My Story Doesn't End: Critical Storytelling As Trans & Queer Refugee Activism

Join this workshop - one of the official side events of the 2025 Queer Displacements Conference

My Story Doesn't End: Critical Storytelling As Trans & Queer Refugee Activism

by A/Prof Debanuj DasGupta, University of California Santa Barbara

Trans & Queer refugees, asylum seekers are often required to repeat a scripted narrative of surviving torture in their countries of origin in order to receive asylum or refugee status in countries of the global North. This script frames Trans & Queer refugees as victims in need of saving by the global humanitarian complex. This workshop offers insights from a Queer and Trans refugee lead scholar & activist collaboration supported by the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI). During this two year long collaboration between researchers and Trans & Queer refugee activists, we utilized trauma informed story-telling and best practices informed by those with lived experiences as to how to organize story-telling that does not recreate the victim-saviour narrative. Instead, we used letter writing, creative mapping, and story writing in order to bring out affective attachments between country of origin and new home country, refugee world-making practices that seek to disrupt the global humanitarian complex. The title of the workshop draws upon the idea that queer and trans refugee stories do not simply end with achieving refugee and or asylee status, rather struggles of integration, surviving racism and xenophobia is part of the ongoing refugee story.

The workshop will explore how to develop creative writing, mapping based short story telling sessions that attends to layered everyday aspects of the lives of queer and trans refugees. The learning outcomes are transferrable for those engaging with refugee lived experiences in research and advocacy.

Who should attend: post-graduate students, early career researchers, refugee advocates (both with and without lived experience) and others willing to learn how to engage with storytelling in ethical ways.

This workshop is organised by the Forcibly Displaced People Network. We are the national LGBTIQA+ refugee-led organisation.

The pricing is flexible. Pay what you can. If you cannot afford a small payment, a limited number of complimentary tickets is available on first in basis.

Haven't heard about the Queer Displacements Conference? Explore here: https://events.humanitix.com/2025-queer-displacements-conference