Content uploaded by Clifton McGuffey
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Clifton McGuffey on Apr 14, 2023
Content may be subject to copyright.
441
Du Bois Review, 15:2 (2018) 441–465.
© 2018 Hutchins Center for African and African American Research
doi:10.1017/S1742058X18000218
STATE OF THE ART
INTERSECTIONALITY, COGNITION,
DISCLOSURE AND BLACK LGBT
VIEWS ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND
MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Is Gay the New Black?
C. Shawn McGuffey
Department of Sociology and African and African Diaspora Studies, Boston College
Abstract
Intersectionality has contributed to the ongoing deconstruction of dichotomous and
essentializing categories of identity and oppression. As some scholars have noted, however,
intersectionality has debunked a sociobiological, single-node paradigm and unintentionally
codified a deterministic form of social cognition. I suggest one mechanism for understanding
how to untangle this intersectional dilemma: disclosure practices. Disclosure of stigmatized
statuses can illuminate how macro level inequalities manifest in individual thought processes.
This study adds to emerging research by showing how social actors rely on intersectional
experiences to understand, think about, and frame complex social problems. I examine
this topic via 197 interviews with 102 Black participants who identify as LGBT about their
views on same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue before and after same-sex marriage
was nationally legalized. Specifically, I argue that the Black LGBT participants’ experience
with intersectional discrimination and their levels of sexual and gender identity disclosure
account for their personal views on same-sex marriage and Black civil rights. Further, the
majority of Black participants across disclosure practices viewed marriage equality as
primarily benefitting the property interests of White gays and lesbians. Last, I discuss the
implications of my findings for LGBT politics and the connections between self-interest and
political perspectives.
Keywords: Civil Rights, Cognition, Disclosure, Intersectionality, LGBT Politics, Race,
Same-Sex Marriage, Sexuality
INTRODUCTION
Intersectionality has contributed to the on-going scholarly and political deconstruction
of dichotomous and essentializing categories of identity and oppression. This analytic
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
442 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
frame has successfully destabilized assumptive similarities within social categories.
The explanatory power of intersectionality lies in its ability to conceptualize multiple
identities simultaneously; and to show the ways in which these intersecting identities
are tied to legal doctrine, social structures, and inequalities (Cho 2013; Collins 2004;
Crenshaw 1991). Nonetheless, as some have argued, intersectionality has often focused
on charting identity constellations that pinpoint the impact and merger of race, class,
gender, and sexuality on the life chances of individuals and groups. These identity
constellations have been helpful in understanding the experiences of individuals and
communities that have often been overlooked and under-theorized, and for suggesting
what these individuals and communities think about. Yet, they do not account for the
diversity of thought within particular identity constellations nor do they adequately
explain how people think and make sense of their lives (Kelly 2013; O’Leary 1998;
West and Turner, 2013). As Ana Carasthathis (2008) suggests, the unitary model of
identity and experience that intersectionality purports to subvert inadvertently replaces
one totalizing model for another. That is, by suggesting a person can be “known” if
we meticulously map their experiences of marginalization and privilege implicitly sug-
gest we can draw conclusions about the ways in which a person thinks. For example,
intersectionality runs the risk of suggesting that if we map the experience of Black,
low-income lesbians in a certain locale we can predict how Black, low-income lesbians
in that locale will think about particular political issues. We know, though, that this is
not the case. For instance, research has shown that Black gays and lesbians locally and
nationally often differ among themselves in their views of same-sex marriage as a civil
rights issue; and identity constellations do not determine those differences (Rogowski
and Cohen, 2014). Thus, intersectionality has debunked a socio-biological, single-
node paradigm based in the concrete realities of the material world while unintention-
ally codifying a deterministic form of social cognition (Carastathis 2008; Goff and
Kahn, 2013). By social cognition, I mean the ways in which people make sense of
others, themselves, and social phenomenon, and the social context and cultural sym-
bols from which individuals utilize in those processes (Howard 1994). This distinction
between material reality and cognition is not trivial. On the contrary, how one thinks
can impact the material world and vice-versa via social action (Weber 1974), civic
engagement (Harris-Perry 2011), and political participation (Fowler and Kam, 2007).
But how do we explain that people with similar identity constellations can often
think about the world differently? And, conversely, how do we explain that people
with dissimilar identity constellations can often think about the world similarly? I sug-
gest one mechanism for untangling this intersectional dilemma: disclosure practices.
Disclosure practices require self-conscious identification with social statuses that may
or may not be valued in particular situations. Disclosing a stigmatized identity opens
one up to the possibility of shaming, and perhaps the loss of social support, resources,
and self-esteem. On the other hand, stigmatized disclosure can be empowering and
is often, though certainly not always, associated with a host of mental and physical
health benefits (Pastrana 2014). In accordance with social cognition theories, disclo-
sure is a proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating agentic strategy that people
utilize to navigate the material, social, and psychological dimensions of their everyday
lives. Thus, disclosure of stigmatized statuses—whether the result of an event or
identification—can illuminate how macrolevel inequalities manifest in individual
thought processes as social actors appraise the cost and benefits of disclosing. To be
clear, this study does not attempt to unseat the advances of intersectionality. Rather,
like Jennifer Nash (2008), I build upon and “grapple with intersectionality’s theoretical
[and] political murkiness to construct a more complex way of theorizing identity and
oppression” (p. 1).
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 443
Is Gay the New Black?
This study adds to emerging research by showing how social actors rely on inter-
sectional experiences to understand, think about, and frame complex political problems.
I examine this topic via 197 interviews with 102 Black participants that self-identify
as lesbian, gay/same gender loving, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) about their
views on same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue before and after the landmark U.S.
Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the country. Due to
their intersecting marginalized identities, Black LGBT individuals are at particular
risk for shaming (and the violence that can come along with shaming practices), and
the act of disclosure is a particularly powerful tool for theorizing about how intersec-
tional experiences contour social cognition.
I argue that the Black LGBT participants’ experience with intersectional dis-
crimination (i.e., discrimination based on one or more of their marginalized identities
in isolation or in tandem) and their degrees of sexual and gender identity disclosure
account for their personal views on same-sex marriage and civil rights. The intersec-
tional framework I deploy here showcases the ways in which social identity markers
coalesce with disclosure practices, which in turn, shape social cognition. Specifically,
my argument about disclosure practices remedies two theoretical weaknesses of inter-
sectionality’s current formulation: 1) the ability to account for differences within iden-
tity constellations; and 2) how to understand the ways people think about and make
meaning of their lives and complex social issues. Concerning the former, disclosure
practices reveal how people within intersectional constellations can experience the
world in radically different ways depending on if they choose to disclose a stigmatized,
though not necessarily visible, identity. Regarding the latter, by choosing to either
open one’s self up for defamation by disclosing a stigmatized identity (or choosing
not to do so), disclosure practices suggests how people will cognitively process their
intersectional experiences and make sense of their social and political lives. Disclosure,
though, is not equivalent to another intersectional category, such as race or gender.
Instead, disclosure practices highlight the process of making meaning that is agentic
rather than deterministic. Disclosure practices provide pathways of thought and lend
themselves to particular logics based on the identifications that disclosure entails. It’s
not so much that disclosure determines political views but that disclosure makes certain
views fit together more coherently.
INTERSECTIONAL LIVES & THOUGHT: THE MARRIAGE EQUALITY CASE
Examining the political beliefs of Black LGBT participants is an excellent way to illu-
minate social cognition from an intersectional perspective. On a more general level,
focusing on Black LGBT participants disrupts the longstanding preoccupation with
the political views of mainstream Whites (Moodie-Mills 2012). Second, investigating
the multiply marginalized adds to our understanding of the ways in which individual
identities and experiences are used to make sense of one’s political claims (Harris-
Perry 2011). Third, making sense of political issues often necessitates the desire to
balance both self-interest and group position (Bobo and Hutchings, 1996).
Fourth, focusing on Black LGBT political perspectives of marriage equality is spe-
cifically advantageous because members of this community embody many overlapping
stigmatized identities simultaneously; therefore providing several analytic opportuni-
ties to study identity constellations along several different axes of power. Additionally,
both the Black Civil Rights and same-sex marriage movements have produced iconic
cultural symbols (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr in the former, and Stonewall in the
latter) that can be utilized to cognitively process information. And last, survey data does
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
444 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
suggest that there are several issues in which identity constellations do predict Black
LGBT political perspectives. However, this same survey material also demonstrates
that this is not always the case (see below); yet, we do not have the tools to make sense
of contradictions in these identity constellations. Thus, the intersecting identities of
Black LGBT individuals demonstrate that self-interests are fluid, one’s group posi-
tion is conditional, and processes of making sense of social life are indeterminate.
Consequently, the views expressed by Black LGBT participants are the result of both
personal and collective processes, which are contingent upon the social context from
which they are drawn (see Moore 2011).
