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The Complexity of Intersectionality: "There are layers to this."

Updated: Aug 14, 2020

While Pride Month has technically come to a close, we must continue to shine a light on the struggles faced by the LGBTQ+ community and advocate for liberation and equal rights regardless of the month that is listed on our calendars. When discussing Pride, it is also critical to understand the impact of intersectionality and overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage.


Key Points

  • Pride Month, generally celebrated in June, is an important time to recognize the progress made towards equality for the LGBTQ+ community and to celebrate the beauty & resilience of the LGBTQ+ community and its members. Even though June is over, that celebration should not end, and we should keep listening to LGBTQ+ voices.

  • In this article, we hear from Duane Anthony who shares his experience as a Black man who is also a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

  • We also discuss intersectionality, and its utility in serving as a framework for understanding how a person or community cannot be reduced to one identity. Instead identities function simultaneously, contributing to the ways in which individuals and groups experience systems of oppression & privilege.


Today we would like to introduce you all to Kenedi's cousin, Duane Anthony. Duane was born and raised in Houston, TX, and is a 2017 graduate of The University of Texas at Austin where he studied film. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he has turned his passion for acting, writing, and film-making into a full-time career. Acting and film-making for Duane was never something he thought about until the end of his high-school career, as he was consistently convinced by others that the medical field was his passion, and the place that he needed to be. It took years for Duane to come to the reality that acting was his true passion and the place where he naturally belonged. Not only was acting an outlet for Duane to be able to reignite his true passion for creativity, he was finally able to come to terms with his sexuality. Acting allowed Duane to explore depths about himself that he never dared to explore before. Acting unleashed the real Duane Anthony, and he was ready to take on his passion for acting and writing with full force.


It is safe to say that he is now KILLING it.




We had the pleasure of interviewing Duane and getting his perspective and thoughts on the current social issues that the Black & LGBTQ+ community face daily, his take on intersectionality, and how to be a better ally to the LGBTQ+ community:


This is a personal question so feel free not to ask/answer, but do you mind sharing how you identify?

“It depends on who is asking, and who I am talking to. To a straight person, I often tell them that I am half Jamaican and half Mexican and gay, or I just identify as Black, cis-gendered, and gay. When I am talking to someone from the LGBTQ+ community, there are completely more descriptive identities within the community that I feel like I don't fit into."


What does intersectionality mean to you?

“There's layers to this. Intersectionality is super complex. Intersectionality to me means being a Black man and gay man, and seeing how the struggles of both identities overlap. I am in this weird in-between. Most people don’t see my color, because I am a light skin man; though, I see myself as a Black man before I am a gay man. I can hide the fact that I am gay; however, I cannot hide the color of my skin.”


How has your experience been with law enforcement?


“I have had two experiences specifically. The first time was in high school when I was following my friend to her house after a school event. She was pulled over because she had an expired sticker, which she knew about and had gotten pulled over for before. She texted me and was like 'I got pulled over', so I immediately turned around and parked in the same parking lot that she got pulled over in, since I was relying on her for directions. I saw the cops dealing with her, but then saw a cop pull behind my car...and then a couple cop cars pulled behind my car. I was basically pulled over for no reason; I was simply waiting for my friend. I was taken out of my car and was told to put my hands on the car. I didn’t know what was going on. I never asked why I was pulled over, they just ran my plates, took my ID, and then finally let me go. But reflecting on that experience, I probably shouldn’t have gotten out of the car, but I was young, I was seventeen so I didn’t know any better. It’s funny because I shaved my head for a play and was wearing a beanie so I looked a little different than I’d usually look. But I was just cold, that’s all."


How does your identity contribute to your understanding of the state murders of Black and Brown men, women, and nonbinary people?

"As a black man, I have a deep understanding and connection to the murders that continue to plague my race. With that said, my privilege of being lighter skin, educated, and middle class has and continues to shield me from personal experiences of attacks but not from the instances of profiling. I’d say that until recently I struggled with my identity as a black man. I felt as though if I could be educated, successful, and passive, that I could be immune to the effects of white supremacy in America. It took a lot of self discovery and healing to come to terms with not only my identity as a black man, but to love myself as a black man in a world that wants me dead. Coming to terms with those facts made me understand the scope of these killings."



