Intersectionality: A Shouting Match
While intersectionality can be used as a tool to analyze inequalities within categories, it can also be used to promote selfish agendas.
With the invention of the internet, everyone that has access to it now has a voice and can be heard worldwide. While this can be great for disseminating information, this also gives a voice to the vindictive, and often times misinformed, individuals. These individuals are then able to find their special corner in the internet and create an echo chamber so as to validate their thoughts and feelings.
In one incident, the National LGBTQ Task Force decided to cancel a post-Shabbat service reception at their annual Creating Change conference which was organized by the San Francisco-based nonprofit A Wider Bridge. The Task Force also decided to drop A Wider Bridge from the Creating Change conference. The purpose of A Wider Bridge is to connect the LGBTQ community in North America and Israel, which by the way, is the only country in the middle east that is accepts and protects the right of LGBTQ people. Shabbat is a celebratory Jewish event that was non-compulsory to the conference attendees.
The reason why the Task Force cancelled the post-Shabbat service reception and dropped A Wider Bridge was due to an online outcry, prominently from three outspoken individuals. One was Dean Spade, a transgender law professor at the Seattle University School of Law, and the other two individuals were part of a transgender south Asian duo called Dark Matter. Both parties utilized their “multi-faceted” identities in order to emphasize their personal anti-Semitic agendas. Both parties felt entitled to their opinions due to the accumulation of their marginalized identities.
One author, James Kirchick, saw through this rhetoric in his article “HOW INTERSECTIONALITY MAKES YOU STUPID.” Kirchick responded to this rhetoric with:
..whoever shouts the loudest and claims victimization on account of more facets of their identity can expect to get what they demand, regardless of the quality or even logic of what they have to say.
He is a large opponent of intersectionalism since he believes that in intersectionality, identity politics takes precedence and often misleads individuals to victimize themselves in order to emphasize their selfish assertions.
James Kirchick’s methodology of evaluating intersectionality is similar to the ‘intracategorical complexity’ approach as defined by Jennifer Nash in “Re-Thinking Intersectionality.” Nash defines it as analyzing the dangers of categorization, while not fully rejecting categories completely. Kirchick does exactly this in his article where he states that one of the dangers of intersectionality is the tendency to play victim and accentuate one’s marginalized identities in order to further personal agendas.
In the case of the National LGBTQ Task Force who fell for this trope, it resulted in the group discriminating against the Jewish members. Later, the Task Force reinstated A Wide Bridge as well as the post-Shabbat service reception after realizing their fault.
This is one of the potential pitfalls that undermines intersectionality. Not only does this go against intersectionality, this further creates divisions within categories and further exacerbates the oppression of truly intersectional individuals. As long as we keep an open mind and are inclusive of all individuals in a category, we can combat the problems that plague intersectionality.
