“This Isn’t Just Another Gay Group”: Privileging Heterosexuality in a Mixed-Sexuality LGBTQ Advocacy Group

This paper examines how members of a southeastern LGBTQ advocacy group privileged heterosexuality through group interactions. Based on twelve months of fieldwork, we analyze how LGBTQ members and their heterosexual allies traded power for (heterosexual) patronage by (1) heterosexualizing their group, (2) sanctifying allies, and (3) privileging parenthood. In so doing, all the members, regardless of their intentions, ultimately reproduced societal patterns of sexual inequality within the context of their group. In conclusion, we draw out implications for understanding (1) the ways LGBTQ people and their heterosexual allies negotiate heterosexual privilege, (2) the ways they construct the meaning and status of heterosexual allies, and (3) some ways dominant groups’ affiliation with subordinate groups may inadvertently facilitate processes of inequality reproduction.