Historically, the murder of Black trans and queer folks has been overlooked or overshadowed, most recently/publicly Tony McDade. Why is that?

"No one wants to address the simple fact that cis-gendered men murder trans people as a direct result of their fear of being attracted to them. Plain and simple. That fact coupled with a lack of trans rights, representation in media, and trans education leads them to be seen as the “other”. As something unworthy of saving. This is especially true with black trans men and women."



How do we bring more visibility to these issues? How do we be better allies?

"Using our privileges and platform to uplift those who don’t have the opportunity to uplift themselves. Even as a gay black man, I have a voice that can very much uplift the trans community. As a black community we need to not disown our LGBTQ+ sons and daughters, and as an LGBTQ+ community we need to not overlook our trans brother and sisters. How can we expect change from others when we ourselves are unwilling to change?"

How have your experiences as a Black LGBTQ+ member in this society shaped you?

"I’d say it has given me a deeper understanding that white supremacy bleeds into all aspects of culture. Even in a seemingly inclusive community such as the LGBTQ+, there still exists a hierarchy of race. White people are still held above black people. It’s apparent in social media, dating, advertising, and in media representation. It was this realization that helped me to come to terms with my blackness, because even a community who’s main focus should’ve been inclusivity still could not accept me due to my race."


Do you feel uncomfortable being unapologetically you in this country?


“You know, I can’t even think of one time where I've been unapologetically both Black AND gay. There’s a lot of code-switching involved. When I am around other Black people, I tend to tone down the other side of me, when I am around other gay people, I tend to tone down my Blackness. The only person that I am able to be 100% unapologetically myself with, is my best friend. He too, is Black and gay and he does a very great job at expressing both elements while also not feeling ashamed. So, I really feel like I can be 100% myself when I am around him. It is not often that I feel that way around people.”


Watch the video below to hear Duane's thoughts directly!

If you have any questions for Duane, please feel free to reach out to him!

Contact Info:

Website(s) -

http:/imdb.me/duaneanthony

Instagram(s) -

@duaane

@dirtyworksproduction


Word of the Week: Intersectionality


Intersectionality is a framework created to help understand how an individual’s different but overlapping identities contribute to the ways in which they interact with society. It serves as a lens for understanding how systems of privilege and discrimination create disadvantages or advantages for some individuals or groups. Intersectionality is not a simple term, and it will definitely require further reading and introspection to grasp it, but we will do our best to provide an introduction and additional resources. As a primer or a follow-up to our discussion, we highly recommend going to watch Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Ted Talk on intersectionality. She is a prominent Black feminist and lawyer who is often credited with coining the term intersectionality. As she puts it, “if you're standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you're likely to get hit by both”. She is better at explaining it than we could ever be, so please go check out her Ted Talk and read her piece: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.


Taking a note from Kimberlé Crenshaw’s Ted Talk (seriously go watch that!), we know the names Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and George Floyd. And we should never forget them. Many of us can name several more Black men who were victims of state violence. But how many of us know the same amount of names of Black women or Black trans folks who were victims? Those are reported far less. You may have recently seen several posts that read something along the lines of “Black Women Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter, Black Queer Lives Matter, Black Disabled Lives Matter”. In movements like Black Lives Matter, many tend to recognize that there is in fact a problem rooted in racial bias and police brutality. But sometimes, under the umbrella term of “Black” for over 40 million Americans, we fail to understand the intersecting identities that contribute to different interactions with all of the systems in place. The life of Eric Garner matters just as much as the life of Sandra Bland and just as much as the life of Tony McDade and just as much as the life of Layleen Polanco.

With the recent landmark supreme court case that ruled that “An individual's homosexuality or transgender status is not relevant to employment decisions”, one might imagine that this was a win for all in the LGBTQ community. It’s awesome that this law aims to protect the LGBTQ community as a whole against job discrimination, but it doesn’t ensure that protections are equally distributed within the community.

