The word “intersectionality” has an abstract, academic ring to it. But for me, as a Black physician and abortion provider, it’s profoundly personal and essential to how I provide care. A legal scholar named Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term more than three decades ago, and it continues to have widespread influence in healthcare and social policy.
I’d like to help you understand the definition of intersectionality, why it matters so deeply, and how it shapes my medical practice and advocacy.
Who Is Kimberlé Crenshaw?
Kimberlé Crenshaw, a distinguished legal scholar and civil rights advocate, introduced the term intersectionality in her groundbreaking work during the late 1980s.
Crenshaw developed this concept to address gaps she saw in feminism and civil rights frameworks, specifically, how these movements often failed to represent Black women’s unique experiences. Her early work revealed how Black women frequently experienced discrimination simultaneously based on race and gender, a reality that single-issue analyses could not adequately capture.
Crenshaw first publicly defined intersectionality in a 1989 scholarly paper where she examined several court cases involving discrimination against Black women. She highlighted the ways traditional legal approaches overlooked the compounded discrimination Black women faced.
The impact of Crenshaw’s work extends far beyond academia. Intersectionality has become critical for understanding complex social justice issues, shaping policy discussions, grassroots activism, and advocacy efforts worldwide.
What Is Intersectionality?
Intersectionality describes how our different social identities—race, gender, class—intersect and create unique experiences of oppression and privilege.
Crenshaw explains intersectionality like this: multiple identities will overlap to amplify experiences of discrimination and inequality. In other words, race, gender, and class don’t exist separately. They collide, creating compounded injustice.
For me, intersectionality helped me understand my own experiences as a Black woman, physician, and leader. It transformed how I understood my patients’ struggles and the systemic issues shaping their healthcare outcomes. It revealed the bigger picture behind why so many face barriers that medicine alone can’t solve.
Intersectionality and Reproductive Justice
Intersectionality deeply informs the reproductive justice movement, a framework created by Black women activists.
Unlike the traditional reproductive rights movement, reproductive justice doesn’t focus solely on the right to abortion. Instead, it recognizes that reproductive freedom includes the right to have children, not have children, and to raise families in safe communities.
Intersectionality shows that reproductive justice is directly connected to broader social justice issues, such as racial and economic inequality. Learning about reproductive justice reshaped my advocacy. It wasn’t enough to provide abortions. I had to fight for my patients’ rights to equity, safety, and dignity.
Maternal Health Disparities Reveal Intersectionality
Intersectionality clearly explains why Black maternal mortality rates are tragically high. They’re nearly three times that of white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control. This disparity results from systemic racism, poverty, and healthcare discrimination.
I regularly see the impact of these barriers: delayed prenatal care, distrust in medical institutions, and preventable complications. These outcomes are deeply rooted in systemic injustices, such as:
- Racial discrimination in healthcare
- Limited access to quality prenatal care
- Widespread medical mistrust stemming from historical abuse and neglect
The CDC highlights that implicit bias from healthcare providers significantly contributes to maternal health disparities. Black women often report feeling dismissed or ignored by medical professionals when they raise concerns, leading to severe consequences.
Additionally, the closures of maternity wards and healthcare clinics in predominantly Black and low-income neighborhoods mean fewer accessible care options. This lack of healthcare infrastructure forces many to travel long distances or receive insufficient care.
Intersectionality drives me daily to advocate beyond my clinic walls, pushing for systemic solutions to eliminate such inequities.
How the Hyde Amendment Exposes Intersectional Injustice
The Hyde Amendment, a policy banning federal Medicaid funding for abortion, is another clear example of intersectionality in action.
Since its inception in 1976, the Hyde Amendment has effectively denied millions of women—especially women of color and those with low incomes—meaningful access to reproductive healthcare.
The Guttmacher Institute explains that restrictions like Hyde compound existing inequalities, deepening cycles of poverty, and limiting women’s economic and social mobility. Hyde not only blocks healthcare but actively perpetuates economic injustice. Patients forced to carry unwanted pregnancies often face long-term financial strain, disrupted education or employment, and diminished mental and physical health outcomes.
The Hyde Amendment disproportionately impacts low-income women and particularly women of color. According to the Guttmacher Institute, one in four women is forced to continue an unwanted pregnancy because of financial barriers. This is a clear example of systemic economic and racial injustice.
Too often, patients struggle with the brutal reality created by Hyde: knowing abortion is legally their right, yet unable to access care simply because of economic and racial injustices embedded in policy. Intersectionality helps us confront these realities honestly.
Intersectionality in My Daily Medical Practice
In my practice, I refuse to see patients as just bodies in need of procedures. They arrive with identities shaped by race, class, geography, and systemic oppression. Intersectionality guides me to treat them as whole people, ensuring that my care and advocacy address broader barriers they face.
I train fellow healthcare providers to recognize intersectional challenges and support patient autonomy beyond medical care alone. Understanding intersectionality is essential to providing genuine, equitable care.
Intersectionality, Faith, and Morality
My medical practice is my ministry. Intersectionality has deeply connected my Christian faith with my medical advocacy. Recognizing the interconnected nature of oppression guides me to confront harmful narratives around abortion and race with moral clarity. Intersectionality has empowered me to reclaim morality from those who weaponize faith to restrict reproductive freedom.
When patients express guilt or fear shaped by societal stigma, I affirm their dignity and autonomy. Intersectionality has taught me how to confront these needs compassionately, offering medical care and genuine moral support.
Why Intersectionality Matters for Policy
Intersectionality is critical in shaping fair, effective healthcare policies. We can’t simply debate individual abortion rights. We must acknowledge the systemic barriers limiting real choice. Intersectionality clarifies that abortion access without genuine accessibility—regardless of race, class, or geography—is incomplete.
I advocate publicly, urging lawmakers to create policies that recognize and dismantle intersectional injustices. Only by doing so can we truly ensure reproductive freedom.
Intersectionality Is Essential for True Justice and Liberation
Intersectionality isn’t a disconnected academic concept. Instead, it’s a call to action.
It compels me to practice medicine holistically, advocate fiercely, and live authentically. By embracing intersectionality, we commit to dismantling oppressive systems that deny people dignity, healthcare, and freedom.
Intersectionality is our key to true reproductive justice and liberation, guiding every decision I make in medicine and advocacy, and ultimately striving for a more just society.
