LGBTQ Politics Reading List
The following list provides an overview of research on and related to LGBTQ politics and can serve as a starting point to familiarize yourself with the work or as a reference for creating a reading course syllabus. Readings are grouped roughly (and largely arbitrarily) by topic area and many works speak to multiple topics.
This list is largely built on the syllabus from POL 514 Politics of Gender and Sexuality. If there is anything that should be added to the list, please let us know.
LGBT Politics Syllabi
A collection of syllabi for LGBTQ Politics courses can be found here.
Journals
The following journals feature a relatively large amount of research on LGBT Politics and sexuality:
Journal of Homosexuality
Politics, Groups, and Identities
Politics & Gender
Sex Roles
State of the Field
Brettschneider, Marla, Susan Burgess, and Christine Keating, eds. LGBTQ politics: A critical reader. Vol. 3. NYU Press, 2017.
Novkov, Julie and Scott Barclay. 2010. “Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and the Transgendered in Political Science: Report on a Discipline-Wide Survey.” PS 43: 95-106.
Theoretical Foundations
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble
Foucault, Michel. Various Dates. The History of Sexuality.
Scott, Joan. 1986. “Gender: A Useful Historical Category.”
History, Development, Critiques
Cohen, Cathy J. "Punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens: The radical potential of queer politics?."
GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies 3.4 (1997): 437-465.
Briggs, Laura. 2000. “The Race of Hysteria.” American Quarterly 52: 246-73.
Hawkesworth, Mary. Embodied power: Demystifying disembodied politics. Routledge, 2016.
Junn, Jane. 2007. “Square pegs and round holes: Challenges of fitting individual-level analysis to a theory of politicized context of gender.”
Intersectionality
Combahee River Collective. 1977. “A Black Feminist Statement.”
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex.”
Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991-1992. “Race, Gender, and Sexual Harassment.”*
Hancock, Ange-Marie. "When multiplication doesn't equal quick addition: Examining intersectionality as a research paradigm." Perspectives on politics 5.1 (2007): 63-79.
Methodology
Jayaratne, Toby. 1983. “The Value of Quantitative Methodology for Feminist Research.”
Thomas, Jerry. "Queer sensibilities: notes on method." Politics, Groups, and Identities 5.1 (2017): 172-181.
Measurement
Glick, Peter, and Susan T. Fiske. "The ambivalent sexism inventory: Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism." Journal of personality and social psychology 70.3 (1996): 491.
Smith, Brianna, Zein Murib, Matthew Motta, Timothy H. Callaghan, Marissa Theys. 2017. "'Gay' or Homosexual'? The Implications of Social Category Labels for the Structure of Mass Attitudes."
Swim, Janet K., and Laurie L. Cohen. 1997. "Overt, covert, and subtle sexism: A comparison between the attitudes toward women and modern sexism scales." Psychology of women quarterly 21.1: 103-118.
Tougas, F., Brown, R., Beaton, A. M. and Joly, s.1995. Neosexism: Plus ca change, plus c'est pareil. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21:842–849.
N. Eugene Walls MSSW MA PhD (2008) Toward a Multidimensional Understanding of Heterosexism: The Changing Nature of Prejudice, Journal of Homosexuality, 55:1, 20-70, DOI: 10.1080/00918360802129287
Heterosexism, Attitudes Towards Groups
(See measurement for scales)
Arayasirikul, S., & Wilson, E. C. (2018). Spilling the t on trans-misogyny and microaggressions: An intersectional oppression and social process among trans women. Journal of homosexuality, 1–24.
Garretson, Jeremiah J. (2015) Does change in minority and women's representation on television matter?: a 30-year study of television portrayals and social tolerance, Politics, Groups, and Identities, 3:4, 615-632, DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2015.1050405
Kittiwut Jod Taywaditep PhD (2002) Marginalization Among the Marginalized, Journal of Homosexuality, 42:1, 1-28, DOI: 10.1300/J082v42n01_01
Flores, Andrew R. "Attitudes toward transgender rights: Perceived knowledge and secondary interpersonal contact." Politics, Groups, and Identities 3.3 (2015): 398-416.
Miller, Patrick R., et al. "Transgender politics as body politics: Effects of disgust sensitivity and authoritarianism on transgender rights attitudes." Politics, Groups, and Identities5.1 (2017): 4-24.
Representation, Groups, and Linked Fate
Cohen, Cathy. 1999. The Boundaries of Blackness: Aids and the Breakdown of Black Politics. University of Chicago Press.
Harnois, Catherine. 2015. “Race, Ethnicity, Sexuality, and Women’s Political Consciousness of Gender.
Harnois, Catharine. 2017, “Intersectional Masculinities and Gendered Political Consciousness.”
