Deconstructed and Constructive Logics: Explaining Inclusive Language Change in Queer Nonprofits, 1998–2016¹

Deconstructed Identities and Their Logic of Inclusion

Same-sex practices and diverse gender expressions are common throughout human history. The discursive construction of these practices into distinct categorical identities, however, is the result of modern cultural transformations. As explained by Foucault (1978, p. 43): “As defined by the ancient civil or canonical codes, sodomy was a category of forbidden acts; their perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them. The nineteenth-century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case history, and a childhood, in addition to being a type of life, a life form, and a morphology. . . . The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species.”

In the United States, there is a long, detailed history of how sexual and gender categories came to be. Most relevant for the current study, however, is role of the “minority rights” model of gay organizing that took hold following the sexual revolutions of the 1960s and ‘70s (Valocchi 1999). To achieve rights and recognition within the U.S. legal framework and build sympathy from wider audiences, those of various sexual identities needed to discursively become a quasi-ethnic group—a distinct, biologically grounded social category on the basis of which inalienable rights can be transferred (Van Dyke and Taylor 2019). As Gamson (1995, p. 391) summarizes: “Lesbians and gay men made themselves an effective force in this country over the past several decades by largely giving themselves what civil rights movements had: a public collective identity. Gay and lesbian social movements have built a quasi-ethnicity, complete with its own political and cultural institutions, festivals, neighborhoods, and even its own flag. Underlying that ethnicity . . . is the same fixed, natural essence, a self with same-sex desires.”

Given the legal institutions in the United States, the language of categorical identities was necessary as it meant new public collectives that could be fought for (Gamson 1995, 1997; Polletta and Jasper 2001). Because discourse is a powerful medium through which populations are constructed, made visible, and conferred rights and social acceptance, there is an internal push within the gay and lesbian movement to be more inclusive through explicit recognition (Ghaziani 2008; Stone 2009; Nownes 2010; Mathers et al. 2018). And, like other social movements, the movement worked to construct a collective identity (Taylor and Whittier 1992; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Whittier 2010). Over time, this meant that gay and lesbian groups expanded discursive inclusion to bisexual and transgender people (Gamson 1995; Melucci 1995; Broad 2002; Monro, Hines, and Osborne 2017). By naming explicit groups, this act demonstrated that while other identities within the broader umbrella shared some struggles, their needs and presence were distinct (Seidman et al. 1999; Armstrong 2002). Therefore, what started off as a movement for gay rights subsequently evolved into a movement encompassing of gays and lesbians, then gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, and then an “LGBT” or “GLBT” movement as activists sought to create a more inclusive collective identity and improve cultural tolerance for these communities as well (Gamson 1997).⁶

Thus, the logic of inclusion for deconstructed identities is to recognize and explicitly name more fixed identity categories over time: L, B, G, T, Q, I, A, 2S(two spirit).Public, collective, coherent, bounded, and delimited identities allow self-definition by distinct groups (Taylor and Whittier 1992; Gamson 1997; Seidman 1997; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Armstrong 2002). Including new identities acknowledges that they are jointly linked through shared fate and advances the long-standing tradition of “unity through diversity” within the movement(Armstrong 2002;Carrera et al.2012).Because the logic of explicit recognition is popularized and shared within cultural schemas, this “repertoire” or tool for inclusion is now embedded within our cultural zeitgeist and perpetuates itself (e.g., LGBT to LGBTQ to LGBTQIA; Swidler 1986).The result is a collective identity that allows specialization while maintaining interdependence and cohesion (Taylor and Whittier 1992; Polletta and Jasper 2001;Levitsky2007). This logic of inclusion operates within a cultural schema that assumes or requires fixed categorization in order to achieve recognition, citizenship, and support.

Constructive Identities and Their Logic of Inclusion

Just as movements were expanding and integrating through the inclusion of additional deconstructed identities, a new type of discourse emerged, one that emphasized the fluidity and multiplicity of gender and sexual identities by moving past deconstructed logics (Seidman et al. 1999; Diamond 2008; Carrera et al. 2012; Rupp et al. 2016). As explained by Gamson (1995, p. 391): “Yet this impulse to build a collective identity with distinct group boundaries has been met by a directly opposing logic, often contained in queer activism (and the newly anointed ‘queer theory’): to take apart the identity categories and blur group boundaries.”

There are several limits of deconstructed identities and the logic of inclusion they invite. First, a straightforward limitation is that explicitly naming any group necessarily excludes others. An additive approach requires an ever-expanding set of letters to attempt to describe the whole of the collective by ensuring each particular identity receives recognition—an unwieldy process recognized by both members of the community and those outside of it. Ghaziani (2011, p. 112) reports how one organizational leader approached this challenge: “Rather than turn our name into an alphabet soup, we decided to pick a name that would encompass everyone.” Another advocacy group leader conveyed similar sentiments, quoted in Stone (2009, p. 347): “There comes a point where you have to say, ‘How many letters do you need to describe the community?’ GLBTQRST. It’s silly.”

