Interdisciplinary intersectionality scholars have highlighted that stereotypes are a central basis for intersectional oppression, and psychologists are increasingly incorporating intersectional theory into stereotypes research. In striving to embrace intersectionality's radical core by applying several of its guiding premises, we explored the perspectives of young Black and Latinx individuals in New York City on sexual stereotypes of Black and Latinx women and men. We conducted 11 focus groups with 75 participants. Using a combined deductive and inductive approach to thematic analysis, we found that many subthemes reflected participants identifying content of, sources of, and responses to sexual stereotypes that were consistent with and supported by an intersectional analysis and approach. These subthemes highlighted sexual stereotypes’ roots in long‐standing interlocking systems of power and oppression and societal institutions, that stereotypes/oppression can also become internalized within individuals and communities, as well as the power and strength of participants and their communities in coping with and resisting sexual stereotypes and oppression. Findings suggest specific ways psychologists can incorporate intersectional inquiry and praxis to address sexual stereotypes as a critical social issue, in collaboration with oppressed communities and social movements struggling for justice and liberation.

This article engages a Black feminist analysis of sexual stereotyping and its effect on Black women's health outcomes. Specifically, this work centers the experiences of 29 young Black women (M age = 23.97) living in New York City, and their practices of resistance, refusal, and reclamation of self in the face of sexual stereotypes. Our qualitative inquiry explores how sexual stereotypes function dynamically across time, space, and place to influence (but not define) Black women's lives. Using critical thematic analysis, the first author identified three recurring contexts in which Black women discussed how sexual stereotypes affect them in their transitions through adolescence and young Black womanhood: during interpersonal interactions with others, during encounters in health care, and while negotiating their sexual self-making and sexual agency. Across these contexts, the first author situates Black women as critical theorists whose selfanalysis, self-theorizing, and self-descriptions are the focus of this article. Their explanations and theorizing emphasize how navigating and negotiating sexuality, pleasure, and agency in a sea of sexual stereotypes is complex, and rarely Black or White. The discussion offers a series of reflections for future research on Black women's health and sexuality.