Intersectionality and the Politics of Rights in Working-Class Queer Movements

• In Event: Intersectional Identities and Politics within LGBTQ Communities

Abstract

Many scholars have struggled to study the practice of intersectionality in grassroots political movements because of the inevitable difficulties that accompany the practical application of theory. Despite the difficulties associated with using intersectionality to understand political movements, some scholars are beginning to actively engage with real world applications of intersectionality (see e.g., Spade 2015; Tungohan 2015; Montoya 2013). However, most scholarship still understands intersectionality at an abstract level rather than through the lens of political movement actors who grapple with the complications of implementing intersectionality as practice in their political movement organizing. In this paper, I situate the practice of intersectionality within the real experiences of people who enact it in political movement formation. How is intersectionality used by community organizers and grassroots advocates in political movement building?

In answering this question, I draw from an original dataset composed of in-depth interviews and participant observations with community leaders and advocates involved in the advancement of queer migrant and working-class queer issues within in local political movements. I focus specifically on efforts to incorporate these issues in progressive political movements in Washington State and Arizona. Through an interpretivist examination of interviews and participant observations collected between 2014 and 2016, I find that one mechanism through which grassroots activists engage in the practice of intersectionality is through a process I describe as intersectional translation. Intersectional translation occurs when certain movement leaders translate the strategic importance of engaging in expansionist movement formation across different types of political movement organizations. Expansionist political movement formation, or an expansionist view of movement, is a commitment to continual long-term coalition building that incorporates the voices of intersectionally marginalized people rather than a focus on short-term legal rights wins.

Political movement organizations adopt this expansionist view when they are convinced that doing so is strategically in their interest so that they can be prepared for unforeseen political threats and opportunities, build a strong pool of leaders, and strengthen relationships with other communities and groups. In this way, an expansionist view is not in tension with pragmatic decisions, but, rather, enables pragmatic organizational preparation for the future. Intersectional translators help organizations adopt an expansionist view by encouraging them to make short-term decisions with an eye towards movement expansion and by pointing out how some seemingly egalitarian short-term choices can be harmful for organizational longevity. I argue that intersectional translators use three mechanisms to encourage political movement organizations to adopt this expansionist view: (1) through participating in and intentionally using mainstream rights campaigns as short-term advances that serve expansionist goals; (2) through the construction of new groups and subgroups that highlight the tactical importance of intersectionally marginalized people within existing movement communities; and (3) through educational outreach across a multiplicity of political organizations.

Author

• Erin Mayo-Adam, Hunter College, CUNY