Second, since language shapes our perception of reality (e.g., Foucault 1978), framing the collective through distinct categories creates normative assumptions on how individuals should operate and perform their identities (e.g., homonormativity; Duggan 2002; Tarrow 2013; Mathers et al. 2018). Because categories like “gay” were developed by white, middle-class men, people of color and those of lower incomes, especially, feel constrained by the normative assumptions that come with a label that was not initially built for them (Ayoub 2019). When this happens, those who are not included within dominant collective identities push for alternatives that are reflective of their own self-expressions, helping to explain, for example, the increased use of the term “queer” or “same gender loving,” a term more prevalent in Black communities (Wilson 2009).

Third, and related to the aforementioned point, simply adding “transgender,” “bisexual,” and so on, to previously recognized identities is insufficient to recognize the fluid and interstitial nature of gender or sexual identity—excluding individuals who sense connection with the overall collective but cannot place themselves within the set of letters on offer (Armstrong 2002; Diamond 2008). As people are introduced to new identity labels and allowed to express themselves in more ways, these interstitial and fluid experiences only increasingly challenge the rigidness of discrete categorization.

Fourth, “sexual identity is connected to the cultural and historical context” (Russell, Clarke, and Clary 2009, p. 885); over the last several decades, conditions that produced the deconstructed identities and their logics have certainly changed. The need to strategically play up categorical difference to display disadvantage and fight for equal rights may have diminished as political and legal battles were won (Polletta and Jasper 2001), particularly after the 2013 ruling overturning the Defense of Marriage Act and the 2015 sweeping Supreme Court decision on marriage equality. In an assessment of next steps “after marriage,” Ball (2019, pp. 157–58) suggests: “The attainment of the marriage-equality goal offers movement leaders and constituents an opportunity to consider new priorities. One of those priorities should be encouraging the state to adopt laws and policies that recognize and protect gender and sexual fluidity and multiplicities.”

In moving away from deconstructed identities and their logic of inclusion, a new logic and identity system is emerging. This new system, which we refer to as constructive identities, has a core logic of inclusion to recognize community beyond category. Inclusion is achieved by using language that recognizes both range and interstitial placement and no longer requires periodic updates. Instead, constructive identities work to encompass the whole of lived experiences with one phrase and allow individuals to construct their own inclusion into the community. Attention to SOGI or sexual and gender identity (SIGI), reclaiming negative labels like “queer” (Van Dyke and Taylor 2019), or using postgay language such as “pride” or “equality” (Ghaziani 2011) signals an identity collective that is expansive without distinction. If the deconstructed logic is to name each individual color, constructive logic is to find language to articulate the color spectrum itself. The constructive logic of inclusion operates within a cultural schema that denies fixed categorization in favor of multiplicity, fluidity, and change.

Bottom-Up Pressures: Organizational Constituencies and Resource Acquisition

One line of research suggests that the language used by organizations is a reflection of internal organizational dynamics like the constituencies the organization is trying to appeal to, the collective identity it is trying to establish, and its work attracting or retaining resources (Gamson 1996, 1997; Ghaziani 2011). From this perspective, to understand change toward more inclusive language, or shifts from deconstructed to constructive logics, it is important to consider the organization’s constituents, other stakeholders, and the internal or external resource pressures on the organization (McCarthy and Zald 1977; Freeman [1984] 2010; Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994; DiMaggio 1997; Edwards and McCarthy 2004).

Certainly, all organizations need to engage with internal and external stakeholders: entities that provide resources to the organization, that can make a claim to an organization’s attention, or that are affected by the organization (Jawahar and McLaughlin 2001; Lewis et al.2001, p. 202; Freeman 2010). Constituents, adherents, and clients are all critical stakeholders worthy of organizational time and attention (Edwards and McCarthy 2004; LeRoux 2009). So too are funding agents who provide organizations with resources. Organizations must interact with and integrate the needs of these multiple constituencies to determine future direction (and even survive; Ansoff 1965), especially during times of rapid change (Lewis et al. 2001).

Taking such a constituency perspective, we would expect organizations working with youth to be likely to adopt more inclusive language. While the broader U.S. population is still grappling with updating previously conceived notions of gender and sexuality with current understandings, many youths are already experiencing a reality where gay, transgender, or other identities are commonplace. Consequently, “changes in the visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and issues may allow youth to understand and self-label same-sex sexual identities at younger ages than previous cohorts” (Russell et al. 2009, p. 885). Youth-oriented organizations may be aware of changing language earlier than others and want to expand the inclusivity of their language to signal recognition to potential constituents.

