Status Threat, Conservativism, and the Rise in LGBTQ+ Self-Identification

• In Event: The Political Psychology of LGBT+ Politics

Abstract

The percentage of Americans identifying as LGBTQ+ has rapidly grown in recent years, especially among younger Americans. A recent Gallup poll estimates that the self-identified LGBTQ+ population has doubled in the last decade, from 3.5 to 7%. 10.5% of Millennials and 20.8% of Generation Z adults self-identify as LGBTQ+. At the same time, there has been an increase in policies restricting LGBTQ+ rights, such as bans on transgender athletes, gender-affirming care, drag performances, and teaching about LGBTQ+ identity in public schools. I theorize that one factor contributing to this backlash is anxiety about demographic change. Research on the majority-minority shift has already shown that informing white Americans about their relative decline of as the majority population compared to Latino and Hispanic Americans leads to an increase in conservative attitudes. Using two online survey experiments conducted in 2023 and 2024, I test whether there is a similar increase in status threat and conservative attitudes when heterosexual and cisgender Americans are informed about the increase in LGBTQ+ self-identification – and whether this increase is greater among those most concerned with hierarchy. I find that receiving information about the increase in LGBTQ+ self-identification increases status threat among those high in authoritarianism, and that this increased status threat goes on to increase conservative attitudes more generally.

Author

• Brianna A. Smith, United States Naval Academy