A changing landscape? Dynamics of accommodation and displacement in UK parliamentary discourse on LGBT homelessness

Abstract

Through an examination of its discursive presence in the UK Parliament (Westminster), this article explores political elites’ problematisations of LGBT homelessness. In particular, I consider whether the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion that have been critically identified in relation to the mainstreaming of ‘gay rights’ in other sites are evident in the emerging discourse on LGBT homelessness in Westminster. I find that the cross-party emphasis on data collection as a predicate for action on LGBT homelessness enables the Conservatives to signal sexual progress without risking the Party’s traditional supporters. Moreover, the almost exclusive focus on LGBT homeless youth in the parliamentary discourse, which is echoed to a lesser degree in existing research, stabilises divisions of ‘deserving/undeserving’ poor and entrenches the relationship between housing security, normative forms of intimacy and anti-migrant nationalist sentiments. To escape the terms of its current emergence, I argue, a coalitional and grass-roots-led definition of the problem of LGBT homelessness is needed.