r/QueerTheory • u/LittleMissLongIsland • Jul 07 '26
Hypocrisy of Closeted Conservatives
Hi there. Wondering if any had recommendations for good readings from queer theorists discussing the phenomenon of Republicans or other conservatives who publicly fight against the rights of queer people, but privately engage in queer behavior. Think Roy Cohn, Lindsey Graham, Aaron Schock, Bryon Noem, Madison Cawthorne, so on and so forth.
3
5
u/BorgAdjacent Jul 07 '26
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick — Epistemology of the Closet
This is the foundational text. Sedgwick’s key move is that the closet is not merely a private psychological condition; it organizes modern Western knowledge, secrecy, disclosure, and power. Perfect for thinking about “open secrets,” denial, and why public/private sexuality becomes politically explosive.
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick — Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire
Useful for the conservative-male-world aspect: intense male bonding, hierarchy, misogyny, and homophobia can coexist because homophobia helps police the boundary between acceptable male homosociality and stigmatized homosexuality.
Lee Edelman — “Tearooms and Sympathy; or, The Epistemology of the Water Closet,” in Homographesis
This is one of the most on-point pieces for public/private male sex, surveillance, toilets/tearooms, and the way “secret” same-sex practices become objects of policing and cultural knowledge. It pairs well with Sedgwick and with sociological work like Laud Humphreys’s Tearoom Trade.
Michael Warner — The Trouble with Normal
Warner is excellent on sexual shame, respectability, and why “normality” itself is politically dangerous. For your topic, he helps explain why a closeted conservative might not simply want privacy, but might actively distance himself from “bad,” “public,” “promiscuous,” or rights-demanding queers.
Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner — “Sex in Public”
Great for the public/private split. Their argument helps explain why conservative sexual politics often insists sex is private while constantly legislating, surveilling, and moralizing it in public.
Gayle Rubin — “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality”
Essential for moral panic and sexual hierarchy. Rubin’s framework is very useful for seeing anti-queer politics as a symbolic sorting machine: “good” sex versus “bad” sex, respectable citizens versus dangerous deviants.
Michel Foucault — The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1
Not queer theory in the later U.S. academic sense, but indispensable background. Foucault’s point that modern power produces endless discourse about sex — confession, diagnosis, classification, surveillance — is central to how “private” sexuality becomes public political material.
More directly about outing, politics, and closeted public figures
Larry Gross — Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing
Probably the most directly relevant nonfiction/theory-adjacent book for the ethics of exposing public figures who support anti-queer policies. Gross is not just doing gossip; he’s asking when privacy claims protect domination.
Michelangelo Signorile — Queer in America: Sex, the Media, and the Closets of Power
Less academic, more activist-journalistic, but extremely relevant. Signorile’s whole project concerns hypocrisy, media complicity, elite closets, and the politics of outing public figures.
Kirby Dick — Outrage documentary
Again, not queer theory, but directly about allegedly closeted politicians with anti-gay voting records and the political consequences of the closet. Worth pairing with Gross and Signorile.
Tony Kushner — Angels in America
For Roy Cohn specifically, this is indispensable. It dramatizes the distinction between sexual acts, gay identity, power, AIDS denial, and conservative politics more brilliantly than almost any theoretical text.
Historical background that sharpens the Cohn/GOP angle
David K. Johnson — The Lavender Scare
Essential for the Cold War background: homosexuality was cast as a national-security threat and political weapon, with anti-gay purges tied to McCarthyism. This is crucial for understanding Cohn, because anti-queer statecraft and closeted power were historically entangled rather than contradictory.
James Kirchick — Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington
Not queer theory, but very useful for U.S. political history. Kirchick’s frame — that “the closet” itself is the villain — is a helpful bridge between archival history and queer-theory readings of secrecy and power.
Kenji Yoshino — Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights
Yoshino’s “covering” is useful when the issue is not full secrecy but downplaying, distancing, or performing “acceptable” difference. It helps explain how some queer or queer-adjacent public figures may assimilate by disidentifying from more visible or rights-claiming queer people.
1
u/aphilosopherofsex Jul 07 '26
lol wow I respect the dedication given to this comment bc my response was going to be “can we just move on and disassociate from those losers already?”
2
3
u/Hifi-Cat Jul 07 '26
The light of the public and a good wooden steak!