Intersectionality means a lot of things to me. It allows me to see the complexity of myself, recognizing that my experiences do not occur within a vacuum of one identity. I can recognize that the things that I experience in society, the feelings and thoughts that I have, and ways that I interact with the world have been shaped by my identity as a woman, a person who stutters, a Speech-Language Pathologist, a person who identities as asexual, a white American, a twin, and many more.
We all have identities that intersect to make us who we are. Not all of us are on the same roads but we all have a complex series of roadways, highways, and stoplights. We need to understand, share, and celebrate the uniqueness of our whole, integrated selves. Sometimes though, some of our identities might feel more like stoplights than free-flowing freeways. They can lead to real barriers in our lives. And sometimes those barriers compound, in much the same way as when you get stuck at multiple stoplights. As a woman who stutters it can sometimes feel like you’re getting stopped by stoplight after stoplight. It’s easy to wonder why this is happening. Is traffic just really bad today? Am I just really unlucky this morning? Am I driving too slow as I accelerate through the green light? Much like this traffic, when people repeatedly talk over you, interrupt you, speak for you, laugh or mock you, and diminish the value of your contributions, it’s easy to wonder why.