Intersectionality

A framework for understanding how different aspects of a person's identity — including disability, race, gender, class, immigration status, language, and age — interact to create unique experiences of privilege or disadvantage that cannot be understood by examining any single factor in isolation. Coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality is critical to accessibility work because people with disabilities are not a homogeneous group; a Deaf refugee woman, for example, faces barriers shaped by the combination of her disability, refugee status, and gender in ways that differ from any one of those identities alone.