Migrant and refugee lesbians: Lives that resist the telling

This essay introduces the special issue on “Migrant and Refugee Lesbians: Lives that Resist the Telling.” It discusses the stakes involved in silence about migrant lesbian lives that permeates scholarship; reviews published works that address migrant lesbians; and highlights theoretical traditions that promise to enable further scholarship. The essay then critically explores multiple meanings associated with the terms “lesbian” and “migrant,” and reviews common colonialist binaries and linear narratives that condition im/possibilities for “telling” about lesbian migrant lives. It concludes by describing the essays in the special issue, including their contributions to enabling forms of telling by highlighting multiple relations of power, and possibilities for intervention and transformation.