#intersectional theory

"You're adopted" jokes are harmful. Insisting adoption is always a good thing/nice and rosy is harmful. Using words like "fake" and "real" family is harmful. We are people with complex lives and most, if not all of us, develop some kind of trauma due to being adopted (whether it worked out for us or not).

And it's just like. no actually. It's not even necessarily specifically about manhood. I could say the exact same thing for many feminist frameworks lack of attention to nonbinary people, especially multi-marginalized nonbinary people. Especially nonbinary people who actively reject any sort of binary or trinary of gender, or who outright reject gender all together. I could say the same for intersex people as well frankly. I could say the same for any demographic of people whose experiences with marginalization are shaped by patriarchal standards.

The issue is the fact that your framework for understanding a marginalized, gendered + sexed demographic of people and their gendered + sexed liberation from a gendered + sexed systemic power doesn't account for the experiences and liberation of other marginalized, gendered + sexed people under the same gendered + sexed systemic power.

If you are a White trans person with any interest in racial politics and racial solidarity, you have to put your allyship, solidarity, and support behind the entire Black trans community. Not just one portion of it.

You do also have to be vocal about Black trans men and Black nonbinary people along side Black trans women AND you cannot only bring up Black trans women when it is convenient for you to remember someone's getting punched harder than you. Because Black trans men and Black nonbinary people ARE ALSO GETTING PUNCHED HARDER THAN YOU BECAUSE THEY ARE BLACK.

An intersectional lense is meant to be a tool to discuss the lives of marginalized people complexly and discuss the ways multiple systemic power structures that impact, oppress, and marginalize us simultaneously — not do math to figure out who is the most oppressed.

Kimberlé Crenshaw has talked extensively about how she dislikes the way intersectionality is misused to just add up different marginalizations and say "this demographic is the most oppressed group to exist". That is not the purpose of intersectionality in an academic context, nor is it the purpose of intersectionality in an applied context. It's a tool for analysis. A tool for understanding. A tool for giving language and voice to complex systemic issues while treating marginalized people like their entire selves.

It's not a tool to go "this demographic has it the worst ever" online to attempt to shut down other marginalized people.

El 12 de junio (2016) leí un artículo en el diario titulado Que dejen de ser “niggers”. Allí el autor decía, sirviéndose de una cita de John Lennon y Yoko Ono, que “la mujer es la esclava de todas las esclavas”. A su vez, para justificar la elección de una expresión tan poco feliz, el autor menciona al congresista negro Ron Dellum (”no es necesario ser negro para ser considerado un ‘nigger’ en esta sociedad”). Todo este cúmulo de citas absurdas, a las cuales probablemente el autor llego por medio de la página de wikipedia sobre el tema de Lennon, tenía supuestamente el objetivo de defender un mensaje feminista y bienintencionado. En lugar de eso, logró embarrarse en su propio desconocimiento sobre el contexto y los debates en torno a la n-word.

La intención del autor, se quiere creer, era la de elevar un mensaje interseccional (intersectional  como dicen los anglosajones). La idea detrás de ese término es que los diferentes modos de opresión se encuentran interconectados entre sí y que la única forma de combatirnos es creando lazos entre lxs subalternxs. Por el contrario, lo que logra el artículo es mezclarlo todo. Sin duda la violencia de género y la violencia racial deben ligarse en una historiografía de la opresión. Pero utilizar esa palabra en este contexto es desproporcionado. Parece un gesto cool usar esa palabra y jugar a ser Eminem, el rapero blanco. Pero esto es un blanco, hablando de “niggers” para hablar de las mujeres. Asume las voces que no le pertenecen y termina silenciando el problema racial! Al final “nigger” se vuelve una metáfora y así, nos olvidamos de repensar las interseccionalidad del problema.

Quedan mucho por pensar sobre el movimiento de #niunamenos. Sin duda sería interesante pensarlo en el contexto de intersectorialidad. Pero todo el chiste de pensar desde los entrecruzamientos es no reducir ninguna arista.