White LGBT youth and adults prioritize same-sex marriage and often view it as
this generation’s civil rights issue, often evoking Black Civil Rights imagery of the
1960s to rally both political and financial support for the cause of marriage equality
(Battle et al., 2002; Moodie-Mills 2012; Moore 2011). Although some Blacks agreed, a
number of others disparaged this comparison, suggesting the fight for marriage equal-
ity is not equivalent to racial equality and is, thus, not comparable to the Black Civil
Rights Movement. Despite the legal gains of the LGBT movement and media repre-
sentations of gay affluence, Blacks in this community are one of the most economically
insecure in the country (Moodie-Mills 2012). Further, the Black LGBT community is:
1) significantly more likely to be homeless (Diaz and Kosciw, 2009); 2) at a higher
risk of contracting HIV/AIDS (Malebranche et al., 2011); and 3) is more likely to
be incarcerated and the targets of hate crimes (Himmelstein and Bruckner, 2011).
Considering these stark economic and health disparities, research demonstrates that
Black LGBT social and political cognitions are rooted in part in ongoing relations
of racial inequality. It is not surprising, then, that other issues superseded marriage
equality for Black LBGT populations (Rogowski and Cohen, 2014).
SOCIAL COGNITION AND THE POLITICS OF DISCLOSURE
While the informative studies above tell us much about differences between Black
and White LGBT political priorities, they tell us little about how individuals within
Black LGBT communities think about these issues. For instance, although the Black
Pride survey revealed that many Black LGBT individuals ranked marriage equality
as a very low priority, some ranked it high; and their distinct, intersectional identity
constellations did not correlate with their thinking (see Battle et al., 2002). Likewise,
identity constellations also did not map neatly onto the political views of my study’s
participants. Black identity, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and social class specificities did
not explain nor predict how a participant assessed same-sex marriage as a civil rights
issue. Rather, it was the participants’ intersecting experiences in conjunction with their
levels of disclosure that explained their views. As such, two bodies of literature inform
this intersectional study to underscore how macro-institutions and interconnecting
inequalities shape micro-experiences and thought processes: social cognition and dis-
closure practices.
Examining meaning making and how people think is a central concern of social
scientists interested in social cognition. A key component of sociological understand-
ings of cognition is that individual thought is inseparable from social structure; for it
is social structure that often provides the cultural material and symbols from which
social actors draw meaning. Despite linkages between individuals and society, social
psychology has been heavily criticized for its lack of sustained attention to under-
standing how inequalities shape cognition (Hollander and Howard, 2000; Hunt et al.,
2000). In particular, intersectionality and sexuality have largely been ignored in social
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 445
Is Gay the New Black?
psychological and cognitive research (see Hunt et al., 2013). Consequently, there is
a serious lack of concepts and research demonstrating how intersectionality impacts
cognitive capacities.
Part of the issue is that intersectionality has largely been localized to the level of
experience. Conceived out of Black feminist and critical race theories, intersectionality
is rooted in the experiences of Black women and the ways in which they navigate race,
class, and gender hierarchies (Crenshaw 1991; Nash 2008). As intersectional theories
continue to expand, the scope of experiences informing intersectionality have moved
beyond Black women and includes other marginalized groups, as well as the privileged
(Madison and Partridge, 2014). Nonetheless, there is still a dearth of literature that
conceptualizes how intersectional experiences lead to intersectional cognitive practices.
Some recent scholarship, however, has taken this conceptual turn and demon-
strates how interlocking structural inequalities constrain and facilitate the experiences
of individuals; as well as provides the culturally symbolic resources that assist in meaning-
making and to cognitively process information. Recent work on Black women rape
survivors, for instance, highlights how women’s cognitive frames are shaped by both
their structural position as Black women and the available cultural symbols that often
portray Black women as promiscuous and impervious to hardship. The sexual assault
survivors used an appraisal process that took into account their experiences as Black
women in a sexist, racist, and classist social system to assess the likely responses
of others and the cost and benefits to what they perceived to be “the Black commu-
nity” if they disclosed the assault to authorities. Thus, the act of disclosure fashioned
the women’s intersecting experiences and shaped the ways they processed their sexual
assault (McGuffey 2013).
Although most research on the disclosure of sexual orientation has focused on
the experiences of middle-class White gays and lesbians, there is a growing amount
of research indicating that disclosure occurs differently for low-income individuals
and/or people of color. The intersectional perspective on sexual identity annuls the
developmental assumption that disclosure is tied to linear ideals of maturity and iden-
tity formation (Moore 2011). Rather, an intersectional perspective links disclosure to
structural forces (Pastrana 2014). For example, most research suggests publicly iden-
tifying as White, well educated, male, and middle to upper class increases the likeli-
hood of sexual orientation disclosure; while those who identify as a person of color,
less educated, female and poor are less likely to self-disclose (Potoczniak et al, 2009).
Age is also a factor, with youth being more likely to self-disclose than older cohorts;
and adolescent boys and men disclosing at earlier ages than their lesbian counter-
parts (Floyd and Bakeman, 2006). Some scholars, however, are challenging this idea.
Both the middle-class and working-class participants with middle-class aspirations in
Mignon Moore’s (2011) study on Black lesbians, for instance, had the most difficulty
with self-disclosure: “Upwardly mobile [lesbians] believed they had something con-
crete to lose in taking on an openly gay identity as they entered adulthood” (p. 31).
The working class Black lesbians without middle class aspirations felt free from the
politics of respectability and were, thus, more inclined to act upon their same-sex
desires and to disclose their Black lesbian identities at earlier ages.
The limited research on transgender people of color reveals that the experience
of gender identity self-disclosure is different from the disclosure of sexual orientation.
Not only are transgender people of color marginalized by race (and often class), but
transitioning to an either more or less privileged gender identity category further con-
textualizes their marginalization (Bockting et al., 2013). Also, disclosure practices are
further complicated for many who aspire and/or are capable of “passing” undetected
as a transgender person (Pastrana 2014). I propose that these debates and conflicting
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
446 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
findings illuminate that structures do not necessarily determine disclosure as much as
individuals actively strategize about their current situation and future prospects based
on the ways in which they make meaning of their social constraints; thus, leaving
room for indeterminacy. Further, although some of my participants use the popular
language of “coming out,” I purposely avoid this lexicon because it suggests a static
identity in and of itself; whereas disclosure highlights the contextual and strategic
processes that individuals employ to negotiate their sexual and/or gender identities in
their everyday lives.
In sum, although intersectional identity constellations can often explain what social
actors think about, these constellations run the risk of solidifying an overly determin-
istic model of social cognition. This project suggests new questions and directions in
the empirical study of social cognition and identifies disclosure practices as key mecha-
nisms that bind intersectional identities to cognition. A social cognitive perspective
helps us understand how the structural and cultural components of intersectionality
unfold in internal lives.
METHODS
Study Participants
Participation in the study was restricted to those between the ages of eighteen and
thirty who identified as Black and as a sexual or gender minority. Emerging adult-
hood is a developmental stage characterized by subjective perceptions of responsi-
bility and independence and identity explorations (see Herzog 2017); where people
are actively negotiating sexual, gender, and racial identities simultaneously (Diaz and
Kosciw, 2009). Further, this is an age where young people develop their political con-
sciousness (Jennings 1996), self-reflect on and “test” political ideas (Ellison 2003),
and cement “concrete affiliations and partnerships” (Erikson 1993, p. 278). As such,
this is an appropriate targeted age group to study Black LGBT identities and politi-
cal perspectives. The twelve-year-age span also increases my ability to account for a
diversity of emerging adult perspectives as participants are both entering and leaving
this developmental stage.
The findings from this study are based on 197 interviews with 102 participants,
comprising fifty-six men and forty-six women.1 Participants found out about the
study from advertisements on mainstream on-line LGBT support sites, Black on-line
LGBT social and support sites, community board postings, list-serves, and through
word of mouth. All participants lived in the Northeast and were drawn from ten cit-
ies in five states. Although the geographic specificity of the participants surely shaped
this project, my findings are consistent with quantitative research relying on national
surveys that show a connection between levels of sexual disclosure and political ori-
entations (Swank and Fahs, 2013); as well as qualitative studies in the South that find
Black gays and lesbians that see a disconnect between their identities often minimize
their sexuality (McQueeney 2009).
Data Collection
Phase One
I collected the data in two different phases. In phase one I conducted face-to-face
interviews with sixty-seven participants and an additional thirty-five interviews via
Skype, a telecommunication software that allows users to see and hear each other in
real-time while being in different locations. All interviews were recorded, transcribed,
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 447
Is Gay the New Black?
Table 1. Black LGBT Participant Characteristics
n=102
Age Range: 18–30 years; 80.39% (82 participants) were between 20 and 28 years old
Geographic Profile: Bridgeport and Hartford, Connecticut; Boston, Cambridge and Springfield,
Massachusetts; Providence and Warwick, Rhode Island; Jersey City and Newark,
New Jersey; New York City, New York
_____
Ethnicity
67.65% (69 participants) –—African American
18.63% (19 participants) –—Caribbean Immigrant
13.73% (14 participants) –—African Immigrant
_____
Gender & Sexual Identity
Women=46 Men=56
25.49% (26 women) –—lesbian 43.14% (44 men) –—gay/same gender loving
7.84% (8 women) –—bisexual 5.88% (6 men) –—bisexual
11.76% (12 women) –—heterosexual & transgender 5.88% (6 men) –—heterosexual & transgender
_____
Education:
37.25% (38 participants) –—had a GED/high school diploma only
48.04% (49 participants) –—either in or completed college
14.71% (15 participants) –—either in or completed graduate/professional school
_____
Income:
Poor 9.80% (10 participants) –—$0 –—$25,999
Working Class 23.53% (24 participants) –—$26,000 –—$35,999
Middle Class 56.86% (58 participants) –—$36,000 –—$75,999
Upper Class 9.80% (10 participants) –—$76,000 +
_____
Disclosure Status:
Full Disclosure
23 African Americans – 33.33% of all African American participants
6 Caribbean Immigrants – 31.58% of all Caribbean immigrant participants
4 African Immigrants – 28.57% of all African immigrant participants
—
Selective Disclosure
29 African Americans – 42.03% of all African American participants
8 Caribbean Immigrants – 42.11% of all Caribbean immigrant participants
6 African Immigrants – 42.86% of all African immigrant participants
Nondisclosure
17 African Americans – 24.64% of all African American participants
5 Caribbean Immigrants – 26.32% of all Caribbean immigrant participants
4 African Immigrants – 28.57% of all African immigrant participants
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
448 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
and took place at a location of the participants’ choosing between 2012 and 2014.
