Intersectionality Is Not a Choice: Reflections of a Queer Scholar of Color on Teaching, Writing, and Belonging in LGBTQ Studies and Academia

Through the Eye of a Needle: Understanding the Identities of LGBTQ+ Teachers Within Catholic Institutions in the Philippines

The pervasive Catholic culture permeates through the social fabric of the Philippines and exerts unique pressures on Filipinos. This study highlighted the unique experiences of Filipino LGBTQ+ educators of private Catholic schools. Using the grounded theory approach, seven participants who identified as LGBTQ+ and taught in private Catholic schools in the Philippines for a minimum of one year were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews with the participants illustrated that these LGBTQ+ educators had to contend with negotiating their identities while carefully navigating through their work environment. This yielded three key themes: (1) Recognizing the political dimension of private schools, (2) Threading the Needle, and (3) Obtaining and Optimizing Safe Spaces. As a result, the Constricting Contexts Model was proposed to better understand and contextualize such factors and emphasize the role that environments and expectations play into the identities of marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ community.

Measurement of Intersectional Microaggressions: Conceptual Barriers and Recommendations

Since Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" in 1989, researchers of bias have struggled with how to capture the complexity and intricacies of intersectional identities and microaggressions experienced by individuals holding these identities within the quantitative framework that dominates psychology. Although scholarship has grown in the exploration of experiences such as racialized sexual harassment, or sexual racism within queer and trans communities, there is no strong consensus on how this might be measured systematically in ways that allow for inferences regarding the experiences of populations of interest. With an emphasis on the experiences of queer and trans people of color, this article explores intersectional identities through three main points: First, we define what is meant by intersectionality and the real-world experiences that are important for advancing an understanding of microaggressions; second, we review the existing measures and their ability to capture the breadth and depth of the lived experience of those with intersectional identities; and third, we propose a framework for the development of a more accurate and comprehensive measure of microaggressions.