by Matt

When I think of dangerous border crossings, I tend to think of those horror stories one hears about stolen passports and ludicrous bribes extracted deep in foreign jungles or at gun-point somewhere in Siberia. Over the past five years, I have begun to see that, for some, Australia’s borders are just as dangerous. Need I say more than Tampa. Little did I know that I would be engaging on a little dangerous border crossing of my own.

I am currently in Canada and trying to bring my partner, who is also male, back to Australia to live with me. As queer men, we are used to dangerous border crossings, albeit of the more gender-bending, transgressive social and sexual variety, but not one so immovable and unfair as that of world-wide immigration. We are two people who have fallen in love. We met at Mardi Gras, when both of us were working as volunteers, and have travelled each other’s countries and now want to start making a life with one another. In Canada, this may lead to marriage. I’ll be able to arrive at a border and tick “SPOUSE” and I’ll be in like Flynn. In Australia, he has no box to tick (which some people, including some queers, are just fine with) and he’ll have to enter as a tourist and go home after three months. One year in to our relationship, we can claim an “INTER-DEPENDENCY” and he may become a temporary resident. The word inter-dependency is the furthest representation of what we have and speaks nothing of the affection and love we share for one another.

The concept of immigration is strange to me. Why do we erect these borders in the first place? Why do we try to legislate against love? Right now, in Canada, we live as others do and have the rights that others do. In Australia, we could end up on either sides of a barbed wire fence, fingers outstretched to one another, me and my inter-dependent.

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