Participants were categorized into three different groups based on their responses to
the following three sets of questions:
• Do you go out of your way to hide your sexual or gender identity from any of your…
Friends? Family? Co-workers?
• Do all the important people in your life know about your sexual or gender identity?
• If you discovered that someone didn’t know about your sexual or gender identity, would
you tell that person if it came up in conversation with…Friends? Family members?
Co-workers?
Individuals that answered “no” to all parts of the first question, “yes” to the second,
and “yes” to all parts of the third question were grouped in the full disclosure category.
Participants were categorized as selective disclosure if they answered, “yes” to any parts
of the first question, “no” to the second question, and “no” to any part of the third
question. The nondisclosure category was reserved for those that answered, “yes” to
all parts of first question, “no” to the second, and “no” to all parts of the last question.
Phase Two
After categorizing participant responses, I reinterviewed respondents in phase two
between 2015-2016, after the U.S. Supreme Court decision on June 26, 2015 that
legalized same-sex marriage across the country. This was done to see if the court deci-
sion impacted their previous responses. I reinterviewed all thirty-three participants in
the full disclosure category; forty of the forty-three selective disclosures; and twenty-
two of the twenty-six nondisclosed participants. In total, I conducted 197 interviews.
Conducting the Interviews
While I did not specify my social identities to potential participants, my interview
recruitment tools included a photograph of myself and stated that I am an associate
professor of Sociology and African and African Diaspora Studies. Further, when
respondents inquired about any of my identities, or disclosure practices, I politely told
them that I would be glad to discuss this after the first interview. I believe my ability
to be perceived as similar to the majority of participants greatly aided in my ability to
collect interview data, as research suggests that race, gender, sexuality and class shapes
participant rapport (see Eghareuba 2001; Kanuha 2000, McGuffey 2013).
After the initial interview, participants and I had a discussion of my social identi-
ties that revealed clear ways in which they were making assumptions about me. My
familiarity with various slang, music, food, customs and other cultural and class
codes throughout the African diaspora may have implied group membership and/or
allegiances. As such, most interpreted my self-presentation to mirror their identi-
ties. That is, all participants initially identified me racially as “Black,” “Black-ish,” or
“at least half-Black.” Additionally, the vast majority of women and men that expressed
same-sex attraction assumed I did as well; and all those that identified as bisexual cat-
egorized me as such. In terms of ethnicity, all African Americans presumed that I was,
too; and 78.95% of Caribbean immigrants classified me as Caribbean despite the fact
that I do not have a Caribbean accent. None, however, suggested that I was an African
immigrant. African immigrants, nonetheless, repeatedly conveyed appreciation for
my knowledge of West and South African traditions, geography, and localized queer
vernacular. While no one thought I was currently poor or working class, 64.71% of
the poor and working-class participants thought I was raised in a working class or
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 449
Is Gay the New Black?
poor household. All participants identified me as a man. Only one transgender person,
however, assumed I was a transgender man, and that was primarily due (according to
him) to my fluency in trans men’s specific lingo and knowledge of gender confirmation
medical procedures.
Analysis
The interviews were coded and grouped using NVivo 11 qualitative research software
and a constant comparative method (CCM) was used to analyze the data. CCM com-
pels investigators to constantly check, code, and recode the data. Modifying Hennie
Boeije’s (2002) CCM model, a four-step CCM analysis was utilized in this project:
1) Comparison within a single interview: Categories were established through
open coding and a code tree was developed for preliminary conceptualization.
2) Comparison between interviews within the same group: Participants were
compared with others of the same ethnic, gender, sexual, and class groups
through axial coding.
3) Comparison of interviews between groups: Participant groups were compared
to other participant groups for conceptual refinement.
4) Comparison of interviews between cities and states: Participants were com-
pared with members from each of the five states and then, again, from each of
the ten cities to identify any potential regional idiosyncrasies. No idiosyncrasies
were identified.
If the data aligns with the frameworks then the CCM concludes that the findings
confirm conceptual models (Miles and Huberman, 1984). Conversely, discrepancies
from existing models (i.e., negative cases) necessitate that the researcher develops new
theories or postulate and/or extend prior formulations. The classifications are consid-
ered “saturated” when new cases no longer generate novel information. At this point
researchers can draw conclusions (Boeije 2002).
FINDINGS
The findings are separated into five sections. The first section demonstrates the variance
in social cognition among those with similar identity constellations. Sections two through
four underscore how disclosure practices help us understand the predictability of meaning
making. In particular, the second section focuses on those that are fully disclosed; the third
on selective disclosure; and the fourth on the nondisclosed. These groupings demonstrate
that disclosure practices and perceived experiences of intersectional discrimination con-
tour how the participants think about same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue.
I present the first four sections through the accounts of three case studies. All
names are pseudonyms. Focusing on a relatively small number of participants for ana-
lytic clarity has been applied to influential studies on gender and race (Chen 1999),
and race and social class (Lareau 2002), as it allows for a more nuanced understanding
of the phenomenon in question. This is especially vital for this study for two reasons.
First, context is central to understanding the connection between biography and per-
ception and how accounts are contoured by structural constraints. Using fewer cases
to illuminate these processes allows the researcher to underscore the significance of
context. Second, as stated earlier, I am illuminating how intersectional experiences
shape how people think about complex social problems. This necessitates a longer
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
450 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
discussion of fewer cases that represents each disclosure practice in order to refine the
connection between intersectional and social psychological approaches.
The last section focuses on the negative cases; that is, the ways in which disclosure
practices do not explain how respondents think about social issues. Focusing on
these negative cases reveal that while disclosure practices explain how participants
make sense of their social life and political attitudes towards civil rights, disclosure
practices do not explain how they assess the perceived aims and priorities of LGBT
rights organizations. Rather, collective understandings of anti-Blackness and trans-
gender invisibility explain participant perspectives.
Identity Constellations and Social Cognitive Variance: “I Am the Connection.”
The three participants discussed in this section have remarkably similar identity
constellations. All three are: 1) middle class, 2) born and raised in the same city in
predominately Black neighborhoods, 3) products of two parent, dual income house-
holds, 4) attending the same highly selective university, 5) either nineteen or twenty
years of age at the time of their initial interviews, 6) members of Baptist churches, and
7) self-identified African American gay men. One might assume that these three would
have similar political perspectives based on their similar intersectional identities. This,
however, is not the case. Their differing disclosure practices reveal how their inter-
secting identities and perceived levels of discrimination are used to make sense of the
world very differently.
Darryl is a nineteen-year-old college sophomore that practices full disclosure. He
was kicked out of his house at the age of sixteen when he disclosed his sexual identity
to his homophobic parents. Although he eventually moved back in the house, he stated
that he was “glad” that he earned a full scholarship to attend his university “so that
I could escape the homophobia I experienced at home.” At the university, however,
Darryl experienced “constant microagressions and racism by Whites.” Darryl used
his intersecting experiences with homophobia and racism to frame his views on gay
marriage and civil rights. He stated:
I grew up Black in [the city] so you know I experienced racism… And [the
university] is just a wealthier microcosm of the city so I get racism here. And the
homophobia got me kicked out the house so there’s that…So yeah, I’ve experi-
enced discrimination all the way around and I definitely see a connection between
civil rights and gay marriage. It’s impossible for me not to see the connection.
I am the connection.
Brian is also nineteen and a sophomore. However, Brian perceived the two move-
ments as parallel, but not linked. He framed his thought processes around his selective
disclosure practices and his perceived levels of discrimination. Brian explained:
Look, I’m Black. I factually can’t get around that. But I can tell or not tell people
I’m gay…I really don’t experience much homophobia because most people who
would be homophobic to me don’t know. But I experience racism about every
damn day. So, no, I don’t see Black and gay as equivalent and I don’t see Black
rights and gay rights as associated. Sure, Blacks and gays should have the same
rights as White straight people but these are separate issues.
Chad, a twenty-year-old junior that practices nondisclosure, also does not see a
connection between marriage equality and Black Civil rights: “I’m Black and I’m gay;
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 451
Is Gay the New Black?
but I’m usually not those things at the same time. The only people who really
know I’m gay are the guys I’m having sex with, and there aren’t many of those. So
I don’t see no relation between being Black and being gay, or between gay rights
and Black rights.” Unlike Brian, though, Chad harshly criticizes the gay rights
movement more generally because “it” puts him in “uncomfortable situations.”
