A Critical Analysis and Applied Intersectionality Framework with Intercultural Queer Couples

Abstract

Intercultural queer couples are growing at an extensive rate in the United States, exemplifying diversity across multiple dimensions (e.g., race, ethnicity, sexuality, affectional identity, gender identity) while experiencing multiple converging forms of oppression (e.g., racism, heterosexism, genderism). Given the dearth of conceptual and empirical literature that unifies both dimensions related to intercultural and queer, applied practices and research contend with a unilateral approach focusing exclusively on either intercultural or queer couples. Intersectionality theory has revolutionized critical scholarship to determine overlapping forms of oppression, decenter hegemonic structures of power relations and social contexts, and enact a social justice agenda. This article addresses the following aims: (1) an overview of the gaps eliciting unilateral approaches to intercultural queer couples; (2) an illustration of intersectionality's theoretical underpinnings as a critical approach; and (3) applications for insights in practices and research with intercultural queer couples.

The impact of a marriage checkup with transgender couples

“…Clinicians providing the checkup to transgender couples need to be informed and affirmative about transgender and genderqueer relational health and working with transgender and genderqueer clients (Blumer et al, 2013, Chan and Erby, 2018, Gamarel et al, 2014, Lenning and Buist, 2013, Pulice-Farrow et al, 2017, Pulice-Farrow et al, 2019. For example, though research indicates relationships can be negatively impacted by social prejudice (Gamarel et al, 2014, Grant et al, 2011, not all partners struggle in the face of this added hardship.…”

Walking the Talk: LGBTQ Allies in Australian Secondary Schools

“…Invested in the discursive reproduction of the traditional Western family is the making material of discourses that discipline or not (homo)sexuality as a deficit or risky enterprise. Surtees and Gunn (2010, p. 42) note how "Families routinely inscribe normative identity work and further research is needed into how the habits of hearth and home can be an influencing factor in how social inequalities and injustices are negotiated in family practices" (Taylor, 2012;Chan and Erby, 2018).…”

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“…The framework of intersectionality has become a mainstay of counseling research and practice, given its theoretical underpinnings in social justice (see Chan & Erby, 2018;Mitchell & Butler, 2021). As the framework becomes more visibly mainstreamed into the counseling profession, intersectionality promulgates a social justice ethos (Collins & Bilge, 2020) that links cohesively with its intentions of an active social justice agenda and underscores grassroots efforts for activism and advocacy (Collins, 2019).…”