LGBTQ+ Public Opinion: The United States in Global Context

Rather than focusing on public opinion around the LGBTQ+ community within a single nation or region, LGBTQ+ Public Opinion brings a comparative global perspective. The collection first considers the development of individual attitudes before turning to cultural influences and the role(s) of political elites. Contributors utilize varied methodological approaches from experimental and survey design to case studies and personal interviews. With different lenses, they analyze topics such as same-sex marriage, stigma, transgender youth participation in sports, group empathy, trust in government, media use and consumption, the role of courts, economic growth, and “born this way.” While the editors discuss trends and parallels, they are careful to avoid prescriptive assessment or mistakenly analogizing. Notably, this collection is exceedingly timely given trends in queer-phobic rhetoric and authoritarian pleas by public officials in the United States and worldwide. With contributions from established and emerging scholars, this book offers a unique framework to consider the development of attitudes that will apply to studies of minority groups more broadly.