He explained:
Here’s what I fucking hate about the gay rights movement. You’re minding your
business, trying to live your life and then some gay rights commercial or news
comes on the TV while you’re watching with your family or friends and then they
start saying something and then I’ve got to feel some type of way. And it could
even be something positive, or it could be really negative but I’m thinking: ‘Holy
shit. I really don’t want to be here right now.’ That’s why I wish this whole gay
rights business would just go away…Just have sex with who you want and shut up.
It’s really not that difficult.
Comparing these three young men with similar intersectional identities reveals
how their intersectional identities do not correspond to similar ways of thinking about
the world. Rather, the data reveals how disclosure practices and perceived experiences
of discrimination are used as discursive strategies to make sense of the social world and
to explain political perspectives.
Full Disclosure and Intersectional Discrimination: “I Am All These
Struggles. There Is No Separation for Me.”
Whereas the previous section examined differences in social cognition within particular
identity constellations, the following three sections illuminate similarities across different
identities. For instance, all of the participants that practiced full disclosure processed
the Black Civil Rights Movement and the LGBT movement as interconnected and as
part of a larger civil and human rights agenda. They attributed this to the fact that they
perceived racial and sexual and/or gender minority statuses as connected. Adam, for
instance, is a twenty-one-year-old fully disclosed African American man. He is also an
Ivy League college student from an elite family. Adam first disclosed his sexual identity
to his older, lesbian cousin at the age of eleven. Over the next two years, he slowly
disclosed his identity to his boarding school classmates, and then to other family mem-
bers at the age of fourteen. His immediate family proved very supportive; including
planning frequent vacations to Provincetown, MA, a popular LGBT destination and
Atlanta, GA, which Adam described as the “Black gay mecca.” “My family wanted me
to have role models,” Adam stated, “and to feel comfortable in both my Blackness and
queerness.”
Adam’s supportive family, however, could not protect him from experiencing
racism and homophobia. Adam used these interconnecting experiences to explain his
view of marriage equality as a civil rights issue:
Of course same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue…Just like Black civil rights
shouldn’t be voted on, neither should the right to marry…For me, my experience
as a Black gay man helps me see and know the inseparable link between gay rights
and Black civil rights. I experience racism and racial profiling despite my eco-
nomic privilege and I experience homophobia and have been threatened because
I’m an effeminate gay man. As a Black gay man my existence is constantly in a state
of double jeopardy.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
452 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
Adam’s account demonstrates how his disclosure practice shapes his cognition. It’s not
just that Adam is “a Black gay man” that allows him “to see and know the inseparable
link between gay rights and Black civil rights,” it’s the fact he is a fully disclosed Black
gay man that shapes his thought processes. Full disclosure opens Adam up to direct
discrimination based on his sexual orientation while his clearly identifiable racial status
compels him to negotiate racial inequality.
Nichelle is a twenty-six-year-old African American lesbian currently living on pub-
lic assistance. She grew up with a single mother and a brother in a housing project and
attended school in one of the city’s most disadvantaged areas. Nichelle first disclosed her
sexual identity when she was sixteen to her mother. Although Nichelle’s mother was not
supportive, “she did the best she could considering how she was raised.” Nichelle did
not practice full disclosure until three years later when she graduated from high school,
at which time she got a job at a mainstream LGBT rights organization. Fed up with the
racism she experienced at that job with “‘colorblind,’ racist White liberal gays and les-
bians in the movement,” she left and got a job at a non-profit focused on homelessness.
There a White client raped her and a pregnancy resulted from the assault. Like Adam,
Nichelle experienced multiple levels of discrimination and attributes her views of
same-sex marriage as a civil rights issue to her experiences as a fully disclosed lesbian:
I didn’t really relate with Whites until I worked at [mainstream LGBT rights
group]. That’s when I really experienced racism…And then I get the homophobia
from [Black] people. The White man who raped me did it ‘cause he said homo-
sexuality was a sin and he was going to fuck me straight so I could go to heaven…
so living my authentic life helps me see the connection between marriage equality
and civil rights. I know what it’s like to be discriminated against on all fronts.
As Nichelle articulates, her practice of full disclosure and “living [an] authentic life”
provides the experiential material to conceptualize marriage equality as a civil rights
issue. Her account, along with Adam’s, illuminates the ways in which political orienta-
tions are shaped by experiences of full disclosure and intersecting discrimination.
Carmen is a twenty-eight-year-old Senegalese, openly transgender woman. Her
family moved from Senegal to the deep South when she was in elementary school.
Carmen was assigned the designation “boy” at birth and “Omar” was her given name.
At the age of fourteen, Carmen’s father found “Omar” dressed in women’s clothing
and beat her savagely. Carmen subsequently ran away and, after a year of traveling,
eventually made it to the North where she’s lived ever since. Part of a city’s working
class, Carmen is currently employed in the entertainment industry. Discussing her
perceived connections between racial and LGBT civil rights, Carmen explained:
Of course LGBT rights and civil rights are connected. LGBT rights are civil
rights. They are human rights. I have experienced every sort of discrimination and
hate crime you can possibly imagine…and I can tell you pain is pain. When I was
a kid [in the South] and the White kids called me nigger and threw rocks at me
and [my sister], it hurt. When my father beat me because I was dressed as a girl, it
hurt…Before I knew living as a woman was even a possibility for me I just thought
I was a gay man. And when I was walking down the street with my boyfriend and a
group of [gang members] called us faggot and stabbed us, it hurt. And when after
I transitioned into living as a woman and this nigga broke my jaw because he was
flirting with me and then realized I was trans, that really hurt…So for me I see how
all these struggles are connected and I have to support them all because I am all
these struggles. There is no separation for me.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 453
Is Gay the New Black?
Here, Carmen clearly articulates that her intersecting identities have resulted in inter-
secting discriminations. She experienced White racism as a child in her southern
school and neighborhood, and Black transphobia and homophobia in her family and
everyday experiences in the Northeast. Her lived experience as a disclosed Black
transgender woman has shaped the way she thinks about racial and LGBT rights. She
perceives these movements as connected precisely because she perceives her intersect-
ing experiences of discriminations as connected.
As these accounts demonstrate, fully disclosed participants use their experience of
intersectional discrimination to make sense of civil rights, LGBT politics, and the mutu-
ally constitutive character of race, gender and sexual identities. It is also important to
note that these political views are not necessarily economic expressions. On the con-
trary, Adam, who is upper class, has similar views as Nichelle and Carman who are poor
and working class respectively. Instead, the ways in which intersecting inequalities have
constrained their fully disclosed lives provides the perceptual context and experiential
knowledge to utilize in their social cognitions. Experiencing these intersecting inequali-
ties, however, do not shape social cognitions in a deterministic way. Rather, openly
identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is a fundamental identification for
those who are fully disclosed as compared to those in other categories. Thus, the fully
disclosed make gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans identities important public identifications.
Selective Disclosure and Perceived Selective Discrimination:
“My Blackness Is Written on Me in Ways Being Gay Is Not.”
Thirty-eight of the forty-three participants (88.37%) who practiced selective disclo-
sure thought the Black Civil Rights Movement and the LGBT movement were similar,
but not necessarily connected. They did not perceive their racial identity as mutually
constitutive of their sexual and/or gender identities. Many felt their Black life could be
separated from their sexuality or trans identity. And most expressed they could choose
to publically identify as LGBT, but identifying as Black was not an option. This is not
simply a distinction in the abstract. It is a distinction that is real in their everyday lives,
as they have opted to selectively disclose their sexual or transgender identify. As such,
this lead many, like Jordan, to believe the movements were not interconnected. Jordan,
a twenty-year-old Black American man, has disclosed his sexuality to his friends and
professors at his college but keeps his sexual identity a secret from his middle-class
family and friends in his hometown. He fears his family would not financially support
him if they knew he was gay. As he stated:
I will always support gay marriage and equal rights for all. But it really, really
bothers me when gay rights groups equate civil rights and gay rights, or when gays
say ‘gay is the new Black.’ No it isn’t and it never will be. Although I don’t think
you can choose to be gay, I am living proof you can choose to identify as gay or not.
I do that every time I go home. I do not have to deal with homophobia because
I can choose not to tell people I’m gay if it will hurt me physically, economically,
or emotionally. But I can’t ever choose not to be Black. My Blackness is written
on me in ways being gay is not. I have to face racism. I don’t have to face homo-
phobes…And I’m so glad we have gay marriage now so if I ever decide to marry
I can. But gay marriage is not going to stop people from being homophobic. I still
have to choose my battles.
Here Jordan clearly suggests that he experiences his identities as separate categories
because he practices selective disclosure. By articulating this separateness, Jordan
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
454 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
provides a cognitive map that underscores how his perception of the two movements
is contoured by his perceived experience of separate, but unequal, identities and dis-
crimination. That is, he perceives the challenges that come along with his sexual status
as a choice he can choose to maneuver after careful consideration of the pros and cons
of disclosure, whereas racial oppression is an inescapable fact of life.
