What does a ‘genuine lesbian’ look like? : intersections of sexuality and ‘race’ in Manchester's Gay Village and in the UK asylum system

Held, N

Abstract

This chapter explores the ‘racialisation of sexuality’, whilst also acknowledging the intersections of sexuality and gender. The intersections of ‘race’ and sexuality are explored by using material from different projects: ethnographic research conducted in Manchester’s Gay Village and examples from grassroots activism gathered through my involvement as a volunteer for the Lesbian Immigration Support Group (LISG) in Manchester. Since the late 1970s, black feminists have stressed the importance of acknowledging that different social identities intersect. In their ‘Black Feminist Statement’, first published in 1978, the Combahee River Collective, a Boston-based, black, lesbian feminist group, argued:

The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking.

Citation

Held, N. (2015). What does a ‘genuine lesbian’ look like? : intersections of sexuality and ‘race’ in Manchester's Gay Village and in the UK asylum system. In F. Stella, Y. Taylor, T. Reynolds, & A. Rogers (Eds.), Sexuality, Citizenship and Belonging : trans-national and intersectional perspectives (131-148). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315752563-15

• Online Publication Date: Oct 23, 2015
• Publication Date: Nov 16, 2015
• Deposit Date: Oct 26, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 26, 2021
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 131-148
• Series Title: Routledge Advances in Critical Diversities
• Book Title: Sexuality, Citizenship and Belonging : trans-national and intersectional perspectives
• ISBN: 9781138805040-(hardback);-9780367348229-(paperback);-9781315752563-(ebook)
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315752563-15
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315752563-15
• Related Public URLs: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315752563; https://www.routledge.com/Sexuality-Citizenship-and-Belonging-Trans-National-and-Intersectional/Stella-Taylor-Reynolds-Rogers/p/book/9780367348229
• Additional Information: Access Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Sexuality, Citizenship and Belonging : trans-national and intersectional perspectives on 16th November 2015, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138805040