
a variety of social and political sectors (e.g., schools and universities), yet retains
a sense of ambiguity, not clearly delineating what is meant by safety or even by
“space.” The Roestone Collective (2014) mapped the lineage of the term, noting
that it originated in the women’s movement in the late 20th century, as a means
of reconceptualizing “safe space” as relational work – constructed and reconstructed as people grapple with the difficulties of cultivating inclusive environments where individuals or groups feel protected. The notion of safe space is
underpinned by notions of feeling unsafe, the threat of violence, and fear in
particular contexts. Yet, these feelings are not universal, as a space can feel safe
for members of one group (e.g., race, class, age, gender), but unsafe for others. In
other words, by creating separate spaces in which particular groups can feel safe,
a tension exists between the drive to create exclusive realms for those who feel
unsafe elsewhere, and the desire to be inclusive in order to cultivate community.
The term safe space is commonly used when discussing the lives of LGBTQ
people, who, due to their gender or sexual identities, can be subject to discrimination, violence, and harassment by mainstream society. For example, institutions of education have made significant efforts to cultivate safe spaces for
LGBTQ students (Poynter & Tubbs, 2007; Vaccaro, 2012), where “sexual minorities [can] heal themselves from psychological, emotional, and sometimes
physical assaults against them” (Goode-Cross & Good, 2008, p. 222). In this
sense, safe spaces are not only just physical localities; they can also be relational
spaces where LGBTQ people can feel free from such fear: “Places emerge as
a result of social interactions, relationships, and these places are nonlinear,
always shifting constellations of identity formations and re-formations”
(Freitag, 2013, p. 153). Safe spaces are, thus, interpersonal and relational, subject
to change and conflict as conditions, circumstances, and participants change
over time. This conceptualization is significant in relation to LGBTQ bars and
clubs, which have been imagined as “safe havens” away from heterosexist society
(Croff, Hubach, Currin, & Frederick, 2017) – though research has shown that
such spaces are not always welcoming for all (e.g., Battle & Bennett, 2005; Reck,
2009; Taylor, 2008).
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Indeed, safe spaces for LGBTQ people have often elided or ignored the
particular ways that race, ethnicity, or other factors such as class can make
these spaces unsafe or threatening. As Fox and Ore (2010) argue, “safe space
discourse continues to operate within a normalizing gaze of a white, masculinist, middle-class subject, rendering queer subjectivity in a most simplistic
and reductive manner and producing an illusionary safety” (p. 631). In that
vein, the present investigation of undocuqueer stress builds on a study of the
immediate aftermath of the Pulse shooting in June 2016 (Ramirez, Gonzalez,
& Galupo, 2018). We hone in on the particular ways that race/ethnicity and
immigration status can diminish or erase the “safety” of physical locales
(such as gay clubs) or interpersonal relationships due to the increased
violence against and criminalization of undocumented people. We draw on
the concept of “nonevent stress” (Frost & LeBlanc, 2014) to examine the pain
experienced by participants unable to achieve their goals and aspirations as
a result of their minoritized identities. Our primary aim is to illustrate how
Latinx undocuqueer immigrants’ discouraging and dangerous experiences
contribute to a diminished sense of wellbeing or belonging, shattering the
illusion of security and inclusivity within LGBTQ “safe spaces.” In doing so,
we further complicate the notion of multiple minority stress by incorporating
race/ethnicity and immigration status as necessary dimensions within the
context of current U.S. policies.
Methodology
This study draws on the text Queer Brown Voices, edited by Quesada, Gomez,
and Vidal-Ortiz (2015), to highlight the lived experiences and narratives of
Latinx undocumented queer and trans people. As in Queer Brown Voices, our
aim was to document the intersectional identities of our participants by
centering their narratives, rather than locating them at the margins of
other groups (e.g., undocumented or LGBTQ). To recruit participants, we
relied on support from United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led
organization in the United States. Individuals who openly self-identified as
undocuqueer were invited to participate and asked to refer others similarly
identified.
A total of 31 individuals consented to participate. Participants’ geographic
positionalities represented 10 different states and the District of Columbia, as
well as six Latin American countries of origin – with most participants (23)
having Mexican heritage. Our sample included four transgender women, 17
cisgender men, six genderqueer individuals, and four cisgender women.
Additionally, 21 participants were Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA) beneficiaries; thus, benefitted from temporary relief from deportation and renewable work authorization.
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All interviews were conducted in person, via phone, or through Skype
videoconference between November and December 2014. Our semistructured interview protocol was designed to capture the lived experiences
and unique narratives of the participants, with a focus on their ascribed
meanings vis-à-vis the intersections of gender, sexuality, and immigration
status. Sample interview questions included, “What does it mean to be
undocuqueer?” “How has being undocumented impacted your experience
as LGBTQ?” and “ How has being LGBTQ impacted your experience as
undocumented?” Interviews ranged between 45 minutes and 3.5 hours, indicating how participants led the interviews toward varying levels of depth and
detail. As part of the protocol, we sought to paraphrase and summarize
participants’ responses as a means of member-checking and ensuring accuracy of interpretation (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Participants clarified misunderstandings and confirmed preliminary interpretations.