Reynolds, Andrew. 2013. “Representation and Rights: The Impact of LGBT Legislators in Comparative Perspective.” American Political Science Review 107: 259-74.
Young, Iris M. 2000. “Representation and Social Perspective.”
Intra-Group Variation and Heterogeneity
Cravens, Royal G. "The view from the top: social acceptance and ideological conservatism among sexual minorities." Politics, Groups, and Identities (2019): 1-22.
Non-Institutional Participation: Social Movements and Contentious Politics,
Gamson, Josh. "Silence, death, and the invisible enemy: AIDS activism and social movement “newness”." Social problems36.4 (1989): 351-367.
Ghaziani, Amin, Verta Taylor, and Amy Stone. 2016. “Cycles of Sameness and Difference in LGBT Social Movements. Annual Review of Sociology 42: 165-83.
Gould, Deborah. 2002. “Life During Wartime: Emotions And The Development Of Act- Up.” Mobilization 7:177-200.
McClendon, Gwyneth H. "Social esteem and participation in contentious politics: A field experiment at an LGBT pride rally." American Journal of Political Science 58.2 (2014): 279-290.
Institutional Participation
Voting and Candidates
Donald Haider-Markel et al. 2017. “Bringing “T” to the Table: Understanding Individual Support of Transgender Candidates for Public Office.”
Strolovitch, Dara, Janelle Wong, and Andrew Proctor. 2017. “A Posesssive Investment in White Hereopatrirchy?”
Interest Groups
Engel, S. M. (2007). Organizational identity as a constraint on strategic action: A comparative analysis of gay and lesbian interest groups. Studies in American Political Development, 21 (1), 66–91.
Strolovitch, D. Z. (2008). Affirmative advocacy: Race, class, and gender in interest group politics. University of Chicago Press.
The State
Bumiller, Kristin. 2013. “Feminist Collaboration with the State in Response to Sexual Violence.”
Canaday, Margot. The straight state: Sexuality and citizenship in twentieth-century America. Vol. 64. Princeton University Press, 2009.
Engel, Stephen. 2016. Fragmented Citizens. NYU Press.
Gottschalk, Marie. 2006. The Prison and the Gallows.
Hawkesworth, Mary. 2010. “Congressional Enactments of Race-Gender.”
Kunzel, Regina. “Sex Panic and the Expansion of the Carceral State.”
Courts, Obergefell
Pierceson, Jason. "From Kameny to Kennedy: the road to the positive rights protection of marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges." Politics, Groups, and Identities 3.4 (2015): 703-710.
Title IV, Sex-Segregation
Davis, Heath Fogg. "Why the “transgender” bathroom controversy should make us rethink sex-segregated public bathrooms." Politics, Groups, and Identities 6.2 (2018): 199-216.
Sharrow, Elizabeth A. "Sex segregation as policy problem: a gendered policy paradox." Politics, Groups, and Identities(2019): 1-22.
The Family, Marriage, and Reproductive Justice
Bernstein, M., Harvey, B., & Naples, N. A. (2018). Marriage, the final frontier? same-sex marriage and the future of the lesbian and gay movement. In Sociological forum (Vol. 33, pp. 30–52).
Nixon, Laura. 2013. “The Right to (Trans) Parent: A Reproductive Justice Approach to Reproductive Rights, Fertility, and Family-Building Issues Facing Transgender People.”
Sexuality and Policing
Hindman, Matthew Dean. "Promiscuity of the past: neoliberalism and gay sexuality pre-and post-AIDS." Politics, Groups, and Identities 7.1 (2019): 52-70.
Assimilationist vs. Queer Politics and Identity Construction
Bernstein, M. (2018). Same-sex marriage and the assimilationist dilemma: A research agenda on marriage equality and the future of lgbtq activism, politics, communities, and identities. Journal of homosexuality, 1–16.
El-Malik, Shiera S. "Rattling the binary: symbolic power, gender, and embodied colonial legacies." Politics, Groups, and Identities 2.1 (2014): 1-16.
Ferguson, Roderick A. One-dimensional queer. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.
Gamson, Joshua. "Must identity movements self-destruct? A queer dilemma." Social problems 42.3 (1995): 390-407.
Murib, Zein. "Transgender: Examining an emerging political identity using three political processes." Politics, Groups, and Identities 3.3 (2015): 381-397.
Passing and Identity Management
Berger, R. M. (1992). Passing and social support among gay men. Journal of Homosexuality, 23 (3), 85–98.
Woods, S. E., & Harbeck, K. M. (1992). Living in two worlds: The identity management strategies used by lesbian physical educators. Journal of Homosexuality, 22 (3-4), 141–166.