Complexities and Complications: Intersections of Class and Sexuality

Abstract

Here I explore some questions and dilemmas raised by considering social class, gender and sexuality within the same interconnecting research frame-work. I begin with attention to the theoretical development of intersectionality, arising from feminist conceptualisations of ‘differences that matter’, and the ways these are included in or excluded from research agendas. Exploring the limits and possibilities of intersectionality, I ask what counts as ‘intersectional’? Arguing that interconnections between class and sexuality have often been neglected in such moves, I seek to progress beyond intersectionality as a theoretical paradigm, towards understanding intersectionality as a lived experience. I draw upon research on working-class lesbian lives (Taylor, 2007a) and lesbian and gay parenting (Taylor, 2009a) to bridge the gap between theorisation of intersectionality and its research application, where inequalities are seen as more than simply a list of ‘additions’ but as multiply constitutive, complex and complicated. Although an intersectional analysis poses challenges, it remains imperative, where, as Haschemi Yekani et al. (Chapter 4, this volume) have pointed out, the task is to ‘try again’, attempted here in uncovering experiential aspects of intersectionality.