Following transcription, interview data were imported into MAXQDA, which
provided a platform for open coding of the text as a means of making sense of the
data (Miles & Huberman, 1994). We used conceptual phrases to tag participants’
descriptions of events, experiences, and feelings related to being undocuqueer. In
the next stage of analysis, we moved into axial coding, using the phrases previously
identified to seek meta-themes via constant comparison (Glaser, 1965) across all
interviews. Peer debriefers, including scholars outside of our respective institutions, reviewed segments of interview transcripts, challenged the interpretations of
data, identified gaps in the preliminary analyses, and constructively responded to
initial interpretations of the de-identified data. The feedback provided helped
refine the codebook and the final analysis of data before writing.
Our positionality as queer Latinos and first- and second-generation immigrants guided our interpretations of data. Jesus Cisneros identifies as
a naturalized citizen and cisgender queer Latino. He migrated from Mexico at
the age of 6 and grew up in the Southwest border region of the U.S. Christian
Bracho identifies as a U.S. citizen and cisgender gay Latino. He is a secondgeneration immigrant from Mexico. We approached this study with awareness
that our privileges, in terms of (cis)gender and citizenship, may represent
significant blind spots in our ability to comprehend participants’ experiences.
For this reason, the member-checks and peer-debriefing strategies enhanced the
trustworthiness of our interpretations (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), and ensured that
the results and analysis that follow accurately capture the multiple levels of
minority stress experienced by our participants.
Results
In their narratives, participants described the stress of experiencing exclusion, rejection, or anxiety in two spaces otherwise perceived to be safe: the
physical location of an LGBTQ bar or club, and the interpersonal site of
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romantic relationships. In the following sections, we draw on participants’
voices to illustrate their phenomenological experiences of being undocuqueer
in spaces alleged or imagined to be safe for other LGBTQ people, and the
dissonance that comes from being excluded or rejected.
Exclusion within spaces of belonging
For participants, LGBTQ nightclubs were often characterized as the first
spaces where individuals were able to engage queer culture. LGBTQ nightclubs were thought to be “safe spaces” where queer and trans individuals
could feel liberated and interact with others like them. Yet, as Latinx,
undocumented, queer and trans immigrants, LGBTQ nightclubs also represented potentially triggering spaces where the implications of their immigration status became particularly salient. As Tommy, a cisgender 24-year-old
DACA recipient from California, described:
I think I see that, as queer people, one of the biggest things that we are introduced
to from the beginning is this scene of like clubs…where we all like come together
like just as who we are – not as outsiders like in our normal lives and the general
society where queer people are not that visible. You come to the space and you‘re
introduced to [queer culture]. Part of the process in going in is proving that you
are of age and you have to give your identification. Some people don’t have state
IDs – these plastic things that are really tiny, right? You have to start taking this
like huge passport and getting these looks, and mostly when you go into the spaces
that are not really of color, we would get these looks, ‘so why do you have this
passport? Why do you show me a passport instead of a state ID?’
Tommy described the challenge of partaking in queer culture as a Latinx
undocuqueer immigrant. Not eligible for U.S. government-issued identification prior to DACA, it was often difficult for Tommy to achieve a sense of
belonging in spaces like LGBTQ nightclubs where his foreign passport, in
combination with his racialized identity, rendered him suspect. Participants
generally described how the inability to provide U.S. government issued
identification at the door subjected them to scrutiny and “looks” that heightened his sensibilities around being undocumented. The sense of surveillance,
at a location purportedly designed to make LGBTQ people feel safe and free
from public location, ultimately impacted their ability to derive a sense of
belonging upon getting to the door.
Other participants not eligible for DACA described similar microaggressions
when attempting to visit LGBTQ “safe spaces.” Draco, a genderqueer 26-yearold from Arizona, for example, described how not being able to produce
U.S. government-issued identification forced him to abstain from LGBTQ
nightclubs for a long time and consider when and where he was willing to
render himself vulnerable to exclusion and rejection.
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For the longest time I didn‘t want to go to the club either or I would wait until
everybody would kind of go in because I would have my big old passport from
Mexico, right, and I was like, ‘I‘m giving myself away.’ So I guess it impacted my
social life in that way. Not only in being able to talk to men, but also choosing what
clubs I wanted to go to. And for the longest time I avoided [a specific club] because
I didn‘t know how they were going to react to my passport.
Draco articulated the psychological stress that comes from public exposure and
social surveillance around producing identification documents. His fear of social
and legal rejection resulting from his immigration status came to dictate the type
of spaces he placed himself in, and who he interacted with. Being wary of how
their foreign identification documents would be received by bouncers, participants described feeling most comfortable going to spaces where showing
a passport at the door was not uncommon. Nightclubs that catered to LGBTQ
communities of color, for example, were perceived to be more “safe” for
undocuqueer immigrants without U.S. government-issued identification.
