Out of the Closets and into the Party: LGBTQ+ Interests in the Two-Party System

• In Event: US Parties: Platforms and Positions

Abstract

Can marginalized groups find substantive representation in the American two-party system? Have lesbians and gay men achieved full incorporation in the Democratic Party? Where are transgender interests on the capture-to-incorporation spectrum?

Electoral capture refers to, “any politically relevant group that votes overwhelmingly for one of the major political parties and subsequently finds the primary opposition party making little to or effort to appeal to its interests or attract its votes” (Frymer 1999, 8). This arrangement is a problem for the group in question if its interests are not substantively represented by the party to whom it provides electoral support, resulting in “those circumstances when the group has no choice but to remain in the party. The opposing party doesn’t want the group’s vote, so the group cannot threaten its party’s leaders with defection” (Frymer 1999, 8). Since the captured group finds its interests neglected by their own party, it is effectively stuck in the two-party system between a rock and a hard place. The paradigmatic example of a captured group is African Americans in the 20th century.

So, how does a group become un-captured in the two-party system? This research supposes that it is possible to mobilize enough support to break free from electoral capture and become incorporated into a party’s coalition. To be incorporated into a party’s coalition means that there is a reward for electoral support in the form of substantive policy representation. I argue that gays and lesbians, once captured in the two-party system, have achieved incorporation by finally seeing their substantive policy interests represented by the Democratic Party. This conference paper aims to develop a theory and set forth a research agenda to explain how that happened. At the same time, I consider the place of transgender interests in the two-party system, highlighting where gays and lesbians have become incorporated to a greater extent than those who are transgender.

Author

• John McTague, Towson University