Overlapping Conservative Fears: The Condemnation of Intersectionality and LGBTQ Issues in Online Conservative News Media

• In Event: 50610 - Unpacking Intersectionality: The Tangle of Disadvantage

Abstract

Intersectionality and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) issues have a significant and overlapping history. However, little remains known concerning how more adversarial arenas, such as online conservative news media, may represent intersectionality and LGBTQ issues in tandem. In this article, based on qualitative research using grounded theory methods, I examine how 427 online conservative news media reports, from nine widely searched websites in the U.S., simultaneously presented intersectionality and LGBTQ issues in negative ways. The authors of the reports linked intersectionality with LGBTQ people of color to narrow its relevance, positioning multiply-marginalized groups as specific rather than expansive and drawing on understandings of people of color and LGBTQ individuals as specialized. Further, the reports used LGBTQ people of color and transgender people, broadly speaking, to appeal to more privileged individuals. These reports conveyed panic over white heterosexual men being “displaced,” as previous scholarship has shown, yet this research also draws attention to some potentially newer dynamics where these media are using these notions to scare marginalized groups, such as cisgender women, men of color, and white gay men, into believing that they are being displaced by intersectionality or the Left more broadly.

Author

• Doug Meyer, University of Virginia