Zein Murib

BA, University of Colorado, Political Science and Women’s Studies
MA and PhD, University of Minnesota, Political Science

Murib's forthcoming book (Oxford University Press), Terms of Exclusion: Rightful Citizenship Claims and LGBT Political Identity Construction, draws on Black feminist theory, specifically intersectionality, and scholarship from political science, sociology, queer theory, and gender studies to introduce a new theory of political identity group construction that focuses on the effects of within-group marginalization on what comes to be known of the group and its agendas. Examining social movement activism and interest group advocacy on behalf of LGBT people from 1968 to 2004, it argues that “rightful citizenship claims,” or the contention by political actors that lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people are denied rights owed to them as citizens, created the conditions for recognizing white, gender-normative, and monogamously-partnered gay men and lesbians in institutions of citizenship, such as marriage or the military, while simultaneously foreclosing representation of interests that are most pressing for LGBT-identified people who are Black, Latinx, Asian, Native, transgender, non-Christian, undocumented, incarcerated, and/or subjected to intensified forms of surveillance. The manuscript advances this argument by using Critical Discourse Analysis on an extensive archive of institutional primary source documents and publications to show that within-group marginalization of these members is not an accident of political expediency or due to relatively fewer resources, but rather a discursive strategy employed by political actors to make the group palatable to lawmakers and the general public. Centering who is invited into LGBT membership, and who is erased or silenced, in this manuscript thus constitutes a significant revision to existing scholarship on LGBT politics in political science by pointing to the erasures and elisions that facilitate group construction.

• POSC 3311 American Social Movements
• POSC 3213 Interest Group Politics
• POSC 3327 Gender and Sexuality in U.S. Politics
• POSC 3231 Judicial Politics
• POSC 4260 Seminar: Politics of Sex and Sexuality in the US

“Don’t Read the Comments: Examining Social Media Discourse on Trans Athletes.” Laws 11, no. 4 (2022): https://doi.org/10.3390/laws11040053

“Backlash, Intersectionality, and Trumpism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 45, no. 2 (Winter 2020): 295-302.

“Administering Biology: ‘Bathroom Bills’ and the Criminalization and Stigmatization of Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People in Public Space.” Administrative Theory & Praxis 42, no. 2 (2020): 153-171. Recipient of the American Society for Public Administration’s LGBT Advocacy Alliance Section Best Article award, 2020.

“Trumpism, Citizenship, and the Future of the LGBTQ Movement.” Politics & Gender 14 (2018): 649- 672.

“’Gay’ or ‘Homosexual’? The Implications of Social Category Labels for the Structure of Mass Attitudes.” With Brianna Smith, Matthew Motta, Timothy Callahan, and Marissa Theys. American Politics Research (2017)

“Transgender: Examining an Emerging Political Identity Using Three Political Processes” Politics, Groups, and Identities Vol. 3, No. 3 (2015): 381-397.