When we talk about identity, it is important to recognise that not all identities are experienced, seen, or treated in the same way. The concept of intersectionality, developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, helps us understand that people do not move through the world carrying just one identity at a time. Race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, faith, and culture all interact with one another, shaping how a person experiences both privilege and oppression.

Yet, while intersectionality teaches us that identities overlap, society does not always engage with them in an equal or balanced way.

For many Black and other people of colour, race is often the first thing that is seen, interpreted, and responded to. Before someone knows whether (for example) a Black person is queer, disabled, working class, middle class, religious, trans, non-binary, or anything else, they are often read through the lens of Blackness. This is not because Black identity is the only thing that matters, but because racialisation has historically positioned Blackness as something that is immediately visible and heavily scrutinised.

From a decolonised perspective, this is not accidental. Colonial systems relied upon categorising people into rigid racial hierarchies. Blackness became a social marker onto which assumptions, fears, stereotypes, and projections were attached (anti-blackness).

Those systems did not disappear when formal colonial rule ended. Many of the ways people continue to understand race today are inherited from those histories. As a result, Black folks are often expected to exist within narrow and monolithic definitions of what Blackness should look like, sound like, believe, or represent.

This creates a particular tension for Black and people of colour when it comes to intersectionality. A Black queer person, for example, may experience racism within wider LGBTQ+ spaces while simultaneously experiencing homophobia or transphobia within some Black spaces. Their reality cannot be separated into neat categories because these experiences happen at the same time, not one after another.

What is often overlooked is that Black queer people are not simply experiencing racism plus queerness. They are experiencing a unique social position that emerges from the intersection of both. Their Blackness shapes how their queerness is perceived, and their queerness shapes how they navigate Blackness. Neither identity can be fully understood in isolation.

This differs in important ways from how identity is experienced across parts of the broader queer community. While queer people face discrimination and marginalisation, many Black queer people and queer people of colour have identities that may not be immediately visible to strangers. A person may be able to choose when, where, and how they disclose aspects of their sexuality or gender identity. Blackness, however, is often socially assigned before any conversation takes place. The encounter begins with race.

That does not mean one form of oppression is greater than another. Rather, it highlights how visibility operates differently, particularly when it comes to intersectionality.

A white queer person may enter a room and initially be read as white. Their queerness may only become known later. A Black queer person may enter that same room and be read as Black first, with all the societal assumptions attached to Blackness already shaping the interaction before their queerness is even recognised.

This reality can create a sense of fragmentation. Black queer people are often asked to prioritise one aspect of themselves over another. They may be encouraged to focus on race in one setting and sexuality or gender in another. Yet liberatory approaches to care remind us that people should never have to divide themselves into acceptable pieces in order to belong.

Liberatory care asks a different question. Instead of asking people to fit into existing systems, it asks how systems can be transformed to honour the fullness of people’s lives. It rejects the idea that Blackness must be singular or fixed. It rejects the notion that queerness exists separately from race.

Most importantly, it centres the humanity of people whose identities have historically been fragmented, erased, or misunderstood.

A deconstructed understanding of identity moves us away from rigid categories and towards complexity. It recognises that there is no single Black experience and no single queer experience. Black people are not a monolith. Black queer people are not a monolith. The richness of these communities lies precisely in their diversity, contradictions, creativity, and multiplicity.

Ultimately, intersectionality is not just a framework for understanding oppression. It is also a framework for understanding possibility. When we move beyond colonial ideas that demand simplicity and sameness, we create space for people to exist in their entirety.

For Black queer people especially, that means being seen not as a collection of separate identities competing for recognition, but as whole people whose experiences, histories, and ways of being deserve affirmation, dignity, and care.

May we continue building communities rooted in care rather than judgment, curiosity rather than assumption, and solidarity rather than division. May we create spaces where people are not asked to fragment themselves in order to belong.

Lastly, may we remember that our differences are not barriers to liberation. They are evidence of the richness, resilience and beauty of our collective humanity.

Tell someone you love them today.