Like Jordan, twenty-three year-old Robert suggests he is “living proof” sexual and
racial identities are distinct and, thus, same-sex marriage and racial justice movements are
discrete. A bisexual, second generation Trinidadian, Robert hopes to move himself and his
siblings out of poverty. Growing up adjacent to a housing project, Robert’s impoverished
family has always depended on his income. As such, he was not concerned about disclosing
his bisexual identity to his parents at the age of seventeen, and he currently feels equally
comfortable bringing both male and female romantic partners around his family. “I’ve
always worked to help my [family]’s bills get paid so they needed me…so I didn’t have
to hide [my sexuality] like some of [my friends]. Mom and dad didn’t like it but what the
hell was they going to do? Kick me out? They religious but they ain’t stupid [he laughs].”
Nonetheless, Robert keeps his sexuality a secret from his co-workers. As a rookie police
officer, Robert feels he must maintain a masculine, heterosexual appearance in order to
gain respect and to successfully move up the ranks. He chooses not to disclose his sexuality
in hopes of lessening the discrimination he already faces due to racism:
I gotta deal with the racist bullshit on the job. And I mean both the racist bull
I gotta deal with personally, but also all the racist bull I gotta witness happening to
my [Black] community by the police…So I don’t say anything about the bisexual
thing. I needs my respect. My career, my future depends on respect…I live two
different lives, one at home and one at work…the gay marriage thing, that ain’t
the same as the race thing. And it pisses me off when people say they are. I gotta
live with racism. I ain’t gotta live with the gay shit… They two different things.
I’m glad we got gay marriage now but that’s not changing my situation. Gay marriage
ain’t going to feed my family.
Robert’s account shows how he makes sense of both his sexual and racial identities
and the same-sex marriage and racial equality movements. His economic leverage
within his poor family affords him the luxury to disclose his bisexuality with little
consequences. Yet he perceives that his future economic prospects within the police
department demands sexual secrecy. However, he can’t hide his racial identity and he
experiences routine racial oppression on the job. Thus, he perceives that he lives in
“two different worlds,” worlds where experiences of homophobia can be managed but
racism cannot. Consequently, he makes sense of same-sex marriage and racial justice
as different battles that should not be conflated.
Cynthia is a twenty-five-year-old African American working class transgender
woman. Cynthia dropped out of high school and spent most of her adolescence home-
less and engaging in “survival sex.” That is, engaging in sexual activities in exchange
for housing and food after her parents kicked her out when she disclosed her trans
identity. In her early twenties, she became a high-end escort in order to pay for her
“feminine enhancing procedures.” Although she made considerably more money as an
escort, she quit the business once she completed her physical transition and currently
works as a low-paid administrative aid. Cynthia attends a support group for transgen-
der women of color and is out about her trans identity to her friends and significant
other. She hasn’t disclosed her identity to her co-workers, however. Although anti-
discrimination policies protect her, she feels it’s “just easier to keep it secret. I don’t think
the other women [at work] would accept me as much if they knew.” She continued:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 455
Is Gay the New Black?
The other women at work are very traditional White women. They’ve gone to
college, married with kids—you know, soccer moms. Then there’s me—Black,
high school dropout. I feel I got enough against me. I just don’t feel the need
to tell them about this too. And them not knowing makes me feel more like
a woman…And I don’t think gay marriage is like the Black Civil Rights
Movement—not at all [she laughs]. Is [gay marriage] a civil right? Yes, child.
But let’s not get it twisted. Sexuality and race are not the same thing. They
are different…I live Blackness. I can pass as a woman who was born with female
chromosomes so I can choose to let people know…so gay marriage and Black Civil
Rights are not the same movement.
Like Jordan and Robert, Cynthia’s selective disclosure and perceived selective dis-
crimination positions her to think about same-sex marriage and racial civil rights as
distinct movements. Selective disclosure and being able to choose to publically iden-
tify as gay (Jordan), bisexual (Robert), or transgender (Cynthia) provided the social
cognitive context for these participants to think that their various identities were not
necessarily mutually constitutive. And while Jordan, who discloses his gay identity at
school and does not with his family, may seem different from Robert, who keeps his
bisexuality a secret from his co-workers but discloses at home, what unites them is how
they use disclosure practices to make sense of their sociopolitical worlds.
Nondisclosure and Perceived Selective Discrimination: “What I Hate Hate
Hate Is All This Gay Gay Gay.”
Like their selectively disclosed counterparts, participants who practiced nondisclosure
did not perceive their racial identity as mutually constitutive of their sexual or gender
identity. They also thought that the fight for LGBT rights was of less significance.
Unlike the selectively disclosed, however, 92.31% of the nondisclosed were openly
hostile towards the LGBT movement. Those in this category blamed the LGBT
movement for either their own routine unhappiness and/or for causing temporary
stress. Many expressed that they preferred living their lives as nondisclosed LGBT
individuals.
For instance, Chrisaane is a married, middle class, twenty-four-year-old bisexual
Jamaican woman with three kids. She is not open about her bisexuality to any of
her friends, family, or husband. She’s been sexually active with women since she was
sixteen and is currently having an affair with three women whom she sees sporadically.
She repeatedly stated that she was “very happy” with her husband “emotionally and
sexually” and the affairs were not a threat to her marriage because they were purely
sexual. She makes it clear that she not only perceives of her racial and sexual identities
as disconnected, but that the LGBT movement is an irritation:
They’re not the same, completely different…Your race is what you are. Your sex
is what you do. Gay marriage is not a civil right. Civil rights are supposed to pro-
tect you from harm. If no one knows you’re gay no one is harmed…I like having a
husband, beautiful kids, and having the life people dream about. I just like to have
sex with women sometimes, too… What I hate hate hate is all this gay gay gay I’m
seeing on TV… The gays think that the only way to be happy is to be out of the
closet. Well let me tell you I’m happy in my closet. It’s very comfortable in here.
Chrisanne articulates both her perception that sexuality and race are distinctive and
that same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue. Nondisclosure allows her to perceive
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
456 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
both her identities and the movements as separate. She also expresses her frustration
with the larger LGBT movement because it “forces” an “out of the closet” agenda that
she believes would destroy her happy home.
Aleesia is a single, twenty-three-year-old lesbian mother of seven-year-old twins.
She originally lived in a southern state with a same-sex marriage ban. Now she lives
in the Northeast and works three part-time jobs to keep her low-income family afloat.
Aleesia’s perspective is particularly interesting because her disclosure has changed over
time—but not in the direction one might assume. Aleesia went from practicing nondis-
closure, to selective, and back to nondisclosure: “‘Er’body [down South] but my momma
and my church knew I was a lesbian,” she stated. From Aleesia’s perspective, living a non-
disclosed life in the Northeast is considerably easier than living as a selectively disclosed
lesbian in the South. This shift in disclosure correlates with a shift in her views:
When I let people know [I was a lesbian while living in the South] it made it hard
to get [public services for low-income families] and I had to deal with a lot of
discrimination. I didn’t want that anymore so I moved up North where nobody
knows me so I could start over. I ain’t told nobody up here…Now I don’t experience
the gay discrimination, just race discrimination.
As such, she makes sense of the world differently and her views on the same-sex marriage
debate have changed. She now “hates” the “gay movement” for it’s “pro-out philosophy”
and “White-wing politics”: “I used not hate gay marriage or the gay rights movement.
Now I hate ‘em both.” She explained:
When I was ‘out’ I couldn’t get a job and people treated me like shit and I couldn’t
feed my family. So I say fuck all this ‘out’ business. And same-sex marriage ain’t
no relation to civil rights. See, I don’t face gay abuse anymore, now that I don’t
tell nobody. But I still have to deal with how people treat me ‘cause I’m Black and
poor… But I see why some of them Black [LGBT] think gay marriage is like a civil
right. I can see why it makes sense to them because I was them. But I ain’t them
now. And I know one ain’t like the other.
Aleesia’s shifting disclosure practices and thoughts about marriage equality empha-
sizes important aspects of intersectional discrimination and social cognition. One, it
showcases the agentic and strategic aspects of disclosure practices, as individuals
consider the prudency of disclosure. According to Aleesia, being Black and poor is
challenging enough, and, based on her experiences in the South, she feels that she
can’t risk her family’s economic stability by disclosing her sexuality in the North. It is
precisely because she experienced unbearable heterosexism that she physically moved
her family to the Northeast and personally moved from practicing selective to non-
disclosure. Two, disclosure practices suggest how a person will cognitively process
their intersectional experiences to understand their social and political worlds. When
Aleesia practiced selective disclosure she didn’t “hate” the LGBT movement and she
stated she could understand why some members of the Black LGBT community could
see parallels between marriage equality and civil rights. When Aleesia switched to
nondisclosure, however, the LGBT movement’s advocacy for full disclosure no longer
fit within her nondisclosure logic. She is now antagonistic towards the LGBT movement
and attributes her previous hardships to the movement’s perceived “pro-out philosophy.”
Further, Aleesia’s justification for her shifting views on marriage equality suggests that
disclosure doesn’t necessarily determine political perspectives but that disclosure makes
certain views align more lucidly.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 457
Is Gay the New Black?
