The Irrationality of LGBTQ Conservatives

While it's counterintuitive that LGBTQ conservatives exist, they do. Understanding them a bit better will ultimately help us counter their messaging and improve the chances to further LGBTQ rights.

What I watched: “LGBT Conservatives (w/ Contrapoints)” by Matt Bernstein with guest Natalie Wynn of ContraPoints. Posted September 19, 2023.

Anyone who follows me knows I become monumentally frustrated anytime I encounter an LGBTQ person or supposed LGBTQ ally who falls on the conservative side of the political spectrum. I don’t understand it. It’s maddening. It feels like they’re intentionally supporting and voting for the destruction of our rights, and frankly, currently, the destruction of our democracy.

But the sad reality is that there are LGBTQ conservatives. I believe they’re a relatively small percentage of the overall LGBTQ population, but they exist. Therefore, we have to understand them if we’re to have a chance of helping them see the light of their political folly or at least better counter their messaging.

To that end, I watched the excellent video referenced here by Matt Bernstein with their guest Natalie Wynn. What a fantastic discussion they have. The video is an hour long but well worth your time if you’d like to hear an informed, insightful discussion about LGBTQ conservatives.

Let me be clear upfront that I write and act from a liberal mindset that believes in the basic civil rights of all marginalized people. I’m deep in the weeds of political and LGBTQ activism and thus far no one has ever been able to cobble together a cogent argument to justify an LGBTQ person or ally being a conservative. Conservative today means to me they are voting for Republican candidates who are members of a party that has demonstrated their outright disdain for the LGBTQ community not to mention their attacks on our democracy itself.

I was not expecting the video to change my mind about conservatives or the Republican party. Anyone with eyes wide open and a smidgen of objective analytical ability can see that modern Republicans are directly and intentionally anti-LGBTQ with anti-trans hate mongers particularly vocal at the moment. Nothing can justify for me a position of hate.

However, I do want to understand LGBTQ conservatives better if only to better know how to push back on their disinformation and blunt the impact of their assistance to the extremist right-wing that is hellbent on leveraging anti-LGBTQ hate as fodder for their bigoted base.

Bernstein and Wynn engage in an intelligent discussion devoid of any emotional outrage, which I found impressive. Perhaps that’s why the video has such an impact. It’s truth telling with little of the fire and brimstone version of political commentary.

…when you bring up the topic of LGBT conservatives, people scoff at it like, “that makes no sense.” Yeah, it makes no sense because people don't make sense. When has people's political behavior ever been universally rational? Like never.

I really think awareness should be raised that this is a thing because it's actually not a niche thing. People think that it's a niche thing. But it's a lot of people. It's probably a significant percentage of LGBT people are conservative. I mean, there's a long history… they used to be called Log Cabin Republicans.

But yeah, it's very common. And like you say, there's a million versions of it. It kind of exists at every level. And it does seem to overlap with this desire many queer people have to create a new dichotomy between the “normal” and the “freaks.”

And so these days it's a lot of “LGB without the T” or “drop the T.” A lot of cis gay people trying to throw trans people under the bus. But the distinction gets way more fine than that. Just like within the lesbian community you have fems trying to throw butches under the bus. Any version of this you can imagine exists.

Ugh. That’s not what I want to hear, that there are a significant percentage of LGBTQ conservatives. It feels like betrayal. It really does. But I have to accept that Wynn has a certain amount of insight into that political landscape and respect that perspective. Proceeding as if there are indeed a significant percentage of LGBTQ conservatives makes sense in the interest of protecting LGBTQ rights and our democracy overall.

During the discussion, Bernstein and Wynn comment on a handful of well-known queer right-wing influencers. I’m not going to repeat their names here because I don’t want to give their damaging messaging any additional air, but they exist.

One point brought up is that these influencers are often ultimately driven by money. They know there is a hungry element within the Republican party and right-wing base to find any LGBTQ person to deliver their right-wing message under the guise of queer acceptability. They are pawns, pawns for money. Perhaps that sounds like a cynical viewpoint, but it at least gives some viable reason for what they do.

Of course, it’s entirely possible some LGBTQ conservatives actually believe what they believe. But I’m convinced the underlying reasons for most LGBTQ conservatism is shame and the desire for acceptance by a conservative heterosexual world that will in actuality never accept them. Wynn suggests the same in the video.

As Wynn points out, what LGBTQ conservatives don’t understand is that they’re next to be directly attacked by Republicans and conservatives. As soon as prim and proper LGBTQ conservatives throw trans people , gender non-conforming and non-binary people, butch lesbians, feminine gay men, and every type of LGBTQ person who doesn’t present or act like their version of a  “normal” LGBTQ person should present and act, Republicans and conservatives will go after them next.

There’s a lot to unpack in this video. If you have any interest in better understanding how an LGBTQ person could be conservative and what’s behind their seemingly bizarre anti-LGBTQ stance, watch the video. It’s well worth your time.

I also recommend following both Bernstein and Wynn. I’ve dug into their content and it appears to be excellent.

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