2020 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 2(1) After further examination of the literature gaps within each of the fields of ‘sexual citizenship’ discourse and statelessness studies, this article goes on to present an exploratory review of the SOGIESC–statelessness nexus. It consults existing relevant literature from academic, media and advocacy sources, including where the issue is framed outside the terms of SOGIESC and/or statelessness, as well as providing a small number of case study examples to highlight the intersecting and causal nature of the relationship between SOGIESC and statelessness. This sample of personal experiences is included to highlight real-life situations and give an indication of possible constellations of circumstances in which the nexus might be manifested. Nonetheless, given the variation in legislations, administrative procedures and social perceptions relating to different issues of recognition (eg family composition, sex/gender transition, surrogacy) across jurisdictions for different profiles of LGBTIQ+ persons according to ethnicity, race, social class etc, further empirical work on nuanced intersectional experiences is certainly needed. Fieldwork is therefore necessary to flesh out casespecific contextual understandings of the nexus in practice. A Sexual Citizenship Developing out of the intersection between citizenship studies and queer theory, the concept of ‘sexual citizenship’ has emerged as a ‘burgeoning field’ over the last two decades. 13 In 1993, David Evans introduced and popularised the term to highlight how prevalent models of citizenship are constructed on heterosexist, patriarchal principles. 14 Use of the term has evolved within social and political theory as a tool to situate — or insert — sexual politics within the dominant understandings and experiences of citizenship. The birth of the ‘sexual citizen’, argues Jeffery Weeks, was necessary ‘because of the new primacy given to sexual subjectivity in the contemporary world’. 15 Drawing on Marshallian foundations, 16 proponents of ‘sexual citizenship’ discourse have tended to utilise citizenship as a frame for discussing identity-based claims for rights and recognition. Thus, broadening the scope of established citizenship models has led to the production of feminist, sexual and queer variants that reinscribe subjectivities excluded by the hegemony of presumptively masculine heteronormativity. 17 As such, they have conceived of citizenship in somewhat abstract terms, often conflating it with broader notions of membership, participation and belonging than the strict legal definition of being formally recognised as a citizen of a particular state. Indeed, Weeks refers to citizenship as ‘a useful metaphor, condensing a range of cultural and political practices that embrace a whole set of new challenges and possibilities’. 18 In this sense, citizenship has become a contested space. It is thus a site for inclusionary claimmaking (eg rights to same-sex marriage, recognition of LGBTIQ+ relationships); simultaneously, however, it is also the focus for resistance against losing radical 13 14 15 16 17 18 Diane Richardson, ‘Rethinking Sexual Citizenship’ (2017) 51(2) Sociology 208, 209. David Evans, Sexual Citizenship: The Material Construction of Sexualities (Routledge 1993). Jeffery Weeks, ‘The Sexual Citizen’ (1998) 15(3–4) Theory, Culture & Society 35. Thomas Humphrey Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge University Press 1950). Leti Volpp, ‘Feminist, Sexual, and Queer Citizenship’ in Ayelet Shachar et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (Oxford University Press 2017) 153. Weeks (n 15) 37. 67