The Disconnectionality of Intersectionality

Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung from Berlin, Deutschland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When I first heard about intersectionality, a word adopted and promoted by Critical Race Theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw, I was conflicted. I hated the term because it was a fancy way to talk about the obvious—who doesn’t know that black women and gay Jews and handicapped trans people face more than one form of prejudice? But I also loved the term because I thought it gave a way to talk about class with people who…