Intersectional identities
Intersectional feminism began life as an exploration of power, namely that when under-represented and minority identities are analysed, we need to consider all the intersections of their identities to truly see where oppression happens. Feminism is not just about Caucasian women, women of colour, trans women etc; no, it is about understanding that each of us is a complex set of intersections, regardless of externalised gender, and that to resist and overcome oppressive power structures we need to embrace this.
This starts by looking at ourselves and understanding our own major intersections. Personally, I am Caucasian, middle-class, grammar school educated, seven years of higher education, parents who support me, AMAB woman who has had gender reassignment surgery and started her transition at 17, queer, in a same-sex relationship, live in a deprived city in the UK, never been arrested and have no criminal convictions, I was born in the early 1980s, I rent my apartment, I don’t drive, I have a UK passport and citizenship, I am more-or-less healthy… I could go on. My intersectional map cuts across many line, each freighted with privilege and degrees of oppression. My white British middleclassness makes me one of the global 1%, with many doors open to me. Yet, some of my other intersections other me in ways that are hard to explain.
Intersectionality is not about point scoring or a race to the bottom; no, it is about unpacking privilege, degrees of understanding, and finding new ways to frame our experiences. Power lies in the ways we exclude and ‘other’ groups that fall outside our own intersections. A usual axis of power is defined as white, straight, cis, middle class, university educated, male, protestant — the centre of global power for at least 200 years. This particular set of labels is a nexus through which passes significant privilege, to the degree that all other intersectional identities struggle to get a word in.
I am not for a second suggesting that all ills derive from a particular set of intersectional labels, however, exclusion and othering certainly do. Transgender women, women of colour, queer women, old women, disabled women, disabled queer trans women of colour — just because you have one intersection does not mean you do not intersect in other ways. Labels are mere signifiers to those who care to gaze — if someone only sees race, age, or disability then they are only seeing a portion of our true selves. Labels are freighted with history and meaning, all of which has to be unpacked within moments of meeting someone.
Often there are hidden intersections that have just as much impact as those on the surface, and those immediate assumptions have to be jettisoned and reformulated to make sense of the person before us. Intersectional thinking is not just a theory for exploring a subset of people; no, it is a mode of thinking designed to engage with each of us. To challenge our assumptions, to breakthrough out immediate impressions, and make us account for our own privileges. Power is not just about who has what or what rights are enforced; power is a dynamic force, flowing through entrenched intersectional identities that are perceived and accepted as superior to others.
The only way to dam that flow, to force change within the system is to re-orientate our ideas of what intersections are, how to engage with them, and most importantly to recognise which intersections are being othered. Feminism is not just about ‘women’s’ business, for gender politics impacts everyone. By engaging with people as their complex intersectional selves, rather than one easy aspect of that identity, we can begin the process of undoing those restrictive and othering practices that disenfranchise anyone outside the confines of ‘acceptable’. This cuts across class, creed, gender, skin colour, culture, and all those other labels with place on each other. This is to see us all in our own complexities, and empowering each other to be the best we can without being blind to each other’s totality.
