(9x14) Virtuality Incarnate: Part 2, Episode 2
As the independent Sphidi community begins to grow as discriminated Sphidi from around the world migrate there seeking refuge, that community faces further difficulties integrating politically into the rest of the world. The reinstated Internation formally allows for the easy creation and integration of new polities, but it has not yet had to deal with the question of what exactly makes one count as a person with the rights the Internation's laws recognize.
Xiuying is naturally elected the first governor of their new polity, and under her leadership they fight politically for recognition by their neighbors and acceptance into the next-higher tier of the Internation's federated structure. Once that is won, the citizens of the Sphidian polity have effectively won their personhood internationally, as the federated structure brings with it the full support of all the higher tiers. Recognition for Sphidi generally, around the world, is still an ongoing struggle, but at least any of them can flee to their own polity for safety if it becomes an unbearable problem elsewhere.
But Xiuying then finds herself fighting a different kind of battle inside of the polity. Her people want to make their polity a Sphidi-only community, with no organic humans living there, much less having political rights there, as they fear an influx of humans with political rights could erode the recognition they have just fought so hard to attain. Between her and the organic human ambassador of their polity to the next-higher tier, they have the political strength to block such a policy, but the popular Sphidi masses in turn threaten to secede from the Internation and claim their community as an independent, sovereign nation-state separate from the global political structure. Realizing the harm to her people that such an action could take, she must delicately convince them to show organic humans the kind of welcome that they're still fighting to achieve elsewhere in human communities around the world.