Jun 2, 2026 02:00 AM
(This post was last modified: Jun 2, 2026 02:16 AM by C C.)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1130385
INTRO: The period between 2018 and 2022, sometimes referred to as “the rainbow wave,” featured an unprecedented increase in LGBTQ candidates elected to office. Pete Buttigieg’s rise (from mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to U.S. secretary of transportation with a 2020 bid for president in between) sparked a national dialogue about whether gay candidates no longer faced an electoral penalty at the ballot box.
A new study from Northwestern University sought to answer whether Americans have moved past prejudices against gay people, and what kind of gay candidates face little to no electoral penalty. The research reveals American voters are more accepting of gay candidates than at any point in our history, but acceptance is conditional and varies by political party.
The paper, “The Right Kind of (Gay) Man? Sexuality, Gender Presentation and Heteronormative Constraints on Electability,” recently published in the Journal of Politics. The lead author Martin Naunov, an assistant professor of political science and a faculty associate at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern, found strikingly different implications for being gay in American politics versus acting and looking gay.
The study found Republican voters continue to penalize candidates for being gay and for being even slightly gender nonconforming. Among Democratic and young voters, the anti-gay penalty has partly vanished and partly shifted to penalizing candidates who look or sound slightly gender nonconforming.
“On the left, the bias against gay candidates has moved from ‘don’t be gay’ to ‘don’t look or sound gay,’” Naunov said. “Voters across the political spectrum, including those who think of themselves as allies, still show bias against candidates who look or sound even slightly gender nonconforming — a key cultural marker of gayness. This has real consequences for who gets elected and represented in public life.”
The study is the first to introduce gender presentation — the masculinity or femininity of a candidate’s appearance — into the debate over electability, and separate sexuality and gender presentation as two related but distinct biases that earlier political science studies have conflated.
The study also breaks new ground as the first political science experiment to examine both between-group and within-group discrimination. The existing literature has studied whether voters reject a group outright (gay vs. straight, Black vs. white, immigrant vs. native), overlooking a second, more insidious bias: those who embody visible markers of their minority identity.
Individuals with markers of a minority identity such as a gay candidate with a lisp, an immigrant job applicant with an accent or a Black defendant who speaks African American Vernacular English can face penalties even from people who reject anti-gay, anti-immigrant or anti-Black bias at the entire group level.
“In the real world, bias rarely operates on group identities alone. It operates on the physical markers that make identity distinctive and visible,” Naunov said. “Bias often targets a substantial subset of the minority group who may face penalties even from people who reject anti-gay bias at the group level.” (MORE - no ads)
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Since most LGBT+ candidates are going to be Democrats, it's a tad glaring not to take that into account as a factor in Republican voting. Correspondingly, left-wing voters aren't going to vote for Black conservatives, etc, either.
INTRO: The period between 2018 and 2022, sometimes referred to as “the rainbow wave,” featured an unprecedented increase in LGBTQ candidates elected to office. Pete Buttigieg’s rise (from mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to U.S. secretary of transportation with a 2020 bid for president in between) sparked a national dialogue about whether gay candidates no longer faced an electoral penalty at the ballot box.
A new study from Northwestern University sought to answer whether Americans have moved past prejudices against gay people, and what kind of gay candidates face little to no electoral penalty. The research reveals American voters are more accepting of gay candidates than at any point in our history, but acceptance is conditional and varies by political party.
The paper, “The Right Kind of (Gay) Man? Sexuality, Gender Presentation and Heteronormative Constraints on Electability,” recently published in the Journal of Politics. The lead author Martin Naunov, an assistant professor of political science and a faculty associate at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern, found strikingly different implications for being gay in American politics versus acting and looking gay.
The study found Republican voters continue to penalize candidates for being gay and for being even slightly gender nonconforming. Among Democratic and young voters, the anti-gay penalty has partly vanished and partly shifted to penalizing candidates who look or sound slightly gender nonconforming.
“On the left, the bias against gay candidates has moved from ‘don’t be gay’ to ‘don’t look or sound gay,’” Naunov said. “Voters across the political spectrum, including those who think of themselves as allies, still show bias against candidates who look or sound even slightly gender nonconforming — a key cultural marker of gayness. This has real consequences for who gets elected and represented in public life.”
The study is the first to introduce gender presentation — the masculinity or femininity of a candidate’s appearance — into the debate over electability, and separate sexuality and gender presentation as two related but distinct biases that earlier political science studies have conflated.
The study also breaks new ground as the first political science experiment to examine both between-group and within-group discrimination. The existing literature has studied whether voters reject a group outright (gay vs. straight, Black vs. white, immigrant vs. native), overlooking a second, more insidious bias: those who embody visible markers of their minority identity.
Individuals with markers of a minority identity such as a gay candidate with a lisp, an immigrant job applicant with an accent or a Black defendant who speaks African American Vernacular English can face penalties even from people who reject anti-gay, anti-immigrant or anti-Black bias at the entire group level.
“In the real world, bias rarely operates on group identities alone. It operates on the physical markers that make identity distinctive and visible,” Naunov said. “Bias often targets a substantial subset of the minority group who may face penalties even from people who reject anti-gay bias at the group level.” (MORE - no ads)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Since most LGBT+ candidates are going to be Democrats, it's a tad glaring not to take that into account as a factor in Republican voting. Correspondingly, left-wing voters aren't going to vote for Black conservatives, etc, either.
