Research on masculinities and feminist institutionalism has highlighted how gendered norms shape leadership, authority, and behavior in political institutions that remain closely tied to heterosexual male privilege. Yet, the experiences of openly gay men in representative politics remain strikingly underexplored. This gap matters because, in political life, as in other professional domains, sexuality is not simply a private matter but something continuously negotiated. For openly gay politicians, this involves daily decisions about how to express, manage, or downplay their sexuality depending on institutional and cultural contexts. While studies of LGBTIQ+ representation often focus on visibility, equality, or policy advocacy, they rarely examine how gay male politicians themselves understand and navigate masculinity in their everyday political work within institutions still structured by heteronormative expectations.
This paper presents a conceptual and methodological framework for studying how openly gay elected representatives experience and negotiate masculinities across European political contexts. Drawing on scholarship in political representation, feminist institutionalism, masculinities, and queer studies, it explores how personal identification, party culture, and national attitudes toward homosexuality shape these experiences.
Empirically, the paper outlines a comparative, multi-method research design that combines organizational ethnography and interviews with politicians and LGBTIQ+ party networks across Europe. This approach captures how masculinities are lived and negotiated within different political settings and ideological traditions. Because European countries differ in their acceptance of homosexuality, the project examines how such contexts shape both the reception of openly gay politicians and the ways they perform and embody masculinity in their daily political work.
I argue that studying gay men in politics reveals new insights into how masculinities are constructed, contested, and potentially transformed within democratic institutions, highlighting the gendered nature of political power and representation. The comparative angle explores whether strategies of negotiating masculinity differ or align across contexts. These experiences expose not only the persistence of heteronormative masculinities but also the emotional labor, strategic calculations, and subtle exclusions that shape who feels like they belong in politics; and under what conditions.
