ABSTRACT
The identity label of “straight ally” has emerged in the contemporary discourse on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) rights movement to denote cisgender, heterosexual-identified individuals’ alliance with sexual (and to some extent, gender) minorities. Though the term is the subject of intense and sustained debate in the public sphere, it has received relatively less scholarly attention. Nonetheless, the contentious politics of privileged individuals and groups acting or advocating on behalf of marginalized individuals merits empirical and critical inquiry to understand the forms, social controversies, and political consequences of straight allies. This chapter first offers a critical assessment of extant scholarship on straight allies, i.e., a state of the interdisciplinary field. Much of this research focuses on antecedents of ally behavior rather than investigate and interrogate the structural dimensions of social contexts that do or do not produce straight allies. Based on published research, I map steps toward a critical sociology of straight allies that foregrounds the interrelated concerns of social structures, contexts, and histories, the emergent and dynamic nature of ally identities, and intersectionality.
