Unconventional Resilience: Necessary Social Identity Management Among Asylum-Seeking Sexual and Gender-Diverse Survival Migrants.

This article focuses on the unique challenges faced by sexual and gender-diverse (SGD) survival migrants seeking asylum in the United States, emphasizing their navigation of multilevel stigma through the concepts of the social visibility dilemma and intersectional identity concealability. The social visibility dilemma arises from U.S. asylum policies requiring visible demonstration of SGD identity, which conflicts with migrants' prior necessity to conceal identities for safety, while intersectional concealability highlights how multiple stigmatized identities vary in visibility and affect exposure to stigma and access to resources. Using Ungar's social-ecological conceptualization of resilience, the article argues that SGD survival migrants employ culturally relative, atypical strategies to manage identity disclosure and protect themselves and loved ones, reflecting resilience shaped by systemic hostility rather than uniform identity coherence. The authors recommend trauma-informed mental health care, peer support, and asylum policy reforms that protect confidentiality and validate diverse identity expressions beyond Global Northern norms to better support SGD survival migrants' well-being and flourishing.