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Using a content analysis approach, this study examined how scholarship on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQϩ) people in higher education used theories to advance knowledge about these communities between 2009 and 2018. Guided by the concept of thinking with theory, the article explores the varying relationships that scholars developed between data and theoretical/ epistemological traditions. In particular, the research project had a specific focus on how scholars mobilized critical and poststructural frameworks to shape literature on LGBTQϩ people. Findings revealed several important trends. Namely, there was a significant omission and lack of naming of epistemological foundations in research on LGBTQϩ people. Additionally, studies employing critical and poststructural frameworks increased during this period of time. Although the epistemologies represented in scholarship grew, few articles explicitly mentioned how their chosen theories/ epistemologies informed every aspect of their study design. Implications for future research and practice are offered.

Scholars critique LGBTQ+ social movements for failing to understand how oppressive systems like racism inform the experiences of LGBTQ+ community members. To investigate whether LGBTQ+ literature in postsecondary education reproduces this same pattern, we used a critical summative content analysis approach to examine research published on LGBTQ+ people between 2009 and 2019. Guided by a conceptual framework mobilizing notions of colorblindness and queer of color perspectives, we found that the 97 articles in the sample largely minimized the role that racism, anti-Blackness, whiteness, and settler colonialism plays in shaping LGBTQ+ realities in higher education. Implications for future scholarship are offered.

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