Public administration scholarship pertaining to transgender individuals focuses on the implementation of nondiscrimination policies, particularly with respect to employment (Colvin 2007 Colvin, R. A. (2007). The rise of transgender-inclusive laws: How well are municipalities implementing supportive nondiscrimination public employment policies? Review of Public Personnel Administration, 27(4), 336–360. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar] , 2008 Colvin, R. (2008). Innovations in non-discrimination laws: Exploratory research on transgender-inclusive cities. Social Policy, 14, 19–34. [Google Scholar] ; Elias 2017 Elias, N. M. (2017). Constructing and implementing transgender policy for public administration. Administration & Society, 49(1), 20–47. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] ). This literature contributes greatly to our understanding of how to maintain open and accessible workplaces for transgender people; however, the effects of the recent politicization of public restroom access for transgender people, such as North Carolina’s HB 2, has yet to receive the same attention. This article argues that the recent surge of “bathroom bills” introduced across various states and localities makes opportunities for transgender and gender nonconforming people to successfully and safely inhabit public space impossible, and uses quantitative and qualitative analysis to illustrate the consequences of these policies. Focusing on seventy-one bills introduced between 2014 and 2018, this article shows that efforts to restrict bathroom access took two forms: first, legalizing discrimination against transgender and gender nonconforming people in public and second, making trans or gender nonconforming embodiment a criminal act. The article concludes with recommendations from architecture, city planning, and Trans Studies scholarship for public administration scholars and practitioners to consider as they continue to design and implement policies to address the unique needs of transgender individuals.

This article draws on critiques put forth by Queer Indigenous activists and scholars to question the tendency to include ever more “diverse” groups in the GLBT and Queer coalitions. I begin by introducing three main critiques of non-Native social movement coalitions put forth by Queer Indigenous scholars and then provide examples of Native organizing that shows how coalitions can bring members together across difference. To illustrate how this model of coalition building is different than non-Native coalition building, which tends to absorb and obscure differences, I then turn to a critical discourse analysis of the archived transcripts of a series of meetings called the National Policy Roundtables. The analysis of these meetings reveals how the construction of the GLBT and Queer coalitions, identities, and political agendas precluded the participation of Native people through the erasure of difference, all in the name of coalitional unity. After illustrating the ways that brokering the GLBT and Queer coalitions reified settler logics and the erasure of Native peoples, the article concludes by presenting an example from a contemporary coalition of Native and Black activists for insight into how to rethink coalition politics.

How are transgender athletes understood in popular discourse? This paper adapts and merges Glaser and Strauss’ 1967 Grounded Theory Method with computerized Automated Text Analysis to provide clarity on large-n datasets comprised of social media posts made about transgender athletes. After outlining the procedures of this new approach to social media data, I present findings from a study conducted on comments made in response to YouTube videos reporting transgender athletes. A total of 60,000 comments made on three YouTube videos were scraped for the analysis, which proceeded in two steps. The first was an iterative, grounded analysis of the top 500 “liked” comments to gain insight into the trends that emerged. Automated Text Analysis was then used to explore latent connections amongst the 60,000 comments. This descriptive analysis of thousands of datapoints revealed three dominant ways that people talk about transgender athletes: an attachment to biology as determinative of athletic abilities, a racialized understanding of who constitutes a proper “girl”, and perceptions of sex-segregated sports as the sole way to ensure fairness in athletic opportunities. The paper concludes by drawing out the implications of this research for how scholars understand the obstacles facing transgender political mobilizations, presents strategies for addressing these roadblocks, and underscores the importance of descriptive studies of discourse in political science research concerned with marginalization and inequality.

In addition to offering an overview of the articles in this symposium, this short introduction provides a conceptual framing for this collective conversation. Proceeding from the conviction that in contemporary feminist theory, and particularly within women of color feminism, one finds a vital resource for theorizing social justice coalition politics across difference, we situate the symposium in relation to the variety of ways in which the symposium authors have utilized key insights from this literature to advance competing and complimentary answers to the questions: what is coalition and how do coalitions mobilize effectively? We hope that the conceptual framing offered here helps to situate the symposium articles both in relation to one another, and in relation to contemporary progressive group politics.

“Gender ideology” rhetoric has diffused globally. Mobilized by a coalition of conservative actors, this discursive innovation helps to fuel the election of far-right politicians who scapegoat LGBTQ people, migrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and women as responsible for economic downturns as well as social and political disorder. This essay outlines the history and current landscape of gender ideology for political scientists and situates it in relation to the rise of far-right and authoritarian regimes globally. It builds on these political trends by concluding with a research agenda for scholars of LGBTQ politics to consider moving forward.

The conceptualizations and theorizations of coalition put forth in this symposium’s articles seek to answer the questions: what is coalition and how do coalitions mobilize? To address these questio...