Finding Queer Life through Allies: The Geography and Intentions of Mainstream-Oriented, Ostensibly LGBTQ-Supportive Businesses in a Smaller Metropolitan Area of the U.S. South

Abstract

This article details a study of the geography and intentions of mainstream-oriented businesses that publicly display lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-related symbols and signs. The setting for this study was the four-county Durham–Chapel Hill metropolitan area in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Findings show how the distribution of these businesses mirrors various demographic, political, and policy indicators of where LGBTQ and LGBTQ-friendly populations live in this smaller metropolitan region of the conservative southeastern United States. Employee interviews revealed a typology of critical, performative, and managed allies among these businesses. Critical allies had adopted practices that allow a sexually and gender-diverse, although largely White, segment of LGBTQ people to visibly work and consume on their premises, whereas performative interviewees’ ostensible allyship was more purely about marketing. Other businesses are constrained in their potential to more visibly market to LGBTQ people or be critical allies due to their role as franchisees. Given that a majority of these business’s activism was substantive, and building from Ghaziani’s (2014) concept of anchor institutions, I argue that these businesses show how the material culture of a large segment of LGBTQ people takes on a particular geography within Durham–Chapel Hill. Within limitations, mainstream-oriented businesses displaying LGBTQ symbols and signs offer another means of examining how LGBTQ life and visibility extend beyond gayborhoods.