ABSTRACT
This chapter asks two questions: what is queer lobbying and can lobbying be queer? Locating queer lobbying in the broader literature on legislative studies and lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) studies helps to understand how one of the most successful social movements in American history has benefited heterosexuals. In this analysis, queer lobbying is distinguished by its focus on the disruption to power brought by advocating for queer issues using queer methods. This analysis highlights the competitive environment that advantages certain types of lobbying over others and provides a heuristic categorization of assimilationist lobbying, and conformist lobbying that bends to heteronormative institutions before non-conformist and queer lobbying, which do not. I suggest that, yes, lobbying can be queer; but that it confronts the reality of opposition from within the gay mainstream movement. Activists must tackle more conservative hegemonic organizations, a rule-based emotional habitus, and LGBTQ social hierarchy that advantage specific LGBTQ issues and ascribe punishments to unwelcome queer methods. What is at stake is the way underlying power dynamics both empower or erase nonconforming LGBTQ identities.
