Not all of us vote the same way, and that’s the point

There is a persistent assumption, well-meaning though it usually is, that being part of the LGBTQ+ community automatically aligns you with progressive politics. It is an assumption worth examining, particularly in a year when local elections across England, as well as devolved elections in Scotland and Wales, once again shook up British politics. Britain’s political landscape has been on shaky ground for a decade. 

LGBTQ+ people exist in every political tradition. There are homosexual and transgender conservatives, queer libertarians, queer nationalists, and yes, queer socialists. The idea that sexuality or gender identity produces a single, coherent political outlook has always been a fiction. What the rainbow flag represents is plurality, not uniformity. Our community is as divided by class, geography, age, and faith as the wider population. To assume otherwise is to flatten something that is, in reality, beautifully complex.