Also, there are debates about the extent to which today’s youth find deconstructed identity category labels meaningful and, instead, seek out constructive labels that emphasize fluidity (Savin-Williams 2009; Rupp et al. 2016). Young people are historically the vanguard in exploring an interstitial space between categories, comfortable with the notion of gender or sexuality as fluid, personal, and malleable (Diamond 2008; Russell et al. 2009; Rupp et al. 2016). For example, Diamond (2008) finds that the young women she followed grappled with the limits of existing identity labels, as articulated by one of her respondents, “I hate boxes. Hate them, hate them. And I hate this whole dichotomy paradigm that our society tends to revolve around.” When asked, many of these young women understand themselves as sexually fluid, without a fixed sexual self, and chose no label for their sexuality. Rupp et al. (2016, p. 195) find the same—that many nonheterosexual college women “are embracing identities as ‘pansexual,’ ‘queer,’ or ‘fluid,’ or refusing to adopt any label at all.” Therefore, youth-oriented organizations may be more likely to abandon deconstructed labels altogether to embrace their constituents’ fluidity.

Similarly, organizations explicitly focused on advocacy would be expected to use more deconstructed-inclusive language compared to service or other organizations. Advocacy organizations must pay particularly close attention to their constituents and stakeholders since they are asked to mobilize not only in terms of money but also in terms of time and effort (Edwards and McCarthy 2004). If movements act as “cultural laboratories”—creating new forms of concepts, identities, and knowledge (Eyerman and Jamison 1991)—then it is activists within the movement who carry those concepts into the larger political and social arena and push for inclusive language (Rochon 1998). Advocacy organizations are likely to include more deconstructed identities to resonate with the movement’s target audience and build broader coalitions in their lobbying and advocacy efforts (Snow and Benford 1988; Hunt et al. 1994; Nownes 2010; Tarrow 2013). For the same reason, advocacy organizations may be reluctant to pursue constructive discourses that may be unfamiliar to political elites.

Given the U.S.-focused nature of deconstructed categories, processes of inclusion may be different for organizations with a global or international focus (Altman 1996). One consequence of the minority-rights model in the United States is it conflates sexual behaviors with categorical identities. However, the fusion of the two is not globally universal (Massad 2002). Within international spaces, there is a stronger tendency to use more constructive labels that are less culturally specific to Western contexts (Voss 2018). The principal term used by the United Nations is “SOGI.” Therefore, organizations that have constituents beyond the United States may be no more likely to adopt deconstructed identities but instead gravitate toward constructive-inclusive language so as not to export the “Gay International” (Massad 2002).

Organizations incur costs, and stakeholders who can help pay the bills will certainly receive organization attention (Jawahar and McLaughlin 2001; LeRoux 2009; Walker and McCarthy 2010). Both resource dependency theory and resource mobilization theory acknowledge that obtaining and maintaining resources is key to organizational success (McCarthy and Zald 1977; Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). Thus, if it helps them to acquire resources, organizations may adapt their language toward inclusivity. For nonprofit organizations, large donors and funders like philanthropic foundations are an important source of revenue and thus particularly important constituencies. Providing resources affords these funders the power to set expectations and influence organization goals (Jenkins and Eckert 1986). Even if not viewed as direct patronage, organizations are likely to work to comply with the formal or informal expectations of funders, like foundations, as they appeal to these resource-rich partners (Walker and McCarthy 2010). Thus, if sources of revenue begin to use more inclusive language or target particular deconstructed categories for attention, we would expect organizations to follow with more inclusive language in turn.

In sum, we hypothesize that bottom-up pressures—from organizational constituencies like youth, activists, and global audiences or from sources of resources like foundations—will induce organizational adaptation toward more inclusive language and, in some cases, shifts from deconstructive to constructive language.

Horizontal Pressures: Institutional Processes and the Social Movement

Other organizations matter. The broader ecological context in which an organization is embedded is an important source of pressure for organizational change. An extensive body of research highlights the isomorphic and institutional processes that shape organizational behaviors (Meyer and Rowan 1977; DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Zucker 1987; Clemens and Cook 1999) and lead to the “inexorable push toward homogenization” within the LGBT organizational field (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, p. 148). Consequently, it is not fully possible to assess why organizations change their language without assessing their peer organizations. So too we must recognize that organizations are embedded within the larger social movement for equality that influences them as well as other aspects of society. Certainly social movement organizations are a source of agentic change and infuse institutional processes with new ideas and linguistic terms (Clemens 1993; Rochon 1998; Schneiberg and Lounsbury 2008).

A unique feature of U.S. LGBT organizations is the long history of coalescing around the principle of “unity through diversity” (Armstrong 2002). This logic manifests as a strong isomorphic pressure for organizations to adopt discourses reflecting increasing diversity and inclusion (Gamson 1997; Armstrong 2002; Levitsky 2007). Thus, as a higher percentage of peer institutions move to more inclusive language (e.g., add letters), an organization is likely to follow the process of homogenization because organizations do not want to have their legitimacy challenged (Meyer and Rowan 1977).⁷

A critical force for change in this space is the social movement devoted to LGBT+ equality. Cultural change is a goal of this movement among others (Amenta and Polletta 2019; Van Dyke and Taylor 2019). Further, social movement scholars stress that movement activism goes beyond targeting the state to also pressure businesses, universities, and other organizations (Snow, Soule, and Kriesi 2004; Armstrong and Bernstein 2008; Walker, Martin, and McCarthy 2008; Soule 2009). A movement’s framing of the problem, audience, and so on, should diffuse into organization language (Benford and Snow 2000). We would therefore expect a general trend toward more inclusive language among nonprofit organizations as the social movement grows and seeks out individual and collective representation (Ghaziani 2008, 2011; Stone 2009). Of course, pressure from the growing movement could particularly produce change to constructive language since generating new language, especially language to suggest collective identity, is central to the movement (Taylor and Whittier 1992; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Tarrow 2013). The LGBT movement invests embracing a fluid identity with political meaning, where “queer” can be a political commitment (Rupp etal. 2016).

