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.

Policy as Punishment and Distraction: The Double Helix of Racialized Sexual Harassment of Black Girls

Black girls’ experiences with sexual harassment in schools remain critically understudied. To mediate this void, this study explored the role of educators and school policy as disrupting or perpetuating racialized sexual harassment toward them. Using a disability critical race theory (DisCrit) framework, we argue educator response and education policy create a nexus of subjugation that makes Black girls increasingly vulnerable to experience racialized sexual harassment at the hands of adults and peers, while largely failing to provide protection from or recourse for such harassment.

Black Women’s Positive Embodiment in the Face of Race × Gender Oppression

For many Black women, their relationship with their physique is complicated and nuanced by narratives of race, gender, and their intersection. Given this reality, positive embodiment is a hard-won battle for those Black women who achieve it, and their efforts are repeatedly challenged by mainstream cultural narratives that view their bodies as deviant and lacking value. The chapter examines Black women’s experience of embodiment through the lens of intersectionality theory. Given the nature of experiences such as racialized sexual harassment, examining intersecting identities such as Black women’s identities as simultaneously Black and female and their positive perception of this intersecting identity may specifically buffer against negative embodiment.