Restructured heteronormativity : An analysis of Australian Immigration guidelines for assessing  LGBT+ asylum seekers

Sammanfattning: This thesis analyses materials – a set of guidelines and a presentation – provided for officials  who assess claims related to sexual orientation and gender identity within the Australian  government’s Department for Immigration and Border Protection. The analysis is conducted  using critical discourse analysis to see if the lexicon shows a white heterosexual bias, and if it  does, how the bias is manifested within the guidelines, especially within the context of the  gender binary. The theoretical framework primarily uses Critical Race theory, but also  combines elements of Said’s Orientalism, and absence and presence theory. The results show  that the guidelines do have a white heterosexual bias, which manifests itself in the form of,  Western superiority, stereotypes about LGBT+ people, as well as an undertheorized portrayal  of the gender binary. The findings contribute to research within the queer asylum field,  especially with regards to research on migration from a non-gender-binary perspective.