Quentin is a wealthy transgender man. His mother and sister were killed in a car
accident when he was fourteen and his father had a heart attack and died when he was
nineteen. As the only surviving family member, Quentin used his family fortune to
undergo gender confirmation surgery, changed his name, and moved to start a new
life, with a new legal identity: “I was devastated when [my family died] but it gave me
the opportunity to start over. I could move away where no one knew me and could
live my real life as a man.” He has not disclosed his transgender status to anyone in
his new community—not friends, co-workers, or lovers. He believes that his current
heterosexual and transgender status reveals that gender and sexual identities are dif-
ferent from racial identifications:
I don’t put gay marriage and civil rights in the same category. They are different
struggles. I know because I’ve lived as a lesbian and now I’m living as my true self,
as a man, and I can keep those parts of me secret. I can’t keep my Black skin a
secret. I’ve got to face racism…And don’t tell me that I need to be—as they say—
‘out.’ I despise the gay agenda of being out. And I hate that transgender rights
has followed the gay agenda. I don’t want to be out as a trans person. Part of being
a man is always being a man. Being out would emasculate me because most people
wouldn’t truly accept me as a man. I don’t want to pass as a man. I want to be
a man.
Quentin’s account shows how his nondisclosure status allows him to see his identities
as separate and, in addition, how same-sex marriage and civil rights are not “in the
same category.” Like other nondisclosed participants, since Quentin has the ability to
keep his previous self-identified sexual identity (i.e., lesbian) and his current transgender
status as secrets he perceives he can choose to face discrimination based on those iden-
tities while his racial identity must be addressed. Further, part of Quentin’s gender
identity is bound up in him being perceived as a man and for him that means no one
knowing that he was assigned the gender identification of “girl” at birth.
As these nondisclosed participants demonstrate, those that fall into this category
perceive that they experience sexual or gender identity as separate from their race. In
other words, they do not see their various statuses as constitutive of one another. This
provides the social cognitive context for them to not think of same-sex marriage and
the larger LGBT movement as akin to the Black Civil Rights movement. In fact, they
are openly hostile towards the LGBT movement because they view it as pushing an
“out agenda” that they think damages their lives.
Anti-Blackness, White Privilege, and Trans Marginalization: “Gay Is Not the
New Black. Gay Is the Old White.”
Examining the contradictions in the data is central to the constant comparative
method, as it refines the analysis by identifying the social and psychological condi-
tions that explain “negative cases” (Boeije 2002; Miles and Huberman, 1984). While
the overwhelming majority of participants (93.14%) adhered to the theoretical model
presented thus far, disclosure practices did not explain many participants’ suspicion of
the motives behind marriage equality initiatives. Perhaps surprisingly, the legalization
of same-sex marriage did not impact identifications or individual views on the move-
ments because many (although certainly not all) participants across disclosure practices
articulated cynicism towards same-sex marriage in particular, and mainstream LGBT
organizations more generally. This cynicism is due to their beliefs that the Whites
who spearheaded these movements and organizations are privileged and self-serving
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
458 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
and, for the transgender participants, that same-sex marriage further marginalizes the
concerns of transgender women and men.
Specifically, sixty-one participants (59.8%) suggested that same-sex marriage
campaigns primarily benefited White gays and lesbians by codifying the economic
advantage that Whites as a racial group have accumulated due to their racial privilege
and state-sanctioned anti-Black racism, but which White LGBT individuals are/were
unable to fully exercise due to state-sanctioned heterosexism vis-à-vis same-sex
marriage bans. Even participants that were in favor of same-sex marriage (and some
are, indeed, married) often perceived the centrality of same-sex marriage in the gay
rights movement as intensifying the racial and often classed hierarchies between those
who identify as LGBT. In addition to fortifying White economic privilege, 61.1%
of transgender participants across disclosure categories highlighted that same-sex
marriage was not an essential concern of theirs due to the fact that they identified as
heterosexual and were not seeking a mate of the same gender.
Thus, the remainder of this section will highlight the ways in which the previously
discussed participants articulate a shared historical analysis and contemporary inter-
pretation of anti-Blackness across disclosure patterns, and the ways in which more than
half of all transgender participants in all disclosure categories believed that same-sex
marriage initiatives privilege sexuality over gender expression. Reintroducing the previous
participants in this section reveals how respondents that disagreed on whether or not
same sex marriage was linked to civil rights based on their disclosure patterns can still
have similar racial assessments of the logics of mainstream LGBT rights groups and/or
the devaluation of transgender identities in LGBT movements.
For instance, despite Adam’s full disclosure, support for marriage equality and his
belief that marriage is a civil right, Adam is circumspect of the LGBT movement
ranking same-sex marriage as its top priority. His account reveals how he conceptualizes
the push for marriage equality as a way to strengthen the economic interests of Whites:
I’m so happy that the [U.S. Supreme Court] supported marriage equality but mar-
riage is not really an equal concern for all LGBT people. I know from my friends
and my own studies that marriage equality is the issue for White gays… most
Blacks and Latinos and Latinas do not, and we want to focus on more life and
death issues like HIV and homelessness…Putting all the legal and financial focus
on marriage ensures that the White gays can maintain their interests, and espe-
cially their financial interests.
Similarly, Nichelle, who is a lesbian, practices full disclosure and previously
worked for a mainstream LGBT rights organization, offers an analysis of how same-
sex marriage came to be the center of mainstream LGBT politics:
When I canvassed Black and Latino gays in the community for [mainstream LGBT
organization] and most said marriage equality wasn’t they most important issue and
it focused too much on what White people wanted [the organization] got mad and
didn’t listen, said I must’ve did the canvassing wrong...Gay marriage is the issue on
the gay agenda because White gays want to keep they White privilege and White
money in the family...Now that they got what they wanted and gay marriage is
nationwide I hope [mainstream] gay organizations can work on more diverse issues.
Thus, she suggests that marriage equality efforts forgo the needs of Black and Latina/o
members of the LGBT community in order to promote the desires of the most privi-
leged members.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 459
Is Gay the New Black?
Jordan, who is gay and practices selective disclosure, also articulated a connection
between White wealth and the prioritization of same-sex marriage in the gay rights
movement. He stated:
Historically marriage was about property interest and transfers of wealth, not
love. Moneyed White gays don’t want to be penalized financially for being out…
Just look at the Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Windsor. Those White million-
aire lesbians were legally married on the state level but denied the federal financial
benefits when Windsor’s wife died. Windsor didn’t go to court to prove her love.
[She] went to court ‘cause she didn’t want to pay almost $400,000 in estate taxes.
See, gay is not the new Black. Gay is the old White.
Although Jordan doesn’t see sexuality and racial struggles as constitutive, he does
reluctantly support gay marriage. He hopes to get married some day but fears the push
for same-sex marriage over other priorities emphasizes the needs of White members
of the LGBT community: “Yes, I support gay marriage but when you say that it’s
more important than all the things that impact the life and death of many people
who look like me it lets me know that this movement is really about maintaining their
White privilege and not about sustaining our survival.”
Aleesia, the nondisclosed lesbian mother of twins, further demonstrates how many
participants explained their hesitance to prioritize marriage equality: “White people
have the money and they want to keep it in the family. So why wouldn’t they push mar-
riage [equality] to the top of the list? That just makes sense—to them. Now that they got
it I hope they shut up so I can live my life ‘cause it ain’t changed a damn thing for me.”
Similarly, transgender participants also united across disclosure patterns and were
routinely cynical of same-sex marriage. In addition to reinforcing race and class hierar-
chies within LGBT communities, though, transgender participants also underscored
how they perceived that the focus on marriage equality marginalizes many transgender
people by emphasizing sexuality over gender expression. Cynthia, for example, prac-
tices selective disclosure and rates same-sex marriage as a lower priority because she
isn’t romantically attracted to women. She stated: “I am a woman and I ain’t interested
in marrying a woman so gay marriage really ain’t my issue. I’m happy for the gays,
though. I’m glad they got their gay marriage.” Quentin, an elite transgender man
practicing nondisclosure, makes comparable claims:
Let me make this quick for you. Gay marriage does two things. It protects the
most privileged in the LGBT community because they gain the most from
marriage—and that’s White gay men and women with money. It also forgets the
trans community, especially trans that aren’t White. Now I’ve got money; but
most trans people of color don’t and most trans people aren’t gay.
Although Carmen is fully disclosed and believes civil and LGBT rights are
connected, like many participants Carmen felt disengaged from mainstream LGBT
organizations due to her race, class, and transgender statuses:
I think everybody has the right to marry whomever they love. But personally, I don’t
give two fucks about gay marriage because I’m not gay. And even if I was [gay] I
don’t be caring about no gay marriage because I’m broke as hell. I’m too concerned
about getting my ass beat walking down the street than whether two queens can get
married. Fight for me not getting discriminated against at work and make it safe for
me to walk down the street, then get back at me about gay marriage.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
460 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
Carmen’s account demonstrates how the focus on same-sex marriage privileges the
lives of those with same-sex attraction. Although some transgender individuals do
express same gender attraction, same-sex marriage is not as much of a concern for
those such as Carmen that do not. Issues related to poverty, employment, and violence
supersede issues of marriage equality for Carmen. She continued:
Besides, the ones fighting for gay marriage are mostly White folk. Whites have
worked hard to discriminate against Blacks in this country for centuries and they
don’t want all that accumulated wealth that resulted from all that discrimination to
go to waste, honey. They want to make sure that government homophobia doesn’t
stop them from enjoying all that [money] that anti-Blackness has assured them for
generations…That’s why I’m torn about supporting [same-sex marriage]. I know
it’s the right thing to do. But I also know it’s the White thing to do because it’ll be
congealing more privilege to the White gays who already run everything.
