Trans citizenship: Marriage, immigration, and neoliberal recognition in the United States

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of marriage and immigration law in the U.S. to consider how transgender subjects are normalized as legible legal subjects and incorporated as citizens through marriage. It focuses on Matter of Lovo (2005), a Board of Immigration Appeals case confirming immigration benefits for marriages involving transgender spouses. My analysis traces how legal regulation develops through the ways different legal documents and actors condition each other as well as the legal subjects they produce. The article addresses key questions about trans citizenship as it is shaped through marriage, immigration, and neoliberalism in the contemporary U.S.