This panel examines the ways in which people on the margins of normative sexual hierarchies engage in the political process and in several European countries. Each paper examines different types of LGBTQ political actors, including elected officials, policy experts, civil and religious organizations, and voters. Collectively, they bring to light the institutional and cultural challenges that these people face because of their sexual identities. Despite the rapid, if uneven, expansion of formal rights for people on the basis of sexual orientation across Europe, these papers reveal that embedded institutional logics and political opportunity structures continue to create obstacles for the unmitigated participation of LGBTQ people in the policymaking process. Across all types of political actors discussed in the panel, sexual identity impacts their perceived legitimacy to make claims, their power to set political agendas, and their contested role as symbolic voices of diverse minority communities. This panel will contribute to ongoing debates over the intersection of sexuality with other forms of exclusion in Western European political fields characterized by a growing institutionalization of LGBTQ issues.