Intersectionality

Abstract

In this piece, I explore the “pretty word” of intersectionality to contribute to existing discussions on its usage as an analytical framework and tool among social justice projects. Through my personal queer journey in podcasting, the coming-out experience, and traversing across various spaces, I highlight the importance of incorporating a relational, embodied, and geographic perspective within intersectionality. I reveal how this perspective can unsettle common assumptions about social identities, specifically a fixed view of racialized-sexualized identities and the location of oppressions and privileges. Through various situations, movements, and reflections, I uncover an emerging approach to intersectionality that exists in relation to different spatialities and temporalities rather than in isolation. I reveal the limits of common applications of intersectionality in health equity research while also recognizing the pitfalls that some institutions and social actors fall into while promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, including the reproduction of common ideas of victimhood and superiority. Ultimately, this article advocates for building new worlds by reworking the ways researchers and communities connect and relate with one another and themselves.