In sum, horizontal pressures from peer organizations and the social movement for LGBT+ equality will produce both general movement to more inclusive language by organizations as well as shifts from deconstructive to constructive language.

Top-Down Pressures: Social Context

The macrolevel factors superseding the organizational space represent a final source of pressure driving change within organizations. Organizations are embedded within and influenced by their environment—cultural, social, political, and so forth—both in the present and at their time of founding (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978; Johnson 2007).

An important feature of the social and political landscape during the time we study is the ever-present threat faced by LGBT communities. Indeed, the constant presence of threat is one factor that drove the creation of a broader collective identity across communities (Van Dyke and Soule 2002). Despite recent gains like the Supreme Court decisions approving marriage equality and banning employment discrimination, threats against those of diverse sexual and gender identities abound. High profile threats of the last few decades include, but are certainly not limited to, the HIV/AIDS crisis and the lack of support from the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 upholding the criminalization of sodomy, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), anti-LGBT activism from evangelicals and the Moral Majority, a slew of state constitutional bans on same-sex marriages, and, of course, high profile cases of violence like Matthew Shepard and, more recently, murders of Black trans women (Fetner 2008). Consequently, even though progress was certainly advanced in some contexts (Bernstein 2003), the pressure of threat remained and helped bind this community together even as it became more rhetorically diverse. Importantly, though, the political context and the nature of these threats varied across states, leading to variation in political opportunity structures (Staggenborg 1986; McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996). As Diamond (2008) articulates, when facing antigay activism, the safest course of action is to keep fixed, apparently deterministic categories that evoke civil rights. We would thus expect organizations operating in states with the most institutionalized repression, hostility, and activity to use more inclusive, especially deconstructed-inclusive, language.

Generally, though, some threat has receded over time in the wake of high-profile legal victories and vastly improved public attitudes. For example, during the Obama administration, a number of high-profile advancements were made, including repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, overturning DOMA, and the banner policy achievement of marriage equality for same-sex couples. More generally, public opinion shows growing generalized awareness of and increasing support for LGBT+ populations, although certainly there is variation across each specific community (Powell et al. 2015). What happens when threat subsides and public support grows? If increasing support releases a pressure valve, will it spur an uptick in constructive language as we enter a new social era much different from the one under which deconstructed identities were first created?

Relatedly, research from organizational studies highlights that the conditions present at the birth of an organization leave a lasting imprint that subsequently conditions its decisions—creating inertia (Boeker 1989). According to Huber (1991,p.91), “what an organization knows at its birth will determine what it searches for, what it experiences, and how it interprets what it encounters.” Given the stark changes to social understandings of sexual and gender identities over the last few decades, the historical imprints left on queer organizations founded during different historical eras may be particularly salient (Whittier 1997; Johnson 2007). Organizations founded pre-Stonewall may be imprinted with a deep sense of threat that leaves them reluctant to signify any identity at all, even in the modern period. In contrast, those founded in the 2000s may be more likely to adopt an expanded set of deconstructed identities given the popularity of LGBTQ+ language at the time, while those founded close to the present may be “born” with constructive language from the beginning. That is, being founded in an era of threat may leave an imprint of language inertia, while being founded in an era that uses deconstructed language may produce a tendency to add additional letters as they become more common. Organizations founded closest to the present may display less change, as they are already founded with constructive identities.

Local context matters as well, with the characteristics of the local nonheterosexual and noncisgender population an important influence on language choice. In an in-depth assessment of “sexual identity cultures” within four cities, Brown-Saracino (2015) identifies how the unique characteristics of each city, such as the city’s culture and demographics, influences the language LBQ women use to make sense of their identities. This process would transfer to the organizations within those cities. In responding to local populations, organizations embedded in communities with larger populations that might otherwise identify as lesbian, or bisexual, are likely to use a more inclusive set of letters to reflect their potential constituents. Moreover, this larger population also opens space for individuals to feel safer using other more constructive identity labels.

