Intersectionality in action: Creating safe spaces for queer people of color
From ancient Egypt to modern Oak Lawn, people of color have celebrated expansive gender identities and same-sex relationships. In the 16th century, the first documented enslaved transgender African woman, Victoria, refused to compromise her identities. And in 2024, Black trans Texas drag queens are doing the same.Life experiences for queer people of color vary greatly, but they all have one thing in common: intersectionality.In 1989,Kimberl Crenshaw, a Black legal scholar and civil rights advocate,coined the term intersectionalityto describe how multiple forms of oppression can compound and create unique experiences for people who have multiple minority identities.DeAne Kennedy, a 26-year-old queer Black woman and founder of theDallas Black Queer Collective, said that she and her friends refer to her intersectional identities as a triple whammy.Im Black; Im queer, and Im a woman, she said. Its hard to feel safe in a lot of spaces with all of those identities in play.She said that she doesnt feel like she has to pick an identity, but she found that in all-Black spaces and in all-LGBTQ+ spaces, she didnt feel like she could comfortably express all of her identities authentically.Im a dark-skinned Black woman, she said. Something that happens a lot in queer spaces is the hyper-masculinization of Black women in general, and especially if youre queer.People have misgendered me instead of asking me my pronouns. I could be wearing the same clothes as a white or Latin woman, but because Im Black, people think Im trans because of what Im wearing.A 2020 Center for American Progress surveyshows that Black LGBTQ+ people consistently change their behavior to avoid potentially harmful experiences:Nearly one in three report avoiding public spaces such as stores or restaurants to avoid experiencing discrimination; two in five have moved away from family to prevent discriminatory experiences; and one in five avoid travel. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to experience discrimination within LGBTQ spaces.The survey also noted that Black LGBTQ+ people face disproportionate levels of discrimination ranging from more frequent police interactions to mistreatment in the workplace to discriminatory treatment from health care providers.Betty Neal, a 67-year-old Black gay woman from Dallas, worked as a club manager, promoter, emcee and DJ at clubs in the gayborhood starting in the 1980s. The self-proclaimed OD, original dyke recounted that queer people of color needed multiple forms of ID to get into bars at the time.It wasnt happening to me directly because I was in the inner circle as the first Black lesbian who worked in the gay bars in Dallas, she said. But it was happening to my friends who were trying to get in.Jesus Chairez, the 71-year-old gay Latino godfather of Dallas, was 27 years old when he moved to Oak Lawn, and he remembers going to meet a date at a bar in the neighborhood shortly after moving there. Id heard that people of color and especially Black people were always asked for three picture IDs, Chairez said. And his ID wasnt good enough to get him in the club, he remembers the bouncer saying.I didnt think much of it until, as I was leaving the bar, I heard the doorman tell the cashier, Thats another Mexican down. I was horrified, Chairez said.He said he spoke to the president of the Dallas Gay Alliance, but the president said his situation wasnt something they could get involved in. In the 1970s and 80s, Chairez addedm DGA was prominent in fighting LGBTQ+ discrimination that came from outside the community but often turned a blind eye to discrimination within the gay community.There were no gay Latino organizations for me to go to, so I joined LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) and met other gay Latinos, Chairez said. I learned how to organize. I formed the Gay and Lesbian Hispanic Coalition de Dallas in 1982, which was the second gay Latino organization in Texas.He said the group, which hosted workshops and raised money to fight the AIDS crisis, expanded to San Antonio, El Paso and Austin and then went national. Jose Plata, the first openly gay person elected to the Dallas school board, was an original member of the Dallas organization.In 1988, Bamboleos opened as the first gay Latino bar in the gayborhood. Chairez said that a bar for queer Latinos was needed because his community often felt discriminated against in Dallass mainstream, mainly white bars.Sometimes, when I am talking to an older Caucasian gay man about the problems with the bars in the 70s and early-to-mid-80s,I get the remark, I never have had any of those problems, Chairez said. I then tell them, The reason you never experienced this problem is because you are white.It is called white privilege.Neal said the music she was allowed to play in the bars back then was limited: In a lesbian bar in the late 80s, an owner told me not to play any Black stuff, Neal recalled. As soon as she left, I started playing Salt-N-Pepa, and the crowd loved it. The owner came back in, heard what I was playing, took my record and threw it across the room.Ever since then, I insisted on playing what I wanted to play.Neal said that when Black music was becoming more mainstream, clubs would play the songs to a house beat instead of a hip-hop beat to appease owners.We started seeing more and more Black gay people coming out, so we opened up Raps to give them a space that would be more welcoming, she said. I brought in Black drag queens from Atlanta and Houston, and people loved them.Neal also said she watched one of her friends lose gigs in the gayborhood