Pride Without Borders: Queer Refugees on Identity & Belonging
Each June, Pride Month makes a splash in most cities across the United States, celebrating the joy and resilience of being part of the LGBTQ+. Pride month marks the beginning of summer by bringing street parades that showcase a myriad of activities - from dancing drag kings and queens, to fashion shows, to communities calling for human rights. Importantly, pride month offers us the chance to learn about and affirm the lives and histories of LGBTQ+ people around the world. For many LGBTQ+ immigrants and refugees, Pride is more than a protest or a party - it’s a complex reckoning with identity, safety, community, faith, and belonging.
In the U.S., queer and trans refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers live at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression. Navigating this terrain demands more than resilience; it demands redefinition. What does it mean to be proud when your existence - beyond your sexual identity - has been criminalized? What does it mean to be in community with other LGBTQ+ individuals who may reinforce those harmful systems? For many, the journey toward self-determination does not end once they are “out and proud.” Safety and belonging are not just legal and cultural processes, but also emotional and existential ones. Teddy Almuktady, an LGBTQ+ advocate and founder of SALT (Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ Together), tells us:
“Pride, for me, is an act of healing. It’s standing in the light after years of hiding in prayer rooms and silence. As a queer Muslim, being proud means reclaiming the narrative, that my existence is not a contradiction, but a beautiful intersection. It’s not just about rainbow flags or parades, it’s about saying: ‘I deserve to exist. I deserve to be safe. I deserve to be loved, by others, by myself, and by God.’”
The duality of being both deeply oneself and strategically hidden is familiar to countless LGBTQ+ newcomers. It reveals a truth which is often overlooked in dominant narratives: that identity is not only about who you are, but about the conditions that allow you to express that part of yourself. Pride, then, becomes both a celebration and an act of defiance. For some, that defiance is quiet and deeply spiritual. Teddy’s words speak to the profound fracture experienced by those forced to choose between faith and authenticity - between belonging and truth. Yet, within the margins, many find the space to reconcile these parts of themselves and to build a life on their own terms.
Queer immigrant communities are not merely recipients of shelter - they are builders of it. Across detention centers, mutual aid networks, church basements, and digital spaces, they forge radical forms of community rooted in trust, care, and a shared vision of a better world. As Kendra Frith, a queer Jamaican woman and Senior Engagement Officer with Rainbow Railroad notes, “Community, for me, is about chosen family and mutual care. Through my work with Rainbow Railroad and the Communities of Care initiative, I’ve seen how LGBTQ+ newcomers build resilience together. We create networks of trust, interdependence, and belonging because when you’ve lost your home, community becomes your anchor.”
Still, the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement often fails to make space for this complexity. Queer immigrants and refugees - particularly Black, brown and Indigenous ones - are celebrated as symbols of perseverance, but rarely supported as movement leaders or visionaries. As Kendra reflects:
“Too often, LGBTQ+ spaces in the U.S. are not set up to hold the complexity of that reality. They offer inclusion, but not power-sharing. What’s missing is a deeper understanding of global queerness and the courage to make space for people whose experiences of being LGBTQ+ are shaped by forced displacement, colonial legacies, and migration. If we want true liberation, we have to center those at the margins not just as recipients of aid, but as co-creators of the future we all deserve.”
Faith, migration, and queerness are not contradictions but convergences. They form the terrain upon which thousands of LGBTQ+ refugees are building new futures. It is this nuanced, layered truth that must be honored if Pride is to mean anything beyond symbolic gestures. To be queer and displaced is to live in a constant state of becoming: never static, never wholly safe, but always creating a bolder, brighter space where none previously existed. It is to know that liberation is not a destination but a collective act of imagination.
When asked about the kind of future he envisions for the LGBTQ+ community, Teddy reminds us that, “Too often, we’re included in diversity statements but excluded from decision-making. As a queer person of faith, I’ve noticed how many LGBTQ+ spaces lack spiritual nuance or cultural humility. I hope we can build spaces that hold all of our layers, where being queer and Muslim isn’t something that needs explaining or justifying.”
The future we dream of and work toward is one where queer and trans newcomers are not seen as victims that need saving, but as architects of possibility. It is one where the borders around love, safety, and belonging no longer hold. One where Pride is not only celebratory but transformational - into policy, protection, and power. It is a future in which equal rights and safety are guaranteed. LGBTQ+ refugees are a crucial part of that fight. The Collective will continue to uplift LGBTQ+ refugees and other newcomers and their stories so we can work together towards creating communities that are educated, inclusive, welcoming, and safe for all.