A 1997 postdoc fellow of the SSRC’s Sexuality Research Fellowship Program (SRFP), Arlene Stein details her SRFP-funded research on antigay social mobilization in rural Oregon in the late 1990s for our “Sexuality & Gender Studies Now” series. Stein studied how some individuals, whom she calls conservative moral entrepreneurs, persuaded these communities to attribute their worsening economic situation to “elites” and, in particular, gay and lesbian people. Reflecting on this research, Stein asserts the importance of sexuality research and how it can help us understand current political and social dynamics.