because the crowd got too Black.Owners thought the white crowd would leave if Black people were in their bars, but slowly and surely, when white kids started listening to hip-hop, the bars naturally integrated, Neal said.Tamera Hutcherson, a pansexual, bi-racial and Black 29-year-old campaign strategist, said that while she doesnt experience overt racism inside the LGBTQ+ community, she has seen the prevalence of subtle anti-Blackness.We all have our own biases to grow from, they said. The main thing to name is that anti-Blackness is a problem within the LGBTQ+ community. Were all facing oppression, but some more than others because of our race, and we cant pull away from that.Hutcherson said that because she is light-skinned, colorism affords her privileges, and their experience is different from that of a dark-skinned Black person.And because she is cisgender, her experiences differ from that of a Black trans man or woman.I think I have privileges that Black gay men dont have because, within the Black community, there is an extreme sense of homophobia and transphobia, she said. I cant pinpoint why that is, but I think it stems from our history. I think it goes back to the Atlantic Slave Trade and the [emasculation] of Black men.But that is a tough topic to talk about in the Black community.Kennedy said that it can feel frustrating when intersectional oppression happens in what are supposed to be safe spaces.Thats how the Collective was born, she said. I didnt feel safe in Black straight spaces, and I encountered racism in LGBTQ spaces. Its shocking to experience oppression from other oppressed groups, and its often disguised, which can make you question if its really happening.Kennedy said that in 2024, she brought her mom to an LGBTQ+ mixer, and her mom noticed something strange: She noticed that I was being blatantly ignored, like people were scared to interact with me, Kennedy said. She called it out before I did, and for someone outside the community to see that covert racism so clearly, she understood why I needed to create the Collective.Kennedy said that when she was traveling in Europe, a woman invited her to a Black queer collective event, and they talked about how to navigate anger as people with intersecting identities.I remember being so moved by it, and I was like, Dallas needs this, a space for Black queer folk to come together. Queer people are not just nightlife, and were not just who we have sex with. We need a space for this, especially for people who are quiet and queer.Kennedy came back to Dallas and started the Dallas Black Queer Collective in February 2024. She said the first event was a mixer, and she expected five people, but more than 15 showed up. From there, it kept doubling in size.Its a big thing for me that people feel like they belong to something, she said. I find people who have such a light about them have been through some of the darkest things, and Ive experienced a lot of loneliness. I try to make sure people dont ever experience the loneliness Ive felt.To combat collective loneliness, Kennedy said its important that people feel seen. She said that its been overwhelming to have people come up to her at Collective events and tell her that theyfeel seen.People overwhelmingly tell me that they need the Collective, she said. Ive seen Black gay or lesbian groups, but I wanted to come up with a community space that could hold all Black queer people. Whether youre nonbinary, questioning or know your identity in great detail, you can exist in this space, and that was my intention when creating it.She said the Collective is open to allies as long as people understand that the group centers Black queer voices.Its been very rewarding to engage with other Black queer individuals and ultimately feel seen.Tamera HutchersonHutcherson said that queer people of color need their own spaces, as many LGBTQ+ groups in Dallas dont have Black representation.We want groups that would center our own experience, and I think its important for affinity spaces to exist for our own well-being and healing, they said.One group Hutcherson has found safety in is the Dallas Black Queer Collective.Its been very rewarding to engage with other Black queer individuals and ultimately feel seen, she said. Throughout history we have seen the erasure of Black queer people. Being seen and having fundamental rights is important to the safety of the LGBTQ BIPOC community.The Collective has partnered with local Dallas organizations like Resource Center and Oak Cliff Veggie Project to host mutual aid and social events. Some events include a Black queer woman-directed short film showing, community garden harvesting, yoga classes, a beauty expo with BIPOC queer beauty vendors and social mixers every last Wednesday of each month.Kennedy said that the Collective hosts three or more monthly events, and 30 people or more show up consistently. There are 100 people on the email list, and a thousand people follow the Collectives page on Instagram.Im Dallas born and raised, so to be doing something like this in my hometown where I was too afraid to come out when I was younger, its crazy, Kennedy said. I think within the Dallas LGBTQ community, we have some work to do, and I believe that change is coming soon.It sucks that I felt the need to do this because I was experiencing racism, but Im happy the Collective is here now.Liquor Mini, a 51-year-old gay Mexican-American man, drag queen and show director at Hamburger Marys, has been playing in drag for 25 years.I think most people assume that Im white, she said. In drag, they see me as a rich white woman. Racism within the LGBTQ community has affected my friends, especially