Finally, it is important to recognize that, as a culture, the United States is increasingly aware of intersectionality as an analytic lens. Indeed, across different axes of inequality—gender, class, race, ability, and the like—there is increased recognition of how power is differentially distributed within categories and the need to nuance how these identities are constructed and operate (Crenshaw 1990). Especially within social movement organizations, there is an appreciation that to be effective at advancing the community of interest, organizations need to consider differing needs based on intersections of different identities (Chun, Lipsitz, and Shin 2013)—to develop an “intersectional consciousness” (Ayoub 2019). A consequence of this consciousness is that it “makes more visible the serious shortcomings that exist in the mission of LGBTI groups to address the needs of many of their most vulnerable subjects” (Ayoub 2019, p. 3). White, middle-class men initially had the power to define the gay label and to construct what this category means and how to perform it and to demarcate boundaries for who could identify with it (Cruikshank 2014). In response, organizations with an intersectional consciousness are likely to give recognition and thus, power, to those long excluded by original labels. Thus, organizations that recognize that multiple axes of oppression and identity characteristics are in operation simultaneously may be intentional in their language to be more inclusive, generally, but also use more constructive language that simultaneously blurs categories and gives power and recognition to those who operate beyond the discrete.

In sum, we hypothesize that the contextual features of an organization’s environment such as threat, cultural milieu, and local context will produce top-down pressure influencing organizational language choice.

Data and Sample Construction

To investigate cultural change around sexual and gender identities, as reflected in nonprofit discourse, we compile an original data set of nonprofit organizations in the United States working with queer communities. To develop this data set, we combined data from three sources: the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) from 1998 to 2003, Citizen Audit from 2003 to 2010, and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from 2010 to 2016. All three sources contain the same base information: the name and mission as compiled in Form 990, an annual return required by the IRS for most non-profit organizations. Beginning in 2016, the IRS made available machine-readable Form 990s (both the full form and EZs) for all nonprofits that e-filed (roughly 65% of nonprofits), covering 2010–16. In total, this included more than 1.3 million records.⁸

We use this initial source of nonprofit data to build our sample of nonprofits working in areas related to LGBT communities or sexual and gender identities. To identify such organizations, we created a dictionary of keywords and used computerized text analysis to search for these keywords in either the nonprofit’s mission statement or name. The dictionary includes terms like “non-binary,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “transgender,” “sexual orientation,” “gender expression,” “queer,” “LGBT,” “asexual,” and so on. Additionally, the IRS uses the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) to classify organizations as “lesbian and gay rights” (code R26). Organizations that did not include one of our key terms but were nonetheless classified as being gay or lesbian related by the IRS were also included. After an initial set of organizations were identified, mission statements were read to search for other words or phrases, such as “alternative sexualities” or “marriage equality,” to be added to the dictionary in an interactive process. The final dictionary contained 39 different terms.

The IRS data covered the most recent period, 2010–16. To expand the time period, we use two additional sources of data. Before the IRS’s recent data release, NCCS digitized Form 990s from 1998 to 2003. While Form 990s were different during that period, they include similar, and often identical, information on each nonprofit like a statement outlining its primary purpose and the activities of the organization. Using the digitized data, we repeat the process of searching for key terms and NTEE designations. In total, this process resulted in 827 unique organizations. We then removed organizations for which “sexual orientation” was listed as only one of many attributes the organization did not discriminate against like sex, race, creed, ability, national origin, and so on. Organizations explicitly anti-LGBT were also dropped; interestingly, all organizations that used “homosexuality” or “homosexual” in their mission statements carried anti-LGBT animus. These cuts left 735 distinct LGBT-focused organizations.

Finally, Citizen Audit is an organization that collects all Form 990s for all nonprofits beginning in the early 2000s in PDF format. We manually collected key information from Citizen Audit records for each of the 735 nonprofits for all missing years between 2003 and 2010. In total, this process results in 7,797 organization-years from 735 organizations that do work related to LGBT communities and that filed either a Form 990 or 990-EZ. For more information on cleaning and coding decisions, as well as alternative measures, robustness checks, and additional figures, see the online appendix.

Dependent Variables

To assess change in discourse, we create three variables that capture the first instance of change toward more inclusive language. The three dependent variables are (1) any change toward more inclusive language (Any Inclusion), (2) change toward more inclusive language through adding additional deconstructed categories (Deconstructed Inclusion), and (3) change from deconstructed to constructive language (Constructive Inclusion).

To track changes, we look at the language included within the text of the mission statement or, when not available, the name of the organization. While traditionally limited to small-scale analyses, new advancements in text analysis and data availability allow sociologists to analyze cultural products on a much larger scale and look at culture in new ways (Bail 2014b). Here, we are the first to map the changing language of nonprofit organizations working within the queer space over an extended period of time.

We prioritize the language from the nonprofit’s mission statement because of the importance of these texts in conveying the identity and purpose of the organization (Minkoff and Powell 2006; Paxton, Velasco, and Ressler 2020). Stated succinctly, “nonprofits only exist to pursue the specific public purposes that are expressed in their missions” (Berlan 2018, p. 413). There is strong correspondence between the mission statement as reported on the Form 990 and as it appears in other places like websites or fund-raising materials (Fairhurst, Jordan, and Neuwirth 1997; Paxton et al. 2020). Consequently, nonprofits craft their mission statements with a high degree of intention.

