Not that niche: making room for the study of LGBTIQ people in political science

Despite both unparalleled progress on and persistent backlash to LGBTI rights in world politics, LGBTIQ people are rarely centred in our work as political scientists. This article charts the status of LGBTIQ scholarship in political science, advocating the creation of new spaces for such scholarship in the field, including in the pages of journals like the European Journal of Politics and Gender. Drawing on recent studies of the profession and on the reflections of leading LGBTIQ thinkers on navigating their presence in the subfield, I argue that LGBTIQ scholars and their scholarship still face individual-level and structural discrimination in political science. This encompasses active and passive homophobia and transphobia in teaching, getting hired and promoted, gaining access to research funding, and the publication process.Key messagesThe article charts a brief history of the status of LGBTIQ scholarship in political science.The article advocates for new spaces for such scholarship in the field, including in the pages of journals like the European Journal of Politics and Gender.The article draws on recent studies of the profession and on the reflections of leading LGBTIQ thinkers on navigating their presence in the subfield.The article argues that LGBTIQ scholars and their scholarship still face discrimination in political science, and that this neglect is not without consequences for knowledge production in the field.