Voters in Germany maintained a few global trends this past weekend: They kicked out incumbents, their youth moved to the right, and they delivered another surprise. Their radical, anti-immigrant party (Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD) finished second, and was likely boosted by some LGBTQ voters.

The rightward shift of gay, lesbian, and bisexual voters is a dynamic playing out across western Europe. In the UK, France, and now Germany, gay voters or their allies are backing far-right or nativist political parties at growing rates. That queer shift to the right doesn’t seem to be materializing in the United States, however. During the 2024 election, LGBTQ voters actually got more Democratic than in 2020.

What explains this gulf, especially as so many other global political trends replicate themselves in the US?

After reviewing the trends and historical context, I offer two theories: that Europeans have had vastly different experiences with international migration than those in the US; and that the American LGBTQ community has historical reasons to distrust a radicalized Republican Party in a two-party system.

The “homonativist” shift of European gays and their allies

It was once thought that the growing public acceptance of queerness and homosexuality would reinforce — or at least coincide — with generally more progressive views on political issues, both in and outside the United States. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.

In Germany, those trends can be traced back to before the pandemic: Multiple analyses of LGBTQ voters found small, but sustained support from gay voters for AfD and center-right parties in 2021’s elections when compared to the 2017 federal elections there. One study even found that the

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