To create our three change indicators, we first created an index of inclusivity based on the language used by each nonprofit. For each nonprofit-year observation, the mission statement was scanned to find terms that convey various levels of inclusivity. If no such terminology existed within the mission statement, language from the nonprofit’s name was used.

Table 1 provides the index along with example mission statements. The least inclusive category, “None,” is reserved for organizations where neither mission statement nor name includes a reference to working within this space and is given a rank score of 0. Next is “Other” with a score of 1.⁹ This category is for organizations that make some reference to working on issues within the area but do not make explicit reference to key communities or identities, for example, “marriage equality” or “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Next, “Single Group,” with a score of 2, includes organizations that only work on behalf of one community such as gay men or bisexuals. Next, “Less than LGBT” (“<LGBT”) are organizations that mention working with multiple communities but do not adopt what has become a commonly used core set of deconstructed identities (LGBT). Such organizations mention working with “gays and lesbians,” “lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women,” or any other combination. The next two categories are straightforward. “LGBT” is for organizations that explicitly mention the terms “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” and “transgender” or the acronym “LGBT” or “GLBT.” Organizations that extend the core acronym in any way, like adding “queer,” “questioning,” “asexual,” or “intersex,” among others, are labeled “More than LGBT” (“>LGBT”). These categories are scored 4 and 5, respectively.

The next two categories move away from deconstructed identities and instead switch to more constructive language. The first of these two is “SOGI,” ranked 6, which includes organizations that use terms like “sexual orientation(s),” “sexual identity/identities,” “gender identity/identities,” or “gender expression.” The final category, with a rank score of 7, is an amalgamation of organizations that use broad language to demonstrate inclusiveness. These include using “queer,” “pride,” or other postgay language as described by Ghaziani (2011). While it is possible that some postgay organizations end up using no distinctive language, similar to those categorized as “None,” the intention is different. Rather than using no distinctive language to hide their motives, postgay mission statements use language to signify even greater levels of inclusion. To confirm correct placement, all mission statements that had no distinct keywords in them were manually read and hand coded by both authors. See the online appendix for detailed examples distinguishing between “None” and “Post-gay” mission statements. In a few instances, organizations used both deconstructed and constructive language. In these cases, organizations were placed into the more inclusive category.

For every nonprofit-year observation, the change indicators were created. The transition to Any Inclusion captures the year when an organization increases its standing on the inclusivity index, regardless of where the organization starts or where it ends. Deconstructed Inclusion captures adding more deconstructed identities, for example, moving from “None” to “<LGBT” or “LGBT” to “>LGBT.” This indicator, then, only captures movements toward more inclusion that fall from 0 to 5 on the scale (“None” to “>LGBT”). Constructive Inclusion indicates the transition from using any type of deconstructed identity language to either of the constructive categories, for example, moving from “LGBT” to “SOGI.” This indicator, then, captures organizations that move from a starting score of 0–5 and transition to a score of 6 or 7.

Table 2 gives an example of the changing mission statement for OutRight Vermont and the classification and rank for each mission statement. The transition from 1998 to 1999 represents a Deconstructed Inclusion change, while the transition from 2000 to 2002 is reflective of a Constructive Inclusion change. Table 2 is also instructive as some mission statements do decrease on the inclusivity index, although this is rare.

Independent Variables

Discrete Time Logistic Regression

Given our interest in explaining the adoption of more inclusive language by nonprofits over time, event history analysis is the appropriate method (Box-Steffensmeier and Jones 2004). Because our data are recorded yearly, we use discrete time logistic regression models. In this analysis, time represents historical time (see Beck, Katz, and Tucker 1998). That is, a nonprofit’s “risk” of adopting more inclusive language begins at particular historical dates, rather than in relation to a nonprofit’s internal clock. Organizations enter the analysis when they were born, defined as when they were recognized by the IRS or 1998. We are interested in the instance of first change toward more inclusive language, so we do not model changes toward more inclusive language as a repeatable event, although this does occur. Organizations that do not make a transition by 2016 are right censored.

Semistructured Interviews

We supplement our longitudinal analysis of administrative data with a set of semistructured interviews with nonprofit leaders. Doing so allows us to validate an important assumption of the quantitative analyses—that nonprofits are intentional in developing and modifying mission statements. Further we can explore whether and how statistical associations we find in the administrative data play out “on the ground.” We undertook 13 interviews between November 2020 and March 2021. We identified leaders, with attention to range and a case study logic (Weiss 1995; Small 2009). We were sure to interview leaders (founders, executive directors, and board members) from nonprofits of different sizes (measured by revenue), from different regions of the United States, and whose organizations made different language choices. We undertook semistructured interviews with open-ended questions designed to have nonprofit leaders walk us through the process of mission development and change at their organizations. Interviews ranged from 30 to 75 minutes, and leaders provided their own impressions of nonprofit processes rather than acting as official spokespersons on behalf of the nonprofit. Saturation was obtained quickly, and gathering more interviews would not “reveal new properties of [our] core theoretical categories” (Charmaz 2006, p. 113). To confirm that what we find with current leaders is also historically accurate, we supplement our interviews with a few archival examples.

