Rural Identity and LGBT Public Opinion in the United States

Abstract Opposition to LGBT rights remains a contemporary fixture within the United States in spite of increasingly liberalizing attitudes toward LGBT individuals. In this paper, I argue that a potentially overlooked factor driving this opposition is rural identity—or an individual’s psychological attachment to a rural area. Using data from the 2020 ANES, I find that rural identity predicts less favorable estimations of LGBT individuals. Rural identifiers are also less likely to support pro-LGBT policy measures than nonrural identifiers. Nevertheless, I find the magnitude of the effects of rural identity on anti-LGBT views to be surprisingly small. It is also the case that, on average, rural identifiers exhibit net-positive estimations of LGBT individuals and are broadly supportive of LGBT rights, suggesting that elected officials enacting anti-LGBT legislation in rural areas of the United States are potentially out of step with the preferences of their electorate. These findings also have implications for what it means to hold a rural identity beyond a generalized animosity toward urban areas, and for understanding urban-rural divergences in US public opinion on issues such as LGBT rights.


Gay men and lesbians
We'd like to get your feelings toward some of our political leaders and other people who are in the news these days.I'll read the name of a person and I'd like you to rate that person using something we call the feeling thermometer.
Ratings between 50 degrees and 100 degrees mean that you feel favorable and warm toward the person.Ratings between 0 degrees and 50 degrees mean that you don't feel favorable toward the person and that you don't care too much for that person.You would rate the person at the 50 degree mark if you don't feel particularly warm or cold toward the person.
How would you rate: Gay men and lesbians

Transgender individuals
We'd like to get your feelings toward some of our political leaders and other people who are in the news these days.I'll read the name of a person and I'd like you to rate that person using something we call the feeling thermometer.
Ratings between 50 degrees and 100 degrees mean that you feel favorable and warm toward the person.Ratings between 0 degrees and 50 degrees mean that you don't feel favorable toward the person and that you don't care too much for that person.You would rate the person at the 50 degree mark if you don't feel particularly warm or cold toward the person.LGBT rights items Services to same-sex couples Do you think business owners who provide wedding-related services should be allowed to refuse services to same-sex couples if same-sex marriage violates their religious beliefs, or do you think business owners should be required to provide services regardless of a couple's sexual orientation?9. Refused -8.Don't know 1.Should be allowed to refuse 2. Should be required to provide services

Transgender policy
Should transgender people -that is, people who identify themselves as the sex or gender different from the one they were born as -have to use the bathrooms of the gender they were born as, or should they be allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender?-9.Refused -8.Don't know 1. Have to use the bathrooms of the gender they were born as 2. Be allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender

Does R usually think of self as rural or urban person
Regardless of where you currently live, do you usually think of yourself as a city person, a suburb person, a small-town person, a country or rural person, or something else?

- 9 .
Refused-7.No post-election data, deleted due to incomplete interview -6.No post-election interview - How would you rate: Transgender people 9. Refused -7.No post-election data, deleted due to incomplete interview -6.No post-election interview -

R position on same-sex marriage Which
comes closest to your view?You can just tell me the number of your choice.

How important is rural or urban to R's identity
How important is being a [city person / suburb person / small-town person / country or rural person] to your identity?[Notat all important, a little important, moderately important, very important, or extremely important / Extremely important, very important, moderately important, a little important, or not at all important]?

SUMMARY: Respondent 5 Category level of education What is present religion of R
Rural Identity Moderated by Sense of Rural Belonging OLS Estimates of Relationship Between Place Identity and Group-Based Affect (Interactive Effects for Sense of Rural Belonging) OLS Estimates of Relationship Between Place Identity and Support for LGBT Rights (Interactive Effects for Sense of Rural Belonging)