Ideological Cues, Partisanship, and Prejudice Against LGBTQ Judges

Abstract How does the gender and sexual identity of a prospective judge shape public support for their nomination? We build upon recent scholarship on instrumental inclusivity and argue that, after accounting for nominee ideology, Americans of all partisan stripes will penalize LGBTQ nominees. Using a conjoint experiment, we randomly vary a prospective Biden US Supreme Court nominee’s gender and sexual identity. Crucially, we also randomize the nominee’s ideology, enabling us to disentangle LGBTQ identity from the ideological signal it sends and differentiate between genuine and instrumental support for LGBTQ nominees. Contrary to recent findings suggesting that Democrats reward minority judges, we find that respondents from both parties penalize LGBTQ nominees. The magnitude of these effects—roughly 14 percentage points for transgender nominees and 8 percentage points for gay or lesbian nominees—is considerable and second only to shared partisanship. Our study underscores that ideological alignment does not necessarily foster genuine inclusivity for LGBTQ individuals and highlights the persistent challenges of representation for marginalized groups in an era of polarized judicial nominations.