Producing an LGBT Religious Organizational Identity: The Case of DignityUSA

Abstract

In this exploratory study, we examine the production of an organizational LGBT religious identity utilizing the case of DignityUSA. To this end, we engage in two interconnected analyses. First, we revisit and verify the findings of Loseke and Cavendish (2001) concerning the production of what they called a “Dignified Self,” which LGBT Catholics may use to integrate their religious-sexual-gender identities. Then, we expand on their analyses of DignityUSA in the late 1990’s to outline the ways DignityUSA constructs an organizational identity their members may draw upon to construct the Dignified Self and integrate their sexual/gender and religious identities. In so doing, our analyses speak both to (1) Loseke and Cavendish’s (2001) call to explore whether their findings from three years of newsletters held over time; and (2) calls over the past two decades for LGBT religious studies to expand beyond individual LGBT religious-sexual-gender identity integration to ascertain the construction of the organizational identities LGBT people draw upon to accomplish individual and interpersonal identity integration.