The blacks the gays the disabled and the

My multiple identities find political expression in my activism as part of the queer-led Black Lives Matter movement BLM. However, we are often told to separate our identities from our politics. Rates of disability among LGBTQ+ people HRC Foundation analyzed the disability core questions in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a nationally representative survey of adults across the United States, and found that LGBTQ+ adults, and transgender adults in particular, were significantly more likely than non-LGBTQ+ adults to self-report having at least one disability.

That affects how we feel about ourselves. That is easy to say when nobody has ever questioned your humanity. Black people, Queer people and people with disabilities have experienced a long history of disenfranchisement in democracy. The men who brought Black people to the United States as chattel slaves in did not regard them as human.

I am a Black, Queer, Disabled, Man. That statement reflects my racial, sexual orientation, bodily, and gender identities. They are what makes me human. This legislation includes a law, currently being challenged in the courts, that would prevent Trans children from receiving gender-affirmative care.

Many of those obstacles still exist to this day. The disability prevalence, employment, poverty, and housing disparities between Black Americans with disabilities and non-Black Americans with disabilities can be attributed to racist ableism. Identities are essential to my politics because my humanity is essential to my life.

quot Our Realities Stories

It is important for our children, and all of us, to know that our identities matter. I live in Texas, where our teachers have limited freedom to teach about slavery. Children should know that people with marginalised identities have made significant contributions, and that we have the same right to existence as everyone else.

Black LGBTQ individuals face disproportionate levels of discrimination, from more frequent police interactions to mistreatment in the workplace to discriminatory treatment from health care providers. This is the history of just two of my four identities.

Democracy needs to recognise and empower our multiple identities. They see that the current systems are not without alternative. Activists are driven by their own desire for change. Activism is a crucial driver of democratic transformations.

Brandon Mack draws on his activist experience with Black Lives Matter to argue for intersectionality and diverse histories as the backbone of democracy. The words again that echo the promise of equal justice have defined many civil rights cases; from the very beginning of our shared national history regarding issues of due process, workers' rights and protections, disability rights, school segregation, and marriage equality (both between couples who identify LGB and interracial).

I fundamentally believe that when we learn about one another, it makes it that much harder for us to devalue one another. The organisation Equality Texas is dedicated to securing 'full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer Texans'.

They are not separate from my humanity. So, how can you expect me or any other historically marginalised person to have faith in and participate in a system that has never truly recognised, honoured, or respected all of my identities and thus my humanity?

Black Disabled and Gay

Children should understand that people with marginalised identities have made significant contributions, and that we have the same right to existence as everyone else. Their work centers on the intersections of queerness, disability, race, and gender.

Queer people and people with disabilities have also experienced a long history of disenfranchisement in democracy. Brown founded the Autistic People of Color Fund which focuses on redistributive justice by providing support, aid, and retributions to autistic people of color.

Even when we did get the vote, poll taxes, literacy tests, violence and murder prevented us from fully participating in democracy.