An Intersectional Analysis of LGBTQ Online Media Coverage of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting Victims

This study illustrates the radical potential of intersectionality to offer a more deeply critical analysis of hierarchies in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The author examines how 377 reports from the five most-trafficked LGBTQ Web sites represented victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL. Findings support previous scholarship that has emphasized Latinx exclusion, as the articles generally failed to present the victims in an intersectional way, focusing on their LGBTQ status and excluding their Latinx identities. At the same time, a significant minority of the reports emphasized Latinx queer people, most frequently in a way that continued to prioritize LGBTQ identification, sometimes even advancing stereotypical representations of Latinx communities as extraordinarily focused on faith, family, or "machismo." Moreover, none of the articles considered xenophobia as a potential motivating factor in the shooting, and the reports typically presented policing agencies in a neutral, and sometimes even positive, way.