However, nightclubs that catered to LGBTQ communities of color were
not always geographically available, thereby minimizing risk aversion as an
option for participants seeking to experience queer spaces. Joel, a cisgender
30-year-old DACA recipient from California, for example, described an
experience being denied entry into a nightclub that did not accept his foreign
identification documents, and explained how that microaggression impacted
him psychologically:
I really didn’t start going out to clubs and dancing and drinking until I was like 23–24,
and it was because when I was 18, I had a very, you know, unfortunate and painful
situation where I was in line, I was getting ready to go in, and I had my matricula, and
I wasn‘t allowed to go in. And it was just so unfortunate and I think it really
traumatized me to a certain degree, and I didn‘t want to deal with that anymore.
For Joel, access to LGBTQ safe spaces was contingent upon certain forms of
identification often not accessible to undocumented immigrants. He described
how illegitimate forms of identification such as foreign passports, matriculas,3
or DACA cards constructed him as suspect and excluded him from experiencing queer culture. The experience had an emotionally harming effect, leading
Joel to avoid such spaces out of fear of rejection. Being turned away from
LGBTQ nightclubs as a result of their immigration status, participants generally described how LGBTQ nightclubs were not “safe” for undocuqueer
immigrants, as they were not responsive to the challenge of procuring
U.S. government-issued identification. Participants’ encounters described
a form of mundane environmental stress (Bowleg et al., 2003) commonly
experienced by undocuqueer people, with the act of showing identification at
a door becoming a moment fraught with tension and potential trauma.
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Josh, a cisgender 25-year-old DACA recipient from California, described
a similar experience and questioned whether LGBTQ nightclubs were really
“safe” spaces and for whom.
Even when they don‘t take your fucking matricula at the club. They be like, ‘oh
I am sorry you cannot get in.’ I‘m like, ‘dude, I live in San Francisco. You are
supposed to be like a progressive city and you don‘t let undocumented people in
your club? Because allegedly queers are not undocumented? I don‘t understand.’
And it‘s not even just about the club. It is more about how people perceive you as
something of a lesser level than them simply because of that.
Matriculas were often the only form of identification undocumented immigrants had access to other than foreign passports and DACA cards – for
those who were eligible. For this reason, when LGBTQ businesses opted to
not accept them as forms of proper identification, it constituted a form of
discrimination against undocuqueer immigrants, sending a message that only
certain LGBTQ identities were welcome. Josh’s comments also make a larger
point regarding the myth of San Francisco as a safe space for the LGBTQ
community; he points out the seeming contradiction of the city being revered
as a progressive place, while maintaining policies that unjustly affect undocumented people and make certain spaces inaccessible to them. Such policies
made participants feel conscious about their immigration status and “lesser”
than those with sanctioned citizenship documents. This finding aligns with
the homonationalist constructions of queer “safe spaces,” which claim inclusivity but sustain exclusivity through their regulations and policies.
For participants who did not necessarily experience rejection or scrutiny at
the door, their immigration status became salient when they began interacting with individuals from different social locations within the physical space
of the club. Although these spaces were understood to be safe and liberating
for individuals’ gender and sexual identities, being Latinx and undocumented
imposed additional stressors for participants, preventing them from feeling
completely secure or free. As Alex, a cisgender 20-year-old DACA recipient
from Connecticut, described:
Queer spaces are predominantly white where I come from, so it was really hard to find
queer people that were of color. So when I did find queer people of color and I came
out as undocumented to them, they were a lot more accepting. So I felt like when there
was other white people, I just always had to decide if I wanted to come out as
undocumented in those queer spaces because I was like, you know, I can tell them
that I’m undocumented but they’re not going to offer the support or they might not
react the way that I want, so it’s mostly just a way of me trying to protect myself.
As cited earlier, Fox and Ore (2010) argue that “safe space discourse[s]” often
produce “an illusionary safety” (p. 631) for those who can claim white, middleclass subjectivities. For the Latinx participants in this study, distrust for dissimilar others often compelled participants to conceal their undocumented status, at
JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY
1501
least initially; their status invoked a level of vulnerability and fear, and resulted in
heightened levels of anxiety about sharing personal information. For this reason,
engaging in queer culture for some participants meant dealing with the environmental stress of self-disclosure: negotiating the decision to conceal or reveal
their immigration status. Such a decision influenced participants’ interactions
with others; most notably, white people, who were seen more threatening than
fellow queer people of color.
Other participants similarly described intentionally distancing themselves
from dissimilar others as a result of the fear, anxiety, and rejection. As Draco
explained:
I think in the beginning of me coming out as queer I really put up a wall when it
came to talking to people, especially men about my status. And I guess I was being
racist, racially profiling people like, ‘oh, he‘s brown, he probably understands what
I‘m going through, right?’ I would be so scared of like white people. To tell them
that I was undocumented was very scary for me. And for the longest time,
I avoided really getting into any relationship with anyone that I didn‘t know was
undocumented because I was afraid of how they were going to take it.
Draco shared the stressors involved with keeping his status a secret: fear of
white people and anxiety over how people would respond to disclosure. For
this reason, participants described feeling most at ease when engaging other
Latinx (“brown”) people. Latinxs’ perceived closeness to immigration processes alleviated some of the anxiety participants described experiencing.
C
