#if i retain just a sliver of my college education i hope i remember my philosophy electives

[starfieldcanvas]

it's so infuriating because people these days frequently use it to mean the EXACT OPPOSITE of what it was coined to express

there are two ways i see this happen.

first is the one OP alludes to, which is where they've picked up on the fact that it's something to do with multiple marginalizations interacting with each other, and jump from there to "whoever can add up the most marginalized identities at once wins the Oppression Olympics" and this is ridiculous because the core principle of intersectionality theory is that identity ISN'T additive

but then there's also the more subtle warping of the term, wherein they use it to mean "when you are doing activism based on your own identity, keep in mind the needs and goals of the other marginalized identities that you don't share!" and like, that's a great goal, in the abstract! but "solidarity" would probably be a more appropriate term for working together across movements. intersectionality is explicitly about blurring the lines between movements because you can't draw a line down the middle of a person.

I'm taking the word "intersectionality" away from internet discourse and putting it on the shelf until people learn that the meaning is "the sum of your identity can not be split into pieces and sorted neatly into easy-to-understand boxes because each piece influences the rest" and not "these people are The Most Oppressed"