Challenging Heteronormativity in Survey Measure Development: Evidence from a mixed-method study on measures of sexuality and gender identity.

The unprecedented success of and backlash against the trans-national LGBTQ+ rights movement has spurred an increasing amount of research on LGBTQ+ issues in political and social science research. This burgeoning literature includes empirical analyses of queer-related political and social phenomena, and using queer theory and methods to critically engage with broader political issues. The study of LGBTQ+ politics and use of queer theory and methods has never been more popular in political science. Yet, despite increased use of queer theory and method and study of LGBTQ+ politics, there is still very little scholarship that considers the political perspectives, experiences, and opinions of LGBTQ+ people. Bergersen, Klar, and Schmitt (2018) reported that less than three percent of all published political science work on LGBTQ+-related issues involved actually interviewing or surveying an openly LGBTQ+ person. The absence of work on LGBTQ+ experiences and perspectives limits our understanding of politics. The dearth of scholarship on LGBTQ+ people also reveals significant methodological problems. The most notable is that large population surveys typically do not count LGBTQ+ people because they do not include measures of gender identity beyond a binary and they do not include measures of sexuality. On the rare surveys that do include measures of sexuality, the measure is poorly constructed, which limits both the quality and the usability of the data. For example, one measure of sexuality asks respondents to identify as either 1. Straight or 2. LGB. This construction undercounts LGB responses because LGBTQ+ people, in focus group settings, have indicated they stop participating in surveys or other research when their identities are trivialized—in this case, queer sexualities are portrayed as only unique in the way they are “not straight”. Measures that increase LGBTQ+ non-response lowers the quality of the collected data. Additionally, this measure construction limits researchers’ ability to assess differences among LGB people because the data cannot be broken down further into different identity groups. A measure that reduces researchers’ ability to make inferences lowers the usability of the data collected. And this is just one example of a problematic measure of sexuality. The point is that problems in counting and coding LGBTQ+ responses in research settings are prevalent within political science. This paper intervenes in survey research and measurement development by employing a mixed-method approach to construct and test better measures of sexuality and gender identity. The goal is to develop measures that lower LGBTQ+ non-response error and give researchers greater flexibility in their research designs. I accomplished this by first interviewing LGBTQ+ people in Britain about sexuality and gender identity survey measures. I then analyzed their feedback and constructed several different variations of sexuality and gender identity survey measures. To test the efficacy of these measures, YouGov UK will field these measures to a UK general population sample in a survey experiment. The results of this experiment will help us infer which measures effectively count and code LGBTQ+ respondents, thereby solving a major methodological problem in survey design and research.