my trans friends, more than its affected me.She said that while racism and stereotyping hasnt personally affected her, she knows it is a reality for some LGBTQ+ people of color, and she takes that into account when developing a cast for drag shows. She said that there are certain venues that have an all-POC cast and others that have all-white casts.Its important for me as a show director to represent all of the community, Mini said. I make sure to book trans people, people of color and white people in my cast. Its important that people in the audience see themselves represented on stage.Liquor Mini said when she moved to Dallas in 2005, the bar scene was racially integrated, but there were and still are bars that cater to specific demographics.If youre Latin, youre gonna go to Caliente or Havana, she said. If youre Black, youre going to go to Martys or Vegas. I can go to any bar and feel safe and welcomed, but certain races go to certain places because thats where their tribe is.Hutcherson said that when creating a presentation on Black queer history, she felt pride and pain in learning about her ancestry.Our ideas of gender and our conceptualization of pronouns have been instilled in us over time through religion, colonization and socialization, she said. Trans people have existed for centuries, same-sex relationships have existed for centuries, and people like to act like they havent. It was both painful and full of pride, learning that even before my ancestors were chained and brought over to this country, queer Black people existed.She said that even when shes been in relationships with queer men of color, shes found that stereotypes about queer Black women pervade.They make these assumptions about me that I might be more sexually promiscuous or sexually open for their own entertainment, Hutcherson said. I know Im not the only queer woman of color who has had to deal with this kind of fetishization and hypersexualization.Chairez said that growing up, his family worked hard to assimilate into whiteness. But as an adult, he embraced his Mexican culture. His radio show,Sin Fronteras, was the first and longest-running LGBTQ+ bilingual Latino radio show not only for Dallas, but in the USA. It ran for 12 years.As an artist, Chairez advocated for showings of Latino art outside of Hispanic Heritage Month and Cinco de Mayo. And as a writer, he wrote about art and culture from a Latino perspective.I have embraced the experience I have been given and still do, he said. That evening in Oak Lawn woke up the activism in me, something that still continues today, some 44 years later.Neal said that in the 90s, clubs became more diverse, and they would host nights exclusively playing Black music. In the early 2000s, she said, being gay became more accepted, and more people felt comfortable coming out.Ive seen the culture change to where Black people can go anywhere, even the Round-Up, now, Neal said. The problem has subsided, but at the same time, theyre not going to give us too much, because they fear what comes with a crowd of African-Americans.Neal said that stereotypes in the LGBTQ+ community against Black folks have pervaded the culture for decades. She said people think that Black people are more likely to fight, bring in their own liquor and dont tip the staff.And these stereotypes have led to the removal of Black nights in bars.If someone fights at or brings liquor into a bar, that can be a real problem for the venue, and those people should get kicked out. But making an entire community suffer for the actions of a few people doesnt make sense, Neal said.Neal said that, ultimately, she set herself up to be friends with the owners and fight racism from the inside, sticking up for people of color when she saw discrimination happening.As Black people, we had to liberate the businesses, she said. We paved the way. Some of us made change from the outside, and some of us made change from the inside. This new generation doesnt know the struggles weve gone through to make the scene as welcoming as it is now.Chairez said hes watched racism in the LGBTQ+ community evolve and lessen over the years. He said while he doesnt frequent the bars in Oak Lawn anymore, he visited in March 2024.I was amazed to see many women, drag queens, trans and many African-Americans and Latinos all young, hanging out having a good time all enjoying each others company, Chairez said.No more three picture IDs required to keep us out, as we had now taken over, he continued. Bar owners now seem very accepting. I guess they had to change their attitude if they wanted their business to survive.Neal echoed Chairezs sentiment: Im really proud of the gay bars in Oak Lawn for growing with us, growing with the community and not being so exclusive. I know the owners now, and they dont have a racist bone in their bodies. They dont care what color you are, as long as you follow the rules.Mini said that since the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, companies are more focused on DEI, ensuring that theyre hitting the mark when it comes to making people of color feel included.Being a part of the LGBTQ community, its important that we dont separate ourselves from others within our community, Mini said, Especially right now, when our rights could be at risk again as gay people, people of color and women, its more important than ever to be unified, to include everyone, no matter your race, religion, sexuality or gender identity.If we stick together, we live in a safer space.The post Intersectionality in action: Creating safe spaces for queer people of color appeared first on News Is Out.
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