Being the Change: Resolving Institutional Contradiction through Identity Work

Abstract

We show how gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) ministers in two mainline Protestant denominations in the United States experience and address a salient institutional contradiction between their role in the church and their marginalized GLBT identities. Drawing on this analysis, we offer a theoretical model of the microprocesses through which marginalized actors who are committed to the institution in which they are embedded can begin to think and act as agents of institutional change. This model enunciates the importance of embodied identity work in resolving the experience of institutional contradiction and marginalization.