"We're here, we're queer, we're fascist! Get used to it." Identity conflict in the homosexual radical right

The homosexual radical right is often seen to be oxymoronic. It seems incomprehensible for many

that a marginalised group within society—homosexuals—can support a political movement which

is both homophobic and oppressive to others. It has been suggested that the interests, needs, and

demands of being both homosexual and politically radical right are so fundamentally opposed that

there cannot be a synthesis between these two identities. I characterise this juxtaposition and

incongruence of identities as identity conflict. This identity conflict is the central research area of this

thesis.

This thesis uses Sheldon Stryker’s (1991; 2001) symbolic interactionist approach to identity. This

approach views identity as a commitment that is strengthened through performance. In

understanding identity in this way, it also gives insight into conflict between identities and how an

individual can successfully resolve identity conflict. This approach conceptualises identity

commitments in terms of a salience hierarchy. This salience hierarchy is established by assessing an

individual’s commitment to an identity and framing any conflict as a challenge to this commitment.

I argue that the homosexual radical right can maintain congruent identities by resolving any

challenges to their identity commitments.

Through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of forty-four texts, images, and memes that the

homosexual radical right has produced, I suggest that many members of the homosexual radical

right either successfully resolve, or do not experience, identity conflict. This identity conflict is

resolved through two strategies: 1) by denying the conflict exists, or 2) by minimising the conflict

to a tolerable level. The first strategy has three methods: Primarily, the homosexual radical right

engages in a reconstruction of radical right ideology to permit homosexuals to exist within the

ideological typology. The additional two methods of the first strategy are to either fictionalise the

homophobia of the radical right, or by suggesting that the conflict is artificially created by the

‘Other’. The second strategy of identity conflict resolution is the minimisation of identity conflict

which is achieved through creating an Other, which significantly threatens both homosexuals and

White people that any identity conflict can be tolerable. This thesis contributes to a small field of

work on the relationship between sexual and political identities, of which it is the first instance of

a suggestion that the radical right as an ideology can be queered.