Social Identities

Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture

ISSN: 1350-4630 (Print) 1363-0296 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/csid20

Thinking outside the rainbow: women of color

redefining queer politics and identity

Sabrina Alimahomed

To cite this article: Sabrina Alimahomed (2010) Thinking outside the rainbow: women
of color redefining queer politics and identity, Social Identities, 16:2, 151-168, DOI:
10.1080/13504631003688849

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504631003688849

Published online: 22 Mar 2010.

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Social Identities
Vol. 16, No. 2, March 2010, 151
168

Thinking outside the rainbow: women of color redefining

queer politics and identity
Sabrina Alimahomed*

Sociology Department, University of California, Riverside, USA

(Received 24 October 2008; final version received 3 August 2009)

This research explores the numerous ways queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific
Islander women are marginalized in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) movement and their racial/ethnic communities in regards to their
intersecting, subordinate identities. Through in-depth interviews with 25 queer
identified women and ethnographic observation at Gay Pride events, this research
examines how the women interviewed make sense of their overlapping oppres-
sions as they affect and frame their experiences and shape their identities. By
integrating Collins’ notion of the outsider-within along with Sandoval’s concept
of differential oppositional consciousness, I assert that queer Latinas and Asian/
Pacific Islander women experience marginality within the mainstream LGBT
movement primarily as a function of invisibility that serves simultaneously as a
source of alienation and empowerment, ultimately serving to challenge hegemo-
nic notions of queer identity and politics.
Keywords: queer politics; women of color; intersectionality; race; lesbians

Introduction
Queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women experience multiple intersecting
oppressions that position them on the margins of society. As people who
simultaneously experience oppression based upon their gender, race, and sexuality,
it is imperative to examine the ways these women make sense of these overlapping
oppressions as they affect and frame their experiences and shape their identities. In
understanding the pressures to traverse community contexts that are often
conflicting, these women utilize different strategies to voice their marginalization.
Within sociology there is a dearth of empirical research that privileges the
experiences of queer women who are subordinated by intersecting structures of
domination. Schneider and Dalton (1996, p. 186) assert ‘at present, there seems to be
no research by sociologists in the United States that is focused exclusively on lesbians
of color’. The lack of research accorded to studying these women’s experiences
therefore paints an incomplete picture of inequality. In light of this void, there is a
need to understand the complexities of race, gender, sexuality, and class as they
produce and sustain intersecting systems of subordination in order to theorize the
complex way oppression operates in society.

*Email: alimahomed@aol.com
ISSN 1350-4630 print/ISSN 1363-0296 online
# 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13504631003688849
http://www.informaworld.com
152 S. Alimahomed

Using an intersectional framework, this paper centers the perspectives of queer

Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women in order to offer insight into the ways
race, class, and gender shape the representation and politics of the queer movement
and queer identities. This paper moves the margin, in this case queer women of color,
to the center in order to demonstrate the ways queer politics and identity are shaped
by various axes of inequality; thereby challenging dominant discourses and practices
that privilege middle class, white, gay men as the normative and authentic queer.
Collins (2004) argues that black women offer a distinct angle of vision as
‘outsiders within’ intellectual fields of inquiry that historically marginalized black
women’s voices. Similarly, this paper argues that queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific
Islander women can offer a distinct angle of vision as ‘outsiders within’ the lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community and within their own racial/ethnic
communities. Their queerness negates their full inclusion within their own racial/
ethnic community due to homophobia. Moreover, racism within the LGBT move-
ment marginalizes their experiences and perpetually leaves them as outsiders. This
marginalization, while painful, also produces dissident knowledge that can challenge
and resist normative conceptions of what it means to be queer, Latina, or Asian.
This paper empirically examines these theoretical concerns through qualitative
research that combines ethnographic participant observation of LGBT events and
in-depth interviews with a diverse range of women. This research will shed light on
how queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women articulate their margin-
alization and how they actively resist notions of hegemonic gender, race/ethnic, class,
and queer representations within the broader LGBT movement. This research is
intended to shift the way queer issues are conceptualized from hegemonic positions
(i.e. privileged axes of whiteness, middle-classness, and maleness) to those issues that
are most pressing for marginalized people.

Exclusion in the feminist movement

In recent decades intersectionality theory has become an important paradigm shift in
bridging the fields of study of race, gender, class, and sexuality. Prior to the
theoretical contribution of intersectionality, the scholarly cannons of race, gender,
class, and sexuality were once presumed to be separate and distinct from one another
and little theoretical consideration was given to the ways these systems of power
overlapped (Ferguson, 2007). In other words, women of color both in social
movements and knowledge production were excluded. In response to this exclusion,
feminist women of color theorized the multiple shifting intersections of race, class,
and gender inequality both as a form of resistance and as a new epistemological
framework (Combahee River Collective, 1979[1977]; Crenshaw, 1994; Davis, 1983;
hooks, 1981; Moraga & Anzaldúa, 1981; Yamada, 2005). As a population that was
formally excluded by traditional scholars, theories of intersectionality, honed from
the standpoint of women of color, offered new ways of understanding the
intersections of oppression and privilege within society. Women of color who were
involved in the progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s (e.g. the feminist
movement, or the Civil Rights movement) pointed to the ways they experienced
multiple oppressions simultaneously, contrary to the