We often think about intersectionality when we are thinking about those who have marginalized identities, such as Black women, but all people have intersecting identities, and for many of us, some or most of those identities are privileged, such as a White, cisgender, heterosexual, middle class man.

Each of these privileged identities impact how he sees and experiences the world.

Intersectionality requires that we consider the impact of intersecting identities for all people and that we look at the ways it can create multiple challenges for some and multiple advantages for others.

Intersectionality can be applied to all areas of our lives and it absolutely applies to crime victim advocacy. Intersectional advocacy allows you to better address clients’ needs, identify when changes are needed, increases clients’ trust, and be a powerful advocate that can help clients create lasting and positive changes in their lives.

When we are thinking intersectionally, we are more likely to recognize needed systems-level changes that will improve the lives of many people rather than just one crime victim at a time, and thinking intersectionally helps us recognize changes that improve the lives of those with multiple marginalized identities, which are likely to improve the lives of many others as well.

There are so many examples we could talk about! One example that I have seen the Black community and other communities of color are challenges reporting a Black assailant to the police.

This is especially challenging when we are talking about a sexual assault cases. There is a long history of Black men being stereotyped as sexual predators and a pressure not to report a crime that could contribute to that narrative. In these situations, we must remember that the crime victim is not just a woman, but a woman of color within a community that has been scarred by generations of police over-surveillance and violence being perpetrated against innocent members of the community when police look for a suspect.

So reporting a Black male perpetrator, could cause pain for other members of the community, including the crime victim’s father, brothers, or friends. Add to this that Black women have be stereotyped as sexually promiscuous, and historically their sexual assaults were not taken serious by police or court systems, and we can see this currently as we see evidence of this in the thousands of sexual assault kits from Black and Brown, often poor women that were never analyzed in Detroit and other cities around the country. And Black people’s emotional responses of sadness and anger are often viewed negatively and can lead to others punishing them rather than helping them.

As a result, Black people, even immediately after a crime, may not show their emotions in the ways police or advocates expect, and this may lead people to discount their story or misunderstand the depths of their pain and their needs.

Addressing these possibilities with a crime victim can be difficult because these concerns may apply, but they also might not. The first thing is for advocates to know enough about the context and history of the group to know that these are potential concerns. This will help you avoid missing important issues that the client might not bring up. It is important that we ask questions that give permission for the crime victim to talk about these concerns if they have them.

For example, if someone is hesitant to report to the police, an advocate might say, “Sometimes having to tell the police that the perpetrator is someone in your community can being up a lot of other challenges. People may not want you to report a Black man in order to protect the community in general or there may be concerns that reporting him will bring more negative attention to the entire community from the police. Are you also wrestling with any of these concerns as you decide what you want to do to move forward?”

Of course, when we ask these questions, we also have to accept that we might be wrong or it might not apply for the crime victim at this time. I think that this is okay because in asking the questions, even if they do not apply, you have shown that you are knowledgeable about these challenges, and it increases the chance that the client will talk to you about them if these types of concerns come up in the future.

Imagine a man was robbed, but he does not want to pursue any services or an investigation. Perhaps you discover he suspects he knows who robbed him, but does not want to pursue anything further. Now let’s bring in some additional information. The robbery was motivated by homophobia, and he does not want to risk his family or his community will find out he’s gay. Here is another pretty common example. Imagine working with a non-binary client from a rural community. They are filling out forms to start services and the only options for gender are male or female. They point this out, and the secretary responds, “Well, the form only has male/female, so just put the best answer for now.” How might this impact this person’s desire to continue working with the agency and receiving crime victim services?

Misgendering or referring to someone using a word or pronoun that does not reflect their gender identity, often seems like a small event to others, but it is incredibly harmful. It makes the individual feel devalued, invalidated, and demoralized. In fact, being misgendered is associated with increased depression and suicidal ideation. If you were to overhear this interaction, it would be important to apologize for the form’s limitations, give them permission to write in an answer that better represented them, and let them know that you will bring up the form’s limitations with the director to make sure no one else has to have this experience again. Thank them for bringing it to the agency’s attention. It can be hard to go into new spaces and point on these types of problems. If the secretary is not present when you say this, be sure to talk to the secretary about a more appropriate response going forward. And of course, be sure to follow through with talking with the director about the problems with the form. This is another common example.

How do agencies and advocates think about and handle clients that miss appointments? In my field of psychology, people are often taught that missing appointments, or being late for appointments, means the client is resisting getting help or they are not ready to start therapy. Many organizations have policies that end services with clients if they don’t attend a scheduled appointment. From an intersectional lens, attendance is much more complicated. Especially when coping with having experienced a crime, there can be many complicated reasons why someone is late or they don’t attend a session. Individuals may be overwhelmed by the resulting mental and physical health effects of the crime. They may have to care for children or elders that depend on them. Clients may lack transportation or they may have to depend on unreliable transportation, such as rides from friends or taking busses. Equally important, clients may have valid reasons to mistrust legal systems and related crime victim services systems.

As an intersectional advocate, it is important that we think about the larger structural challenges that crime victims may be facing and that we consider how experiences of oppression that they experienced or their community has experienced, impacts their ability and willingness to engage in crime victim services. Rather than focusing solely on the fact that a client did not attend a scheduled appointment, we must ask about barriers to attending and acknowledging that they may need to do more to build the trust that is needed for individuals to participate in our services.

In summary, intersectional advocacy makes us better crime victim advocates. This approach helps us recognize how historic and modern day oppression impact crime victims in ways that are often complicated and difficult to see. We become better at addressing barriers that clients face to engaging in services and better at talking about these barriers openly with our clients. This fosters collaborative problem-solving that creates effective solutions to these challenges.

As we do this, we build trust, and that trust extends beyond the individual client and can positively impact an entire community’s trust in you as an advocate and trust in your organization overall.

Thank you for joining me for this Paper to Practice series on intersectionality for the Michigan Victim Advocacy Network. Below this video, you will see links to a variety of resources to learn more about intersectionality and intersectional advocacy. Some of these resources are articles, some are activities that you can use such as the Salient Circles diagrams, and others are resources on how you can move the bar on your intersectional advocacy individually and as an organization.