Welcoming Diversity? Symbolic Boundaries and the Politics of Normativity in Kansas City’s LGBTQ Communities

Abstract

Using document analysis and ethnographic field work, this article examines the debate within the LGBTQ community of Kansas City over the decision to hold its Pride festival in the Power and Light District (P&L), a renewed downtown area with a controversial dress code. Despite the developers' and city's goals of creating a cosmopolitan urban space that welcomed diverse populations, the P&L acquired a reputation as an anti-Black, anti-queer space due to its dress code and redevelopment history. I argue that the debate surrounding this controversy reveals limits to notions of diversity and diverging approaches to sexual politics within the LGBTQ community that are normally obscured by political actors within the movement but that work to create symbolic boundaries that exclude "non-respectable" members of the LGBTQ population. Recovering queer perspectives allows us to imagine a more capacious definition of diversity and inclusion, both within the LGBTQ movement and in urban space.

Excluded from “inclusive” communities: LGBTQ youths’ perception of “their” community

“…These findings result, in part, from the existence of definite hierarchies of identities and identifiers within LGBTQ þ spaces that mirror those in society at large, as found in other research (Knee, 2019;Parmenter et al, 2020;Vogler, 2016). There is a hierarchy in place in which Whiteness is highly valued, as is being male and middle class (Knee, 2019;Vogler, 2016), and meeting certain behavioral and appearance mandates related to group standards of homonormativity (Duggan, 2003;Vogler, 2016).…”

“…LGBTQ þ communities also replicate the power hierarchies of the larger society, in that those with the most power in the LGBTQ þ community tend to be representative of the gender binary in both appearance and presentation (Farmer & Byrd, 2015), White, cisgender men, monosexual, and members of either the upper or middle classes (Knee, 2019;Vogler, 2016).…”

“…Homonormativity, similar to heteronormativity, functions to uphold dominant assumptions and institutions in society related to gender and sexuality for people who identify as LGBTQþ. For members of the LGBTQ þ community, homonormativity functions to aid in the achievement of assimilation into larger society by presenting LGBTQ þ people as "normal" (Vogler, 2016). Normativity in these situations serves to create symbolic boundaries (Lamont & Molnar, 2002) by implementing ideas of respectability and policing those whose behavior does not meet acceptability standards (Ward, 2008).…”

“…Therefore, exclusion within LGBTQ þ communities happens because of symbolic norms which privilege those with the most power within the community and exclude those who have multiple intersectional identities (Ghabrial, 2017(Ghabrial, , 2019Giwa & Greensmith 2012), those who do not meet "respectability" requirements, and/or those who do not meet appearance norms in terms of gender presentation and attractiveness (Clarke & Spence, 2013;Farmer & Byrd, 2015;Hudson, 2015;Knee, 2019;Parmenter et al, 2020;Vogler, 2016). LGBTQ þ communities then end up marginalizing and excluding people seeking connection (Farmer & Byrd, 2015;Serano, 2013).…”

The Geography of Research on LGBTQ Life: Why sociologists should study the South, rural queers, and ordinary cities

“…There is a rich historical literature on LGBTQ life in the South (Buring, ; Carpenter, ; Howard, ; Johnson, ; Mason, ; Smith, ; Thompson, ). Sociological work on the South and Southeast predominately focuses on the Southeast (Bruce, ; McQueeney, ; Sumerau, ) with some attention to Appalachia (Barton, , ; Callis, ) and startlingly little work on the Deep South (Woodell, Kazyak, & Compton, ) and central South (Vogler, ).…”