Rohingya experiences of displacement and refuge are heavilygendered. Sexual and gender-based violence have beenused as weapons against Rohingya women, men, girls andboys in Myanmar for decades. Trafficking and exploitationare rife on the flight out of the country, and host statessuch as India present their own gendered challenges tofamily survival and individual coping. In this paper, we exam-ine how some of those violent and disruptive experienceshave affected gender roles for individuals and families asthey have fled Myanmar (often more than once) and soughtrefuge in India via Bangladesh. We present new insight intothe dynamic subjectivity of Rohingya women as we showhow, contrary to dominant depictions of passive victimhood,many have lead family migration across borders, taken upNGO/community leadership roles, or made the best ‘home’possible within the limitations of the host context. This isbecause personal and family agency is sensitive to transi-tional opportunities and threats—i.e., gender norms of homeand host contexts, interactions with host communities, andtrust relations with NGOs, to name a few. Crucially, thesesocial practices and experiences are not static or linear; theyspan generations and sprawling geographies