This paper is published in Sociological Imagination. Citation: Dernberger, Brittany. 2017. “Limited Intersectional Approaches to Veteran and Former Prisoner Reintegration: Examining Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation.” Sociological Imagination 53(1): 100-131. Recent legal and policy changes within two prominent institutions, the military and criminal justice system, have profoundly altered the visibility – and subsequent rights – of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) service members and those currently incarcerated. Comparing these two institutions side-by-side illustrates how LGBT inequality mechanisms operate at both an individual and systemic level. Both the military and criminal justice system are total, hypermasculine institutions, both are socially concentrated experiences, both end with a changed relationship with the state, and both veterans and those formerly incarcerated have comparable challenges to reintegration upon returning to their communities. Intersectional analysis provides an apt tool to critically examine how reintegration processes differ for those identifying as LGBT. I examine ways in which existing literature is intersectional and highlight the lack of analyses about systems of power that amplify or moderate former prisoner re-entry and veteran transition for those identifying as LGBT. Finally, I discuss why there may be a lack of attention to intersectionality, and specifically to LGBT individuals, in the literature and address how an intersectional framework would contribute to both public policy and to expanding the existing literature on social inequality and stratification.
Identifying and Ameliorating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health Disparities in the Criminal Justice System