From the closet to spotlight: the rising tide of lesbian, gay and bisexual political candidacies

Is there a positive sexuality gap in access to political candidacy and elected office, similar to those found in other forms of political engagement? We utilise validated data on same- and different-sex families from the Swedish administrative registry to descriptively examine long-term trends in access to political candidacy and elected office among Swedish lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons. With data covering twenty-four elections and a sample size of nearly seventy million individuals, our findings reveal a gradually emerging positive sexuality gap in access to political candidacy and a declining share of ‘sacrificial lambs’ among LGB candidates. We verify the robustness of these findings with the help of two original representative samples from the Swedish population. By shedding light on the existence and durability of a positive lavender gap in access to political candidacy, this study contributes to existing debates concerning the obstacles to minority political participation and descriptive representation and how they might be overcome.