(iPoster) LGBTQ+ Politics, Citizenship, and the Lost Cause

• In Event: Poster Session: Racial, Ethnic, Gender, LGBTQ+ Politics & Sexuality and Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Racial, Ethnic, Gender, LGBTQ+ Politics

Abstract

The LGBTQ+ community has become an increasingly salient political community in recent decades as LGBTQ+ rights have become contested in the mainstream of American sociopolitical life. As this community has fought for and achieved fuller rights of citizenship, it has become the target of a brand of grievance politics with increasingly intersectional concerns. This paper examines the nexus between this relatively new battlefield and one that predates the American republic—racial exclusion—by examining the rhetoric of contemporary sociopolitical groups espousing Neo-Confederate or Lost Cause values. These groups have expanded the targets of their grievance politics as the American sociopolitical status quo has changed. I argue that such groups perceive existential threats in the march of progress for traditionally marginalized communities, including both the racial communities that have animated them since their origin and newly politicized communities, such as the LGBTQ+ community. Through qualitative analysis of writings of such Neo-Confederate and Lost Cause groups, I argue that these groups often respond to their perceived victimhood by renewing their efforts to define the American nation, once and for all, as a place from which an ever-increasing roster of traditionally marginalized communities are permanently excluded.

Author

• Anastasja Abraham, Mount Holyoke College