Together, IMGLAD and GAYON, with the support of YGOAL's innovation studio, aims to make learning about queer concepts and terminologies easier!
In today's society, anyone can access news, data, and entertainment at the click of a button. Despite this, challenges still arise when it comes to adapting SOGIESC inclusive concepts.
This is why Project Pagbuklat aims to create an online library with simple and understandable learning materials tackling LGBTQIA+ rights, concepts, and terms. To ensure its accessibility, these materials will be available in four languages namely English, Filipino, Cebuano, and Bicolano.
Additionally, this project will also be built from the ground-up by having grassroot LGBTQIA+ members participate in the baselining process. Pagbuklat puts education at the center of its processes, especially for the youth, to foster understanding and acceptance of gender and sexuality. Ultimately, the initiative seeks to promote inclusivty by raising awareness on LGBTQIA+ topic.
INTERSECTIONALITY
Before reading on intersectionality, try to answer these questions:
These questions will come in handy later on as we learn about intersectionality.
Intersectionality aims to explain the interlocking systems of oppression and their interacting effects.
To help us understand intersectionality better, defining the following terms is important:
Social Categorization
Social Identities
Privilege
Oppression
Social Categorization
Social categorization is a process of putting people into certain differentiated groups. These groups are based on certain categories such as gender, ethnicity, class, language, age, and others. For example, people are usually grouped by sex assigned at birth. A person can be categorized to be included in male, female, or intersex categories. Examples of social categories are:
Race
Sex
Gender
Ability
Class
Age
Sexual Orientation
Gender Identity
Gender Expression
Sex Characteristics
Religion
Place of Origin
Level of Education
However, this categorization process is not safe from stereotyping. Stereotyping is when we attribute certain features to a group of people. For example, there is a sexist belief that people under the female category are weaker than those in the male category. Gay men are also stereotyped as loud individuals and as people who like beauty contests. However, there are quiet and sports-liking gay men as well.
Social Identity
A social identity is who we are according to the social groups we consider ourselves or others consider us to be part of. These groups are usually defined by physical, social, and mental characteristics of individuals. For example, in terms of ethnicity or place of origin in the Philippines, when you think of someone from Muslim Mindanao, you think of a man wearing a kufi hat or scarves on their heads, or a woman wearing a burqa. Additionally, when you think of a person from an indigenous group, you might imagine a man wearing bahag. However, people from Muslim Mindanao and different indigenous groups may appear in any form and may wear clothing of any forms. In these examples, we highlight how stereotyping on the basis of social identities may occur.
Some of the social identities a person may have is being a woman, a Roman Catholic, a high school graduate, an Ibanag person, and such.
Privilege and Oppression
People experience privileges or unearned benefits, advantages, and power when they are a part of a dominant group. These privileges are the result of the oppression of a marginalized group. It is important to note that an individual can experience privileges without realizing, recognizing, or even wanting them.
Oppression usually comes in the form of prejudice and discrimination towards a group that is caused and perpetuated by ideologies and practices by multiple social institutions. These oppressive ideologies can also be rooted in our prejudice or bias against specific social identities.
Lastly, privilege and oppression are about unequal power relations. For every type of privilege, a corresponding set of oppression exists. For example, in the conversation about being LGBTQI, the privileges that a cisgender heterosexual gender-confirming (‘straight’) person experiences contribute to the experiences of oppression of LGBTQI people. Specifically, the privilege to be able to wear clothing that reflects their gender is not experienced by a transgender person. In this example, the transgender person experiences one type of oppression.
Let us now go back to the discussion of intersectionality…
DID YOU KNOW?
Intersectionality is attributed to black feminism. Black feminists were the first ones to take seriously the simultaneity of race, gender, and class; and how these social categories may affect a person’s life altogether.
One example of this is the plight of black women in the workplace. They started to claim that they experience discrimination. Without the intersectionality framework, they would not be able to prove the discrimination they experience. The company they work with can say that as long as they have black men employed, they are not discriminating on the basis of race. They can also say that as long as they have white women employed, they are not discriminating on the basis of gender. However, through the intersectionality lens, we can say that though they are not discriminating on the basis of race nor gender. But through intersectionality, we can say that the said companies are discriminating against these black women on the basis of their race and gender together.
We can now define intersectionality!!
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as gender, class, and ethnicity as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of oppression (discrimination and disadvantages).
Let us now review the questions posed at the start of this section…
The questions serve to be a point of reflection around intersectionality. The set of questions can be a representation of the different social categories one may belong in. For example, the last question, “was your choice of partner’s gender never questioned?” is about one’s sexual orientation. It might be a surprise to some people that the choice of partner is questioned by other people, especially for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals or someone who is dating a transgender person. If your answer to the question is yes, you benefit on the basis of your sexual orientation. Not all people can easily introduce their significant others to their friends or colleagues in the fear of being stigmatized or discriminated against.
If you mostly answer “yes” to the questions, you might be part of the dominant social identities. On the other hand, if you mostly answer “no” to the questions, you might experience discrimination, or oppression on the basis of your certain social identities. Additionally, you may have other experiences of disadvantages that are exacerbated when you have more “no”s.
It is important to note that intersectionality is about the multiple social categories intersecting at the micro level of individual experience to reflect multiple interlocking systems of privilege and oppression at the macro, social-structural level. Ultimately, remember that intersectionality is not just about identities but about the institutions that use identity to exclude and privilege.
References:
American Psychological Association. (2017). Multicultural guidelines: An ecological approach
to context, identity, and intersectionality.
https://www.apa.org/about/policy/multicultural-guidelines.aspx
Bhasin, K., & Khan, N. S. (1990). Some questions on feminism and its relevance in South Asia. Feminism. Occasional Paper No. 2 Manila: National Commission on the Role of Filipino
Women.
Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence
against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241. doi:10.2307/1229039
Guevara, C.A. (2019).Aging, Non-heteronorm Conformity, and Access to a Sense of
Economic Stability. Review of Women's Studies, 29(1), 1-15.
Krueger, J. (2001). Social categorization. International Encyclopedia of the Social &
Behavioral Sciences. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-
science/social-categorization
Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching. (n.d.). Social Identity. Retrieved from
https://www.northwestern.edu/searle/initiatives/diversity-equity-inclusion/social-
identities.html
TRANSLATIONS
INTERSEKSYONALIDAD (FILIPINO)
INTERSEKSYONALIDAD (CENTRAL BIKOL)
INTERSECTIONALITY (CEBUANO)
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