The "Normal Gay Guy": J.D. Vance, Catholicism, and the Colonial Politics of Recognition

Building off the work of Frantz Fanon and Glen Sean Coulthard, this paper argues that J.D. Vance’s rhetoric of the “normal gay guy” during the 2024 United States Presidential election constitutes a recognition-based strategy of colonization designed to dictate the terms of the relationship between gay men and conservatives in a way that benefits the cisheteropatriarchal status quo. Moreover, this paper will unmask Vance’s rhetorical strategy as an extension of that of his own Church: like Vance’s “normal gay” rhetoric, the Catholic hierarchy’s “same-sex attraction” rhetoric creates a politics of recognition and accommodation that reinforces Catholic colonial aims. As such, in both church and state, politics of recognition rely upon an affirmation of the dominant-subaltern relationship characteristic of colonialism. Genuine liberation for gay men thus requires a fundamental rejection of underlying colonial structures that define the parameters of existing discourse.