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Cisheteropatriarchal Institutions and the Representation of LGBTQ+ Legislators

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2025

Hanna K. Brant
Hanna K. Brant*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science & International Relations, https://ror.org/03g1q6c06SUNY, Geneseo, New York, NY, USA
*
Email: hbrant@geneseo.edu
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Extract

The 2018 election cycle was referred to as a “Rainbow Wave” because of the record number of LGBTQ+ candidates seeking and winning elective office. The backlash toward the LGBTQ+ community during the first Trump administration, at the local and national level, invigorated queer candidates to run for office. Then, in 2020 and 2022, news headlines again called the election cycles a “Rainbow Wave” (Debussy 2020; Lavietes 2022). According to the Victory Institute, the 2024 election marked a 1.1% increase in LGBTQ+ candidates compared to 2020, however, it was also a 4.8% decrease compared to candidates in 2022. Further, among LGBTQ+ candidates, the share of lesbian candidates dropped nearly 10 percentage points, from 26.7% of all LGBTQ+ candidates in 2020 to only 16.1% in 2024. At the same time, the group of LGBTQ+ candidates in 2024 were the most racially diverse in history, with 37.6% being people of color and just over 15% not identifying as cisgender (LGBTQ+ Victory Fund 2024).

Type
Critical Perspectives Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2025 , pp. 376 - 383
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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