Constructing homonationalist identities in relation to religious and LGBTQ+ outgroups: a case study of r/RightWingLGBT

ABSTRACT

Recent research on homonationalism addresses the ideological and electoral combination of LGBTQ+ politics and radical-right populism. However, right-wing LGBTQ+ identities remain seemingly paradoxical, as right-wing Christianity-rooted conservatism is generally hostile to LGBTQ+ empowerment. Grounded in literature on populist radical right and its relationship with religion and sexuality, as well as social identity theory, we argue that right-wing LGBTQ+ people resolve identity tension by creating a positive group image. Analysing over 2,500 posts on a prominent (new/alt/populist) right-wing LGBTQ+ Reddit community, r/RightWingLGBT, we found right-wing LGBTQ+ users maintain a positive self-identity by positioning themselves against ‘degenerate, liberal, non-binary queers’, thus limiting themselves to narrow iterations of acceptable queerness which are congruent with hetero- and cis-normativity. Islam replaces Christianity as the primary anti-LGBTQ+ outgroup, which, alongside a normalisation and naturalisation of religious-rooted moral selves, helps to reconcile LGBTQ+ identities and right-wing populism and establish homonationalism as a bottom-up phenomenon.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBTQ+
• right wing
• social identity formation
• online community
• homonationalist identities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Drawing on >30 languages; https://github.com/stopwords-iso/stopwords-iso/blob/master/CREDITS.md

2. E.g. Black/White was mentioned but not as core term defining in- and outgroups.