Intersectionality
Impact of living with multiple marginalized statuses
Multiplicative effect of intersectionality
Different forms of social oppression (marginalized identities) are not additive but intersect and are difficult to separate
General theory linking intersectional experiences to health
People with more marginalized identities seem to have worse health outcomes because those marginalized identities cause increased exposure to structural and individual experiences of discrimination
________ mediates the link between intersectional identities and health outcomes
Discrimination
Disparities approach
- Between-group approach
E.g. breaking identities up by race & gender minority
- Often analyzed using big samples, mediation, moderation
Pros of disparities approach
- Highlighting disparities drives policy change & allocation of resources because you know who is doing better and worse
- Large sample sizes, so powerful claims
Limitations of disparities approach
- Sample size for interactions, or small cell sizes for different interactional groups: losing nuance, looking at averages across groups with diverse experiences
- General items may not capture diversity of experience across groups
- The way you group people creates different results
Qualitative work
- Between or within-group, often within-group
- Hearing about experiences from the source often from individual interviews, focus group interviews (6-8 people from same intersectional background), analysis of forums/blogs/social media posts, etc.
Pros of qualitative work
- More nuance than checking boxes
- Meaning making behind experiences
- More informative than general survey questions
Limitations of qualitative work
- Less generalizability = devalued
- More labor intensive
Nadal et al. (2015): study of 6 qualitative studies
Participants endorsed many intersectional microaggressions:, e.g. exoticization of Women of Color, Gender-Based Stereotypes for Lesbians and Gay Men, Disapproval of LGBT Identity by Racial, Ethnic, and Religious Groups
- Underscores high relevance of intersectional microaggressions in peoples’ lives – they bring intersectional experiences up even when not asked about them
Within-group quantitative work
Targeted measures assessing experiences unique to intersectional identity groups under investigation
Pros of within-group quantitative work
- Advantages of qual (deeper dive) and quant (generalizability to group under study)
- Highlights experiences unique to specific intersectional group
Cons of within-group quantitative work
Not as deep as qual, tells you about factors influencing disparities, but doesn’t highlight disparity itself since there is no group comparison
Gender * Race Intersectionality - Keum et al., 2018 - Gendered Racial Microaggressions Scale for Asian American Women
Specific measure at race x gender intersection
Subdimensions:
- Ascribed submissiveness
- Asian fetishism
- Media Invalidation
- Assumption of Universal Appearance
Lewis & Neville (2015) – Gendered Racial Microaggression
Scale for Black Women
- Assumptions of Beauty & Sexual Objectification
- Silenced & Marginalized
- Strong Black Woman Stereotype
- Angry Black Woman Stereotype
Gendered racial microaggressions and eating in Asian American women (Liu & Le, 2025)
Greater gendered racial microaggressions → greater disordered eating directly
- Internalized racism partially mediates relations between microaggressions and eating : gendered racial microaggressions directly lead to disordered eating, but also increase disordered eating by increasing internalized racism, which itself increases disordered eating too
Unique risks of SGM*racial minoritization
- Racial discrimination while dating
- Racism within the larger LGBTQ+ community
- Heterosexism in racial communities
- “Doubly oppressed” based on both statuses
^ very non-exhaustive list
LGBT POC Microaggressions Scale (Balsam et al., 2011)
- Racism in LGBT Community
- LGBT Relationship Racism
- Heterosexism in communities of color
Justice at Every Turn: A Look at Black Respondents in the National
Transgender Discrimination Survey (2011 survey by National LGBTQ Task Force in the US)
- 26% Black trans unemployment: two times rate of overall trans sample
- Increased risk of negative outcomes at race x SGM
- Quantitative disparities approach
SGM stigma, community, & mental health in SGM-POC (Swann et al., 2024)
o Heterosexism from POC associated with greater anxiety and
depression
o No effect of racism from SGM folx over and above other variables in the model, same for identity authenticity
o SGM community connection associated with less anxiety and
depression
SGM community connection’s positive effects were moderated by
POC heterosexism : when POC heterosexism is high, the positive effect of community connection breaks down
Multiracial SGM Youth
Intersectional identities along axis of race and sexual orientation/gender identity + multiple racial group memberships
Multiracial people violate … (Harris, 2016)
‘monoracial paradigm of race’
Proportion of SGM Multiracial youth
- High proportion of SGM youth are Multiracial
- 42% of Ryan Watson’s 17000-person nationally-representative SGM youth of color sample
