Identity, Diversity, and Equity: An Exploration of Intersectionality & Justice
Author: Kerrie Mohr
The Progressive Pride Flag, designed by Daniel Quasar, contains the six, original colors of the Pride flag, and the addition of five colors to represent trans identity, people of color, those living with HIV/AIDS, and those who we’ve lost. To make a donation to the Progress Initiative, supporting Trans People of Color, click here.
Happy LGBTQIA+ Pride from all of us at AGP! Pride is one of my favorite holidays. I can't think of a more meaningful and wonderful thing to celebrate than our right to be free to live and love authentically, to embody and take joy in the truest expressions of our identities.
This year, it's a bit harder to just take in all the rainbow colored joy, with parades cancelled around the world, with COVID continuously looming, and with ongoing threats to the security and safety of the LGBTQIA+ community's most vulnerable members. Many festivities are cancelled as many of us are confined to our homes, all while COVID has exposed the deadly impact of medical and environmental racism, with Black Americans twice as likely to die as White Americans. Here, at this intersection of Pride and the two pandemics of systemic racism and COVID-19, we are faced with a full spectrum of emotions and experiences, not all joyful.
The truth is that what sustains us in life, is not the joyous or happiest moments, but the ones that help us live a meaningful and purposeful life. People may come to therapy saying they want happiness, but what gives us a sense of value and purpose, might not look or feel like happiness at all. As therapists, we drive ourselves to see the complexities in things, and encourage our clients to do the same. It's often a "both/and" contemplation, and the current moment has challenged us to look at our world through a new lens and appreciate the complexity and the process. Examining our own racism, and talking about it within our social network takes effort, but we commit to it because it saves lives and places us all on a path towards growth, healing, and equity. As Audre Lorde, Black feminist, writer and activist said, "There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."
“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
The protests for racial equality in the wake of George Floyd's murder are a calling for us all to face the to gross inequalities and systemic racism that permeates the COVID crisis and empowers the police to kill a significantly disproportionate number Black people compared to White people. As we grapple with what racism means in our lives this Pride weekend, we can consider AGP Therapist Valerie Hoagland's words "The spectrum of queer experience is as diverse as the community itself." She encourages us to ask "Who is still unsafe? Who is still unheard?" Can we fight for them as fiercely as we would fight for ourselves?" Even as the current administration tries to walk back and chip away at the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community, the Supreme Court has extended workplace discrimination protection to gay, lesbian, and transgender employees, a cause for no small celebration. This year, Pride is a rallying cry for equality and liberation.