Interviews with Nonprofit Leaders: Understanding Process and Intent in Developing Mission Statements

The results reported thus far are novel but based on administrative data, limiting our ability to assess intent and process. Here, we report on 13 semistructured interviews that demonstrate that the development of, and changes to, a mission statement are deliberate and intentional on the part of nonprofits. Interviews also provide corroborating evidence for the bottom-up, horizontal, and top-down pressures on organizations as found in the administrative data.

To begin, all of the nonprofit leaders we interviewed stressed careful attention to language. For example, Kellie, a leader from Spectrum Center, explains that when creating their mission, the Spectrum Center wished to “weave in language in a really intentional way.”¹⁰ Every single leader could articulate exactly why the nonprofit chose the language it used in its mission. For example, according to Jake, the Brighter Tomorrow Fund wanted to be “forward thinking,” even “edgy,” in the language it chose. Thus, during a change in mission in 2016, the staff and board of directors had many discussions about moving from “LGBT” to “LGBTQ+.” Alex, a leader of an LGBTQ community center, described a listserv for leaders of LGBTQ community centers as actively and repeatedly engaged in discussions of language—it “comes up every couple months.” In sum, it is evident that, as Adam from the Philanthropy Foundation explained, language is “top of mind” for these organizations.

Organization leaders described discussions and debates about the best way to, as Ignacio of EqualityYouth put it, change their mission statement “in [the] spirit of inclusivity.” Some focused on deconstructed logics by adding letters to the traditional “LGBT” acronym. Ignacio, for example, explained that nonprofits add letters to avoid “forgetting I or A or +.” Evan articulated Equality League’s decision to stick with letters as “really want[ing] to center people,” since “SOGI doesn’t sound like it is talking about people.” But other leaders described problems with a deconstructed logic. Leah explained that Rainbow Flag is debating the trade-offs of extending beyond Q because of the additional education required for many people. In dealing with the issue of “forgetting” letters, Connor from Room for Everyone described constructive language as a “safety net” that avoids a nonprofit “getting it wrong.” This influenced Room for Everyone’s constructive choice of “sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions” in its mission. Billy reported wanting Amplify Singers to avoid the need for future change and to avoid being “stuck.” Thus, Amplify Singers chose a constructive logic of postgay language with no identifying LGBT+ language in the mission at all.

Because of its perceived importance, nonprofit leaders devote resources to changing their mission. The Brighter Tomorrow Fund undertook focus groups of constituents, while Voyage Youth surveyed theirs. The founding board members of Amplify Singers met weekly over a two-month period when developing their mission and reevaluate it every year. Out State used messaging research from a national LGBT organization, while State of Equality hired trainers to help the staff and board develop the mission statement at a retreat. Adam from Philanthropy Foundation viewed their mission statement’s language as “old” because it had not changed in five years. Overall mission change is seen as part of a broader strategic planning process to be used throughout the organization’s materials.

Given how important language in mission is to nonprofits, contention is possible. Jake from the Brighter Tomorrow Fund explained how, during their discussion of mission in 2016, younger staff members argued that, with a target audience of youth, the organization needed a term that youth used, such as queer. The staff also struggled with the deconstructed nature of LGBT and wished to scrap the acronym entirely in favor of queer as an umbrella term that “wouldn’t need to be modified” in the future. Yet, older board members cautioned against a move to queer, arguing that some donors or outside supporters might be uncomfortable saying the word, that some might not understand what it means today, and that, as a global organization, it would create problems as queer is not translatable internationally. The addition of “Q+” was the compromise everyone was “proud of” as it “added that element of inclusivity.”

Nonprofit leaders mentioned numerous factors in play when developing their mission and how navigating these factors was necessary for a satisfactory conclusion. There were considerations at all three levels we theorized: bottom-up constituencies and resource needs, horizontal peer pressures, and top-down contextual factors, providing corroborating evidence for the statistical associations we find. As mentioned above, attention to youth was common, as was attention to donors. The disparate needs of these two constituencies created a tension for many nonprofits, as it did for the Brighter Tomorrow Fund. Organizations try to reconcile donor experiences, like “queer was used to dehumanize me for 30 years” (Alex), while recognizing that “minority and transgender youth have different experiences than our donors” (Ignacio). In explaining the choice to use LGBTQ+, Isaac said, “We need to think about the general public, our direct service folks, and our donors. Where do the circles of the Venn diagram intersect?”

