Homonationalism and LGBTQ Online Representations of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting

• In Event: 1480 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 04. Sexuality, Health, and Crime

Abstract

This article focuses on how 377 reports from popular lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) websites characterized the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, drawing particular attention to the representation of Islamophobia, the United States, and Omar Mateen, the shooter. Based on a grounded theory analysis of the five most-trafficked LGBTQ websites, results demonstrate that the reports generally presented the shooting as an attack that involved a Muslim man killing LGBTQ people. This emphasis typically decontextualized Mateen from the United States and excluded any emphasis on xenophobia or anti-Latinx prejudice, linking him with terrorism and sometimes implicitly positioning him as a foreign threat, despite his native born status. These results, building on Jasbir Puar’s concept of homonationalism, have implications for LGBTQ positions on the U.S. political left, as the reports typically constructed themselves as anti-Republican and opposed to Islamophobia, while simultaneously reinforcing homonationalist, and relatively conservative, positions.

Author

• Doug Meyer, University of Virginia