Bringing the Ts and (N)Bs to the Table: Estimating Intersectional Candidate Gender Identity and Sexuality Effects on Vote Choice

ABSTRACT

Research has shown that LGBTQ+ candidates continue to face penalties at the ballot box, with particularly acute penalties for transgender candidates. However, the nuanced intersection of gender identity and sexual orientation has yet to be explored. Our project endeavors to do just that, by differentiating between transgender men, transgender women, and non-binary candidate gender identities, as well as including bisexual candidate sexual orientation. Our conjoint survey experiment finds, contrary to our expectations, that transgender women candidates do not face larger vote penalties than transgender men candidates, though candidates of either identity are more penalized than cisgender women and non-binary candidates. Also contrary to our expectations but in line with recent research, we find that bisexual men candidates (cis or transgender) are penalized more than bisexual women candidates (cis or transgender). Understanding the intersectionality of candidate gender identity and sexual orientation is critical for developing strategies to increase LGBTQ+ political representation.

KEYWORDS:

• Identity politics
• survey experiment
• gender identity
• sexual orientations

Disclosure statement

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

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2023.2257123

IRB approval and funding

Our research was approved by the author’s university IRB. Informed consent was provided by all participants about the nature of the study and all participants were allowed to exit the survey at any time. The participants who completed the survey were compensated for their time with approximately 0.70 US dollars. While this pay is low, respondents again had provided informed consent regarding the compensation prior to initiating the survey. The respondent pool was recruited online but was otherwise appropriately diverse for the research across age, gender, race, economic status, and political affiliation. Our research complies with the APSA’s Principles and Guidance for Human Subjects Research. No potential conflicts of interest for either author exist. The study was funded by the authors’ university Undergraduate Research Program and Department of Political Science.

Notes

1. There are, of course, additional gender identities and sexual orientations to examine, but they were beyond the scope of our instrument design and this article.

2. See anonymized pre-registration here: https://osf.io/3akwb/?view_only=f86c85b78cad4a7ebbbc9b638568edaf.

3. Intersectional, here, refers to the ways that multiple identities, as results of social structures, combine and fundamentally shape social relationships and experiences. Intersectional approaches also require an acknowledgment that these identities and social structures cannot be fully understood separately.

4. Pre-registration information was provided with manuscript submission. Note we present our pre-registered hypothesis, slightly reworded, from late 2021 and early 2022. As Feinstein et al. (2022) note, these topics of intersectionality are relatively under-studied. This is important, as the research cited suggesting bisexual men are more stigmatized among survey respondents was published either during or after we prepared the project. We hope to contribute to this growing area of study with our work.

5. Candidate party affiliation was held constant to bypass the strong effect of partisan identity on vote choice.

6. All data collection was approved by the East Tennessee State University IRB.

7. For now, we are only interested in the relationship between candidate characteristics and vote. In future research, we hope to examine mechanisms through which these characteristics explain vote choice such as electability, prejudice, and social cues as well as potential differences across respondent characteristics; these are beyond the scope of this research note.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the East Tennessee State University [Undergraduate Research Office].

Notes on contributors

Amy Howard

Amy Howard received her Bachelor's degree in Political Science and International Affairs from East Tennessee State University (ETSU) in 2021. She is currently the Testing Coordinator for Testing Services at ETSU and an advocate for a free Kurdistan. Her work received multiple awards during her time at ETSU. Broadly, her research interests include representation of minority populations in US politics and policy, identity politics domestically and abroad, and foreign policy.

Wesley Wehde

Wesley Wehde, PhD is an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University in Public Administration and Political Science. His research uses survey methods to examine topics including local emergency management in the US, public disaster response, and public opinion toward environmental policy and federalism. He has published in journals including Public Administration Review, Policy & Politics, and Review of Policy Research.