We all learned of the name Tony McDade, a Black transgender man, fatally shot by police in Florida a few weeks ago. He was not alive to see his LGBTQ community win in the Supreme Court this week. The win did not protect him from police brutality as a Black man. An even lesser known name is that of Layleen Polanco, an Afro-Latinx transgender woman who died in 2019 from a seizure while being held on bail for $500 due to a year-old prostitution charge. She was kept in inhumane conditions of solitary confinement on Rikers Island. The jail has a policy for segregating trans and cis-women, and thus placed Polanco in solitary confinement because she was transgender. Polanco made it clear to jail officials that she suffered from epilepsy, but mental health check-ins were infrequent; officers first laughed and then waited 90 minutes to call for help before she was pronounced dead an hour later. In this one instance, we bear witness to Polanco’s intersectional identity and society's shameful response to it. She was low income and thus could not afford her $500 bail. She was over-criminalized for her previous participation in sex work. She was quite literally told she was not a woman and placed in solitary confinement due to her transgender identity. And her invisible disability was conveniently overlooked by jail officials. Where is her justice?

Given that none of us identify as transgender, we cannot speak directly to the transgender experience and we will be linking a bunch of resources that we are learning from. Though we don’t have the experience, we can’t ignore what we see. Islan Nettles, a Black transgender woman was murdered by a cis-man who began flirting with her. When he found out she was transgender, his friends began to make fun of him for approaching a transgender woman. Believing he had been “tricked”, he violently lashed out, killing Islan in a fit of rage. Transgender women of color face alarming rates of sexual assault, violence, and murder due to a multitude of factors including racism, sexism, and transphobia. In fact, the American Medical Association has declared the murders of Black transgender women, and epidemic. According to the Human Rights campaign, 91% of 2019 transgender victims of homicide were Black transgender women. Underreporting of cases and mis-gendering of victims is also contributing to skewed data and a lack of awareness. This article from Time Magazine highlights some of these statistics that we’re directly quoting:

“Black trans women are particularly vulnerable because they face multiple kinds of discrimination… [which] results in people often living lives that are just more vulnerable to violence… And in addition to all that, ‘people look at you and they don’t care about your existence and they don’t value your life.’ According to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey by activist group National Center for Transgender Equality, 38% of black trans people surveyed reported living in poverty, compared to just 12% of the U.S. population and 29% of transgender people overall. The respondents also reported greater housing instability, with 51% of black trans women reporting that they have experienced homelessness at some point in their life. Black trans women were also disproportionately likely to report having participated in sex work; 42% of black trans women said they had taken part in income-based sex work."

The word disproportionate is an understatement here.

And yet, trans & queer folks of color are leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement and have been leaders in the gay liberation movement. Two of the founders of BLM identify as queer and Black, and the legends Marsha P. Johnson, a Black transgender activist & drag queen, Sylvia Rivera, a Latinx transgender activist, and Stormé DeLarverie, a biracial lesbian, were leaders in the Stonewall Riots of 1969. They harnessed the positivity and power of their intersectional identities to lead and create inclusive movements that have not seen them reap the benefits of their efforts. To move forward, we must acknowledge that there are layers to oppression, to privilege, and to identity. We must acknowledge the existence and value of intersectionality.


Questions or an issue/topic you want to discuss/tackle? Comment below or in our forum, or send us an email at bhunfiltered@gmail.com. We want to hear from you and continue the conversation!


More on Intersectionality & the history of the Gay Liberation Movement:

*This list is not at all comprehensive, we encourage you to look into more detailed accounts, articles & videos*

Books, Films, Shows!

-Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

-Code Switch Podcast: “They Don’t Say Our Names Enough”

-“Happy Birthday Marsha” short film, available on Amazon Prime

-Netflix Documentary: The Life and Death of Marsha P. Johnson (this is controversial…)

-Netflix Documentary: Disclosure

-Netflix TV Show: Pose

-Hulu: Love, Victor


Resources to support the LGBTQ Community:


Are you interested in writing for Unfiltered? Do you have a topic you want to discuss or tackle? Comment below, post in our forum, or send us an email at bhunfiltered@gmail.com. We want to hear from you and continue the conversation!


 
 
 

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