Minority sexual status among minorities

As illustrated above, lesbian and bisexual women of color often find themselves at the margins of the racial, gender, and sexual orientation groups to which they belong. As members of multiple stigmatized groups, they face stigma and discrimination on multiple fronts, yet their experiences and needs are rarely fully understood or addressed in social movements and communities that focus on identity-based oppression. This lack of attention is mirrored in social science research and theory concerning marginalized social groups. Social categories such as race/ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are often treated singly as if they operated independent of one another; for a large part, separate theories and bodies of research address racial identity, gendered identities, and sexual identity, as well as racism, sexism, and heterosexism (Bowleg, 2008; Fukuyama & Ferguson, 2000; Greene, 2000; Stanley, 2004). By focusing on one identity at a time, such approaches tend to assume majority group status on other identities, representing, for example, the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) persons who are White and African Americans who are heterosexual. As a result, the experiences of women of color who are sexual minorities are neglected (Greene, 1994). © 2009 Springer-Verlag New York