Thus, while Carmen’s disclosure status and experiences with intersectional discrimina-
tions have shaped the way she connects same-sex marriage to larger struggles for civil
rights, racism, economic and transgender marginalization also dulls her commitment
for marriage equality struggles. After the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex
marriage, Carmen said she cried and was momentarily overjoyed: “Two days later, though,
I was laid off [from one of my jobs] and sexually harassed on the street—again…That gay
marriage decision didn’t do much for me or for us who are poor, Black, and trans.”
As these transgender respondents with different disclosure patterns demonstrate,
transgender status can shape the way individuals think about political issues like same-sex
marriage. All three perceive the prioritization of same-sex marriage as a solidification
of White economic privilege and as a lower priority due to the fact that they all identify
as heterosexual and, thus, are personally uninterested in gay marriage. They also do
not feel that gay rights organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign and Marriage
Equality USA addresses the issues of more marginalized members of the LGBT com-
munity. As Carmen stated, “I know the mainstream gay rights movement will not sup-
port me in all my Blackness and poverty.” Thus, many feel “torn” about supporting a
political agenda that Carmen suggests is the right (and White) thing to do.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Intersectionality remains a formidable theoretical framework for understanding the
ways in which race, class, gender, and sexuality (among other hierarchal categories)
coalesce and align macrolevel inequalities with everyday interactions. Thus, the work-
ings of domination have been deconstructed and the methods of coercion continue to
be aired. My research illustrates two related points about social cognition and inter-
sectionality: 1) The disclosure of marginalized social identities contour how individu-
als perceive intersectional discrimination; and 2) disclosure practices are a particular
mechanism that helps scholars envisage meaning-making more generally, and Black
LGBT participants’ subjective views on same-sex marriage and civil rights specifically.
Disclosure practices shape social cognition as individuals appraise the pros and cons of
disclosing stigmatized identities since disclosure can potentially intensify shaming. In
this way, disclosure practices underscore how individuals with comparable intersect-
ing identities can utilize and consider the same cultural symbols and phenomenon yet
cognitively process information dissimilarly. Conversely, disclosure practices help us
understand how individuals with dissimilar identity constellations can make sense of
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 461
Is Gay the New Black?
the world in similar ways. For instance, a wealthy gay man (e.g., Adam) and a working-
class transgender woman (e.g., Carmen) can interpret the world and their identities
analogously if they have similar disclosure practices due to the ways in which disclo-
sure shapes perceptual experiences of intersectional discrimination and the meanings
of cultural symbols. Further, the study shows how White privilege and anti-Black
racism often trump disclosure practices and reveal connections between individuals.
Thus, the findings emphasize social and cognitive processes rather than unintentionally
reifying differences. It is precisely this sort of intersectional analysis that is needed to
further extrapolate the complexities of intersectionality as an influential and adaptive
theory, method, and practice.
Specifically, this article reveals that Black LGBT participants’ experience with
intersectional discrimination and their levels of sexual and gender identity disclosure
explain their subjective views on same-sex marriage and civil rights. Participants
who were fully disclosed and expressed experiences of discrimination due to their
racial, sexual and/or gender identities articulated a direct connection between civil
and gay rights issues. Nonetheless, some had experienced so much discrimination
between and within various raced, sexualized, and gendered groups that while they
saw the connections between the two movements, they often felt disaffected from
single-issue groups or social spaces. Participants that practiced selective disclosure
regarded the two movements as parallel, but not interlocked. On the other hand, the
lesbian, gay, and bisexual participants who did not disclose their sexual identities and
the transgender men and women who did not disclose the gender that was assigned to
them at birth did not think of Black civil rights and gay rights as comparable. They
were the most ardent in their views that civil and gay rights were discrete concerns.
Across disclosure practices, however, the participants often articulated that White-
ness was privileged in the LGBT movement and that the concerns of people of color
were overlooked; thus, reinforcing White economic privilege that largely resulted
from accumulated anti-Black racism. In addition, the Black transgender participants
also stressed that their specific issues went unaddressed in the marriage equality move-
ment, as they were not seeking to marry someone of the same gender.
It is important to note, nonetheless, that this research is focused on social cogni-
tion and the ways in which the participants perceive their reality. The participants who
practiced selective and nondisclosure, for instance, often stated that they did not expe-
rience homophobia or discrimination based on their sexual or transgender identity
because they did not disclose their stigmatized identity to those who could potentially
physically, emotionally, and/or economically victimize them. Hence, they did not
perceive that they experienced homo- or transphobia. Structural approaches, neverthe-
less, illuminate the ways in which race, sexuality, and gender are part and parcel to
the social fabric and allocate economic, social, and psychological resources unevenly.
Consequently, LGBT individuals and communities are continually disadvantaged and
experience intersectional discrimination regardless of their disclosure status (Diaz and
Kosciw, 2009; Moodie-Mills 2012). Accordingly, although their accounts are a reflec-
tion of the mental maps they use to cognitively process information, the accounts may
not be an accurate reflection of the levels of indirect discrimination they endure in
their everyday lives.
Future research should examine how age cohorts and self-perception of sexual and
gender expressions might shape political responses. While some older adults may have
favorable views of marriage equality because they are more likely to be in or seeking
the legal benefits of matrimony, others may hold conventional views about marriage
rooted in previously unimaginable expectations of marriage and family. In addition,
while this research has depended on self-perceptions of sexual and gender identities
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
462 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
through interviewing, ethnographic approaches may be useful to see if the selective
and nondisclosed individuals are perceived as “passing” to others and, if they are not,
how this could shape cognition and political interpretations.
While outside the scope of this paper, scholars should also examine how prior
commitments might shape how people navigate their lives and contour political per-
ceptions; especially when disclosure practices indicate a set of political choices that
precede one’s decision to disclose (or not). Participant responses, though, suggest that
disclosure does shape how people make sense of their race, sexuality, gender identi-
ties, and political beliefs despite their views before or after their disclosure decisions.
For instance, Nichelle went from selective disclosure to full disclosure: “I had always
been a progressive [and] supported gay marriage in principle but I didn’t understand
that Black Civil Rights and the push for LGBT rights was tied until I came all the way
out. When I came all the way out and started facing the racism with the homophobia
I saw—I felt—the tie. I wasn’t no longer feeling the separation. My gay and Black
became part of the same.” Robert, the bisexual Trinidadian police officer, also stated
that his views changed once he transitioned from nondisclosure to selective disclosure:
“Gay marriage used to piss me off before I started letting my friends [and] family know
about me going with women and men…’Cause of where we live the gay marriage
thang was just everywhere so you had to talk about it. And when you don’t want people
to know you not straight you hate having to talk about it so I hated gay marriage. Now
I think it’s good. I still don’t think it’s like Black Civil Rights, though. They ain’t the
same.” And as I discussed earlier, Aleesia’s opinion on gay marriage and LGBT rights
more generally correlated with a change in her disclosure status when she moved
from selective disclosure to nondisclosure.
Beyond this summary, however, I also suggest larger implications for LGBT politics
and the connections between self-interest and political perspectives. For instance, the
intersectional cognitive approach bridges debates that takes either a self-interest ver-
sus public good, or assimilation versus differentiation model (Fowler and Kam, 2007).
Rather, intersectional social cognition suggests that individuals eschew political stances
that are either too individualized or too general; and instead justify their views in rela-
tion to crosscutting memberships that simultaneously provide a sense of belonging and a
sense of particularity. Additionally, this study supports research that suggests that politi-
cal perspectives are the product of cognitive codes derived from larger social narratives
about the public good (Sears and Funk, 1991). So although the majority of participants
were wary of the emphasis given to marriage equality, they were still supportive of it as an
overall public good. Even the majority of the transgender participants who largely did
not express self-interest in same-sex marriage primarily supported the measure because
they believed equality was beneficial to the broader community.
Nonetheless, as LGBT rights leaders continue to fight for full equality this is
a time to construct a more inclusive and progressive movement by listening to the
concerns and interests of the most marginalized. For instance, many scholars sug-
gested that the White/Black favorability gulf towards marriage equality was due to
Black LGBT community members prioritizing other issues over same-sex marriage.
This study advances another related reason why Black LGBT individuals are more
cautious about same-sex marriage. The majority of the Black LGBT participants in
this study perceived the mainstream gay rights movement’s prioritization of same-sex
marriage as a continuation of White racial privilege by assuring the property rights
and resources that Whites have amassed as a result of historical and contemporary
state-sanctioned anti-Black racism. This suggests a strong critique of the liberal free
market approach to rights and activism. The participants in this study expressed a
solid suspicion of the benefits of a marriage equality logic that they perceived as
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 463
Is Gay the New Black?
being rooted in capitalistic free market values while being simultaneously embedded
in White privilege and Black disenfranchisement. As such, LGBT leaders and orga-
nizers should take seriously how future social policy agendas may limit the support
from constituents of color if their primary interventions do not take into account the
ways in which sexual and gender inequalities exists within a long tradition of group-
based, state-sanctioned racial discrimination.
Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not call attention to the fact that all interviews for
this research concluded a couple of months before the 2016 U.S. presidential election,
wherein LGBT communities had made considerable legal gains under the Obama
administration. As such, my respondents may understand the connections between
self-interest and political perspectives differently now that the current administration
has resulted in: 1) a reversal of an Obama directive to include sexual orientation on
the 2020 census; 2) the election of one of the most anti-LGBT politicians as vice-
president; 3) repeated attacks against transgender people’s rights to serve in the mili-
tary and LGBT families' rights to adopt children; 4) the Department of Health and
Human Services creating the Conscious and Religious Freedom Division that gives
leverage to healthcare providers to deny service to LGBT patients due to personal,
religious objections; 5) this administration reversing international U.S. agendas that
promoted LGBT rights around the world; 6) limiting LGBT workplace and public
accommodations protections; and 7) judicial appointments with anti-LGBT records.
In other words, now that the political context has taken a dramatic turn away from
gender and sexual equality, future research should examine potential shifts in the ways
participants make sense of their political lives. The findings from this study, though,
make clear that as LGBT rights leaders organize under this current administration
they must take seriously how future social policy agendas may limit the support from
constituents of color. Moreover, study findings highlight the fact that the long tradi-
tion of group-based, state-sanctioned racial discrimination can no longer be ignored
in LGBT social justice advocacy.
Corresponding author: Associate Professor C. Shawn McGuffey, Department of Sociology and
Director of African & African Diaspora Studies, Boston College, 301D Lyons Hall, Chestnut Hill, MA
02467. E-mail: mcguffey@bc.edu
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Caliesha Comley, Hilton Kelly, Tanya Sharpe, Cedrick Simmons,
Robert Zussman and the reviewers for their thoughtful feedback. Further, Amir Dixon and
Kenneth Jones directed me to key studies that helped shape the literature review. Most impor-
tantly, I thank the participants that gave so much of their time and energy to this project.
NOTE
1. Transgender refers to individuals whose gender that was assigned to them at birth does
not correspond to their personal gender classification or the way they wish to be identified.
The term cisgender is often used to describe individuals when there is a match “between
the gender they were assigned at birth, their bodies, and their personal identity" (Schiltz
and Westbrook, 2009, p. 442). While I use the term transgender in this paper, I do not
adopt the cisgender lexicon for two reasons. First, none of the study participants used this
language to identify themselves. Second, I follow in the tradition of scholars and advocates
who view the cisgender/transgender binary just as problematic as the masculine/feminine
binary because it jettisons those who do not identify as transgender yet whom feel there is
still a “mismatch between their own gender identity and gender expression and cultural
expectations regarding gender identity and expression” (Marinucci 2010, p. 125–126).
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
464 du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018
C. Shawn McGuffey
REFERENCES
Battle, Juan, Cathy Cohen, Dorian Warren, Gerard Fergerson, and Suzette Audam (2002).
Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud: Black Pride Survey. New York: The Policy Institute
of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Bobo, Lawrence, and Vincent Hutchings (1996). Perceptions of Racial Group Competition.
American Sociological Review, 61: 951–972.
Bockting, Walter, Michael Miner, Rebecca Romine, Autumn Hamilton, and Eli Coleman (2013).
Stigma, Mental Health, and Resilience in an Online Sample of the U.S. Transgender Population.
American Journal of Public Health, 103: 943–951.
Boeije, Hennie (2002). A Purposeful Approach to the Constant Comparative Method. Quality
and Quantity, 36: 391–409.
Carastathis, Anna (2008). A Critique of Intersectional Models of Identity. Les Ateliers de L’Ethique:
A Multidisciplinary Journal of the Normative Challenges of Public Policies and Social Practices,
3(2): 23–38.
Chen, Anthony (1999). Lives at the Center of the Periphery, Lives at the Periphery of the Center.
Gender & Society, 13(5): 584–607.
Cho, Sumi (2013). Post-Intersectionality. Du Bois Review, 10(2): 385–404.
Collins, Patricia Hill (2004). Black Sexual Politics. New York: Routledge.
Crenshaw, Kimberle (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence
Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43: 1241–1299.
Diaz, Elizabeth, and Joseph Kosciw (2009). The Experience of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender Students of Color. Washington, DC: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education
Network.
Eghareuba, Itohan (2001). Researching an ‘Other’ Minority Ethnic Community. International
Journal of Social Research Methodology, 4(3): 225–241.
Ellison, Christopher (2003). Generations and Political Participation Among African American
Adults. African American Research Perspectives, 9(1): 91–116.
Erikson, Erik (1993). Childhood and Society. New York: Norton.
Floyd, Frank, and Roger Bakeman (2006). Coming-Out Across the Life Course. Archives of Sexual
Behavior, 35: 287–296.
Fowler, James, and Cindy Kam (2007). Identity and Political Participation. Politics, 69(3):
813–827.
Goff, Philip, and Kimberly Kahn (2013). How Psychology Science Impedes Intersectional
Thinking. Du Bois Review, 10(2): 365–384.
Harris-Perry, Melissa (2011). Sister Citizen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Herzog, Patricia (2017). The Sociology of Emerging Adulthood. San Diego, CA: Cognella.
Himmelstein, Kathryn, and Hanna Bruckner (2011). Criminal Justice and School Sanctions
Against Nonheterosexual Youth. Pediatrics, 127: 49–57.
Hollander, Jocelyn, and Judith Howard (2000). Social Psychological Theories on Social
Inequalities. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63(4): 338–351.
Howard, Judith (1994). A Social Cognitive Conception of Social Structure. Social Psychology
Quarterly, 57(3): 210–227.
Hunt, Matthew O., Pamela Braboy Jackson, Samuel H. Kye, Brian Powell, and Lala Carr Steelman
(2013). Still Color-Blind? The Treatment of Race, Ethnicity, Intersectionality, and Sexuality
in Sociological Social Psychology. Advances in Group Processes, 30(2013): 21–45.
Hunt, Matthew, Pamela Braboy Jackson, Brian Powell, and Lala Carr Steelman (2000). Color
Blind: The Treatment of Race and Ethnicity in Social Psychology. Social Psychology Quarterly,
63(4): 352–364.
Jennings, M. Kent (1996). Political Knowledge Over Time and Across Generations. Public
Opinion Quarterly, 60: 228–252.
Kanuha, Valli (2000). “Being” Native Versus “Going Native.” Social Work, 45(5): 439–447.
Kelly, Hilton (2013). Toward a Critical Race Biography. Vitae Scholasticae, 30(2): 43–65.
Lareau, Annette (2002). Invisible Inequality. American Sociological Review, 67: 747–776.
Madison, Sarah, and Emma Partridge (2014). Agonism and Intersectionality. Research in Social
Movements, Conflicts and Change, 37: 27–52.
Malebranche, David, Errol Fields, Laura Bogart, Katherine Smith, Jonathan Ellen, and
Mark Schuster (2011). HIV Risk and Perceptions of Masculinity Among Young Black Men.
Journal of Adolescent Health, 50(3): 296–303.
Marinucci, Mimi (2010). Feminism is Queer. London: Zed Books.
McGuffey, C. Shawn (2013). Rape and Racial Appraisals: Culture, Intersectionality, and Black
Women's Accounts of Sexual Assault. Du Bois Review, 10(1): 109–130.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
du bois review: social science research on race 15:2, 2018 465
Is Gay the New Black?
McQueeney, Krista (2009). Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Gay-Affirming Congregations.
Social Problems, 56(1): 151–173.
Miles, Matthew B., and A. Michael Huberman (1984). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Source Book
of New Methods. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Moodie-Mills, Aisha C. (2012). Jumping Beyond the Broom: Why Black Gay and Transgender
Americans Need More than Marriage Equality. Center for American Progress.
Moore, Mignon (2011). Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood Among
Black Women. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Nash, Jennifer (2008). Re-Thinking Intersectionality. Feminist Review, 89(1): 1–15.
O’Leary, Catherine (1998). Counteridentification or Counterhegemony? Women & Politics,
18(3): 45–72.
Pastrana, Antonio (2014). An Examination of Outness Among Black LGBT People in the U.S.
Journal of Family Issues, 17: 1–24.
Potoczniak, Daniel, Margaret Crosbie-Burnett, and Nikki Saltsburg (2009). Experiences
Regarding Coming Out to Parents Among African American, Hispanic, and White Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Adolescents. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social
Services, 21: 189–205.
Rogowski, Jon C., and Cathy Cohen (2014). What Young People of Color Think About the
LGBT Agenda. Black Youth and the Future of American Politics. The Black Youth Project.
Schiltz, Kristen, and Laurel Westbrook (2009). Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity.
Gender & Society, 23(4): 440–464.
Sears, David, and Carolyn Funk (1991). Self-Interest in Social and Political Attitudes. Experimental
Social Psychology, 24: 1–91.
Swank, Eric, and Breanne Fahs (2013). An Intersectional Analysis of Sexual Minorities who
Engage in Gay Rights Activism. Sex Roles, 68: 660–674.
Weber, Max (1974). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Unwin University
Books.
West, Richard, and Lynn Turner (2013). Communication Theory: Analysis and Application.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X18000218 Published online by Cambridge University Press