Horizontal pressures were significant in our analyses of administrative data and also appeared consistently in our interviews. For all nonprofit leaders we interviewed, other organizations working in this space were front of mind: “For our executive director, peer organizations are a big one. What’s GLAAD doing? What’s Trevor doing?” (Jake). During interviews, leaders always mentioned other organizations as reference points to make sense of their own language use. Jake described a process where “a ripple starts somewhere and then it goes.” These peer pressures speak to neoinstitutional processes of legitimacy and how particular organizational structures, like language, diffuse. To fail to adhere to changing standards is risky. As Jake states, “LGBT is the bare minimum, anything less than that [such as “gay and lesbian”] would cause some frustration. . . . There’d be anger.”

Despite the lack of a relationship in the administrative data, the role of activists from the larger social movement for equality was noted by many leaders. Ignacio remembered activists pushing for the inclusion of “T” and noted that an intersex activist he knows continues to push for “I” in language. Kellie noted that during the eight-week period when the mission was developed, individuals reached out to confirm the inclusion of asexual. Spectrum Center further encountered a push from two-spirit activists to include 2S in their mission language.

Attention to the social context was another factor nearly all leaders mentioned as important to consider for mission statements. Jake, Ignacio, Kellie, and Alex, for example, said that they were very cognizant of the political environment in which they were located. All leaders spoke to how they keep track of the discussions taking place on social media and within cultural spaces more broadly to make sure that they are being reflective of the language “we are all used to using” (Ignacio).

Part of this stated awareness of social context manifested in nonprofits grappling with matching language to an intersectional consciousness. As Katherine explained, State of Equality needed language to “reflect intersecting identities.” Ignacio highlighted that “white gays aren’t as underserved as transgender or other minorities,” so it was important to consider these underserved needs and use language accordingly. Spectrum Center went so far as to directly state its “intersectional” approach in its mission statement. Jake was more emphatic: “You cannot exclude the most marginalized and not get push back, and I think that’s understood for most nonprofits.” As a signal of the importance of this issue to the community, when Equality Federation took to the Huffington Post to announce the change from LGBT to LGBTQ, it stated: “For Equality Federation, adding the Q is about more than a letter. . . . At this turning point, when we are examining and improving upon our commitments to racial, economic, and social justice, we are also doubling down on our commitment to people who identify as queer so that they will be fully embraced and empowered in our organization. Adding the Q goes hand-in-hand with our deeper understanding of intersectionality.” While our interviews took place after the murder of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in summer 2020, our administrative analyses, concluded in 2016, show that the influence of intersectional consciousness on nonprofit language is hardly a new phenomenon.

Birth versus Change

Returning to administrative data, another question remains. Figure 3 replicates figure 1 but separates organizations by founding era. Separating the figure by founding era helps distinguish the extent to which the trends we observe are due to organizations changing into a category versus new organizations being “born” into a category. For instance, because the coming out and AIDS eras occur before our 1998 analysis starts, all changes in those charts are due to mission statement changes as opposed to new foundings.¹¹ The mainstreaming era’s growth pattern shows the relevance of new foundings, with some transitional changes into new categories also possible. The year 2012 starts the new era and highlights changes for those born under mainstreaming because of organizational discourse changing. The equality era pattern is all new foundings. With this orientation to figure 3 in mind, we highlight four key insights.

First, Single Groups persist. Across eras, with the exception of the equality era, there is a consistent number of Single Group organizations with little change. This corroborates our earlier finding that those organizations dedicated to a single community are less likely to change to more inclusive language. While in the earliest eras, the highest percentage of single group organizations express working for the gay community, there is a remarkable rise in single group transgender organizations: moving from 4.8% to 33% across the eras.

Second, “<LGBT” and “None” fade over time because of organizations switching into more inclusive categories (coming out era and AIDS era) and fewer newly born organizations choosing this language compared to others (mainstreaming era). As the dominant “<LGBT” language choice is “gay and lesbian,” figure 3 makes apparent that this approach has fallen out of favor. Additionally, the large number of transitions out of “None” (again, see coming out era and AIDS era) helps to confirm the view that these organizations may have only been uncomfortable expressing their focus on queer communities before wider public support in general.

Third, the deconstructed logic of “LGBT” dominates both changes and births, with many organizations both changing into and being born with this language. As reflected in everyday language, this four-letter acronym is the typical way for characterizing queer communities even today.

Fourth, comparing the two most inclusive categories, >LGBT and Constructive, shows an important difference in origin. The rise of the >LGBT category is predominantly due to changes into it, largely from organizations that previously used either “<LGBT” or “LGBT.” In contrast, although constructive discourses are present throughout the observation window and used by organizations of all eras, the greatest growth is due to newly born organizations choosing constructive language during the mainstreaming era. Combined, these trends confirm that once organizations are committed to a deconstructed logic, they tend to stay in that logic rather than making the fundamental shift to a constructive logic. The birth of a new organization, in contrast, affords the opportunity to choose the deconstructed path or a constructive one. Thus, constructive logics are not necessarily the natural next evolution in inclusivity from deconstructed language but, at least in the period we observe, represent a different way of articulating diverse sexual and gender identities. It is notable, however, that those founded in the equality era demonstrate little use of constructive language. We discuss this phenomenon at greater length in the conclusion.