Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics
“When and Where [We] Enter…”? Intersectional Ideologies and Experiences in African American Support for LGBTQ+ Communities
2026-01-28
This article examines how intersectional ideologies and experiences of marginalization affect the extent to which African Americans support or oppose the marginalization of LGBTQ+ communities. We posit that awareness of the race-gender positionality of African American women, as well as the unique positionalities of other marginalized African American subgroups, is critical to understanding the conditions under which Black Americans embrace LGBTQ+ rights and communities. Using the Black respondent subsample of the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Study, we test the extent to which intersectional theories explain African American cross-group consciousness with LGBTQ+ persons and support for LGBTQ+ rights and communities. In doing so, we distinguish multiple mechanisms through which identity intersections affect African American 1 political attitudes, and we find that, though intersecting marginalized identities can be critical to fomenting African Americans’ support for the rights and concerns of LGBTQ+ communities, not all intersections lead to a more inclusive Black politics.