Supporting the T in LGBT: Increasing Motivation for Collective Action for the Transgender Community Among Cisgender Sexual Minorities

The LGBT+ community represents a range of gender and sexual minorities who have fought for equal rights throughout history. Whist there has been some marked progress for sexual minorities (i.e., legalisation of same-sex marriage), progress for transgender people -the T in the LGBT- has lagged behind. This unenthusiastic support for transgender rights is evident across many groups, however, surprisingly also exists among LGB+ individuals. Qualitative insights show that transgender people often feel excluded by LGB+ members (Hutsell, 2012; Parameter et al, 2020). Thinking about this in combination with the plethora of other hardships faced by transgender individuals (e.g., violent hate crimes and suicidality), it is vital that this lack of support inside the LGBT+ community is investigated (Williams Institute, 2022, 2020). Firstly, it is essential to understand what underpins the lack of support for transgender rights among some LGB+ individuals. Ultimately, then exploring how to effectively boost this support by understanding when and why LGB+ individuals stand up for the T in LGBT.

We plan to shed new light on this important yet overlooked issue within social psychology. Across a series of mixed methods studies we will investigate the potential mechanisms behind LGB+ engagement in transgender activism. Building upon cross-sectional data from my MSc project at Exeter, longitudinal, experimental, and qualitative studies will be used to understand how to boost these collective action motivations.

This project will add to the collective action literature and fill a gap in its theory by examining a complex example of collective action where there is no clear advantaged group (Hassler et al, 2020). It is hoped to provide a refreshing outlook on what is often a negative field of research, by starting the development of a collective action intervention. The findings of the study will be disseminated to various inclusive LGBTQ+ and transgender charities and organisations.