To belong is not always an easy thing, especially when ideas surrounding a person’s ability to fit in, join in and be in, is dependent upon normative codes of gender and sexuality. This is especially true for individuals whose genders and sexualities run counter to those normative ideals that have become cemented in the discourses of state and nation. Departing from this supposition, this article is interested in the national imaging and imagining of variant1 genders and sexual orientations; that is, the way in which citizenship, as a form of belonging, is visually negotiated from an lbgti (that is lesbian, bisexual, gay, trans and intersex) perspective. Images that speak of/to the nation on the topic of lbgti citizenship are complex representational devices, as they encapsulate a marked sense of difference and departure, while they also reveal a profound desire for solidarity and reconciliation.