Political Behavior and Attitudes of LGB+ and Heterosexual College Students in Brazil

This work investigates the relationship between identitarian sexual orientation and political behavior among college students in Brazil. Political and voting behavior studies have largely addressed different constituencies in terms of sociodemographic and attitudinal aspects in consolidated and new democracies. Sexual identity, however, has not been systematically investigated by political scientists in Brazil. Using a sample of college students, the paper addresses the role of LGB self-identification in political attitudes and behavior. The data comes from a face-to-face, self-administered survey carried out with incoming students from a Brazilian university (N: 1,545; N of LGB: 323) in 2018. The dependent variables analyzed are voting intention for the 2018 presidential election and issue attitudes. Logistic regressions were employed to assess if and how LGB+ identification shaped respondents’ behavior and views. The findings suggest that LGB+ students are different from heterosexual ones in many aspects, reflecting longstanding findings for other countries. In terms of attitudes, they are consistently more progressive than their heterosexual peers, particularly about moral issues. In addition, LGB+ identification was a strong predictor of voting intention for leftist candidates in 2018.