By Lindsay Duvall
NLIHC is dedicated to achieving racially and socially equitable public policy that ensures people with the lowest incomes have quality homes that are accessible and affordable in communities of their choice. While our research and policy priorities focus on the housing needs of all extremely low-income people, we cannot ignore the fact that certain groups, including the LGBTQ+ community, experience higher rates of poverty, housing discrimination, and homelessness.
When various forms of discrimination interact, they can generate extreme forms of social oppression. We can better understand these interactions through the concept of intersectionality, an idea first developed by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw. As Professor Crenshaw explains, “intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there.”
At NLIHC, we believe it is essential to adopt an intersectional framework in our advocacy, one that centers the voices of the most marginalized members of our society to achieve policy solutions that respond comprehensively to the complexities of our nation’s housing crisis. NLIHC has already led many efforts to address the intersections of housing and LGBTQ+ rights, including the Housing Saves Lives Campaign to push back against anti-transgender proposals, the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign to highlight research and talking points, and the tracking of and advocating for HUD regulations that advance equal access to housing for LGBTQ+ people.
In addition to intersectionality, the articles in this edition of Tenant Talk employ several other key terms. The remainder of this article provides definitions for these key terms, courtesy of the Human Rights Campaign. A longer list of terms and definitions can be found on its website: www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms. Please note that different people use different terms and definitions to describe their own identities, and the meanings of these terms evolve along with our understanding of gender and sexuality.
LGBTQ+: An acronym for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer,” with an additional “+” sign to recognize the limitless sexual orientations and gender identities used.
Ally: Someone who is actively supportive of LGBTQ+ people. It encompasses straight and cisgender allies, as well as those within the LGBTQ+ community who support each other.
Bisexual: A person emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender, or gender identity, though not necessarily simultaneously, in the same way, or to the same degree.
Cisgender: A person whose gender identity aligns with those typically associated with the same sex assigned to them at birth.
Gay: A person who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to members of the same gender. Men, women, and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves.
Gender identity: One’s innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both, or neither – how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity can be the same or different from the sex they were assigned at birth.
Gender expression: External appearance of one’s gender identity, usually expressed through behavior, clothing, body characteristics, or voice, and which may or may not conform to socially defined behaviors and characteristics typically associated with being either masculine or feminine.
Lesbian: A woman who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to other women. Women and non-binary people may use this term to describe themselves.
Non-binary: An adjective describing a person who does not identify exclusively as a man or woman. Non-binary people may identify as being both a man and a woman, somewhere in between, or falling completely outside these categories. While many non-binary people also identify as transgender, not all do.
Queer: A term people often use to express a spectrum of identities and orientations that are counter to the mainstream.
Questioning: A term used to describe people who are in the process of exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Sexual orientation: An inherent or immutable and enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to other people. Note: an individual’s sexual orientation is independent of their gender identity.
Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth. Being transgender does not imply a specific sexual orientation. Therefore, transgender people may identify as straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc.
Transitioning: A series of processes that some transgender people may undergo in order to live more fully as their true gender.