Queering the Movement: How LGBTQIA+ Folk Shape Political Movements in the US

• In Event: Movement and Mobilizing

Abstract

Protest and community organizing provide essential recourse for groups with limited power, but their ability to affect change is directly tied to how well they attract supportive allies, develop coalitions and expand the scope of conflict. Understanding who is likely to engage as allies and coalition partners is thus essential to understanding how diverse groups gain power in our political system. While we have long attributed protest and social movements to the young and disenfranchised generally, there is also reason to believe that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual + (LGBTQIA+) community, regardless of age or access to political resources, are more likely to engage as allies than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. Over the last 20 years a robust literature has explored LGBTQIA+ political behavior and identity. This research suggests that the LGBTQIA+ community has distinctive and largely cohesive political behavior that stems from a collective identity and is promoted through social networks, organizational membership and a shared understanding of grievances. Scholars have also largely found that LGBTQIA+ folk engage in conventional political participation at higher rates than straight and cisgender individuals. This work has suggested, though rarely tested, the idea that there is a unique political culture that encourages and socializes activist-oriented political behavior that is magnified by experiences of discrimination and mistreatment. Building off of existing scholarship, the current project hypothesizes that the LGBTQIA+ community provides political socialization and culture that encourages widespread political engagement and involvement in protest and social movements unrelated to LGBTQIA+ issues. We evaluate this expectation using data from a novel quota-based survey that oversamples LGBTQIA+ individuals, asking about engagement in a wide range of protest and social movements. Findings suggest members of the LGBTQIA+ community engage as allies at significantly higher rates than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, thus making a significant contribution to a variety of movements unrelated to LGBTQIA+ issues. This study adds to a growing body of literature that investigates how social change happens in the U.S., helping to clarify the essential role the LGBTQIA+ community plays in changing policy, promoting rights, and accessing political power for a variety of groups.

Author

• Melanie Marie Bowers, Rutgers University, Camden