builtonintersectionality

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Coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, intersectionality is how we name complex, layered reality of people living at the crossroads of multiple forms of oppression, such as race, gender, class, sexuality, disability and more.

Which includes:

Black trans lives matter. Always have. Always will.

Reproductive justice means the right to parent, to note parent, and to raise children in safe, sustainable communities.

Education equity is not complete until Black, queer, disabled and poor students are safe and empowered in every classroom

HIV healthcare must be accessible, stigma free, and rooted in community trust.

Sexual violence prevention must center all survivors, especially those most silenced.

The fight for justice isn't separate issues. It's one interwoven struggle. Intersectionality shows us that liberation for one means liberation for all.

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In the case of workplace inequality, intersectionality helps us to see the full picture.

Workplace inequality isn't one-dimensional. A Black women, for example may face both racism and sexism, which often policies only focus on one or the other.

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Reproductive justice isn't just about the right to choose, it's about access, equity and justice for everyone.

For many, factors like race, income, gender, and disability shape their ability to access reproductive healthcare. Intersectionality reveals how Black, indigenous and low-income women, as well as LGBTO+ individuals, face unique compounded barriers to care.

Reproductive justice means addressing these overlapping inequalities and ensuring everyone has the resources and freedom to make decisions about their bodies and lives.

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Education is supposed to be the great equalizer, but for many individuals it's not.

Intersectionality shows us that race, gender class and disability all play a role in shaping students' experiences. For students of color, LGBTQ+ students, and those from low-income backgrounds, barriers like underfunded schools, bias, and discrimination can make accessing quality education a constant struggle.

To create an equitable education system, we must recognize and address how these identities intersect, and how to work to remove the obstacles standing in the way of success for all students.

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Access to healthcare is more than just a policy issue, it's shaped by who you are, where you lives, what you earn and how society sees you.

Intersectionality helps us understand how race, gender, class, and other identities overlap to create deeper barriers to care.

If we want true health equity, we have to look at the whole picture, not just one part of it.

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HIV treatment isn't one size fits all.

For marginalized communities, barriers like racism, homophobia, poverty and stigma often overlap, making care harder to access.

That's why intersectionality matters. To end the HIV epidemic we need care that sees the whole person, not just the diagnosis.

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Tarana Burke states, "If you're a black women, you have to deal with excessive force, the possibility of being killed by police and sexual harassment at the hands of the police."

This is why intersectionality matters.

Black women face layered violence, from racism, sexism and police brutality. Ignoring these intersections means ignoring their reality.

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Unfortunately, trans women of color, especially Black and Latina trans women, face disproportionate levels of violence, discrimination and systemic neglect.

When we continue to talk about feminism, safety, or justice without acknowledging their lives, we are repeating the very harm we claim to fight.

Intersectionality isn't just an idea, it's how people survive. That's why we must use it to address oppression and discrimination moving forward.

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In the article Trans/feminism by Susan Stryker and Talia M. Bettcher, the authors stated, "In foregrounding the necessity of attending to class and race as well as sex and gender, intersectional feminism raised the question of whether "women" itself was a sufficient analytical category capable of accounting for the various forms of oppression that women can experience in a sexist society...]"

Stryker and Bettcher name a critical truth: feminism can't liberate anyone if it only speaks for some. Identities such as class, race, gender identity aren't just side notes. They are central to how oppression works and continues.

Intersectionality is important because it doesn't just expand focus to include everyone. It rethinks who built it, who was never invited, and what we could to liberate the oppressed.

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This sign is calling out a version of feminism that centers on whiteness, middle-class privilege and cishet womanhood, while ignoring the struggle of identities such as race, class, disability, queerness, and more.

This form of feminism fails the vast majority of women and it always has.

Intersectionality on the other than, focuses on dismantling systems that were never built for all of us in the first place.

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Crenshaw states "Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It's not simply that there's a race problem, a gender problem, and a class or LGBTQ problem there" (Columbia Law School, 2017).

What this means is that when keep addressing one of these issues at a time, it erases what happens to people subject to all these issues simultaneously.

That is why intersectionality is so important. It forces us to see these things simultaneously.

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This is Kimberle Crenshaw.

In 1989 she coined the term intersectionality as a framework to explain how Black women are often erased in conversations that focus only on race or only on gender.

Since then, the term intersectionality has grown to include others often facing varying levels of discrimination due to the intersection of political or social identities.

Crenshaw's work challenges us to look deeper, identify the overlapping discriminations, and refuse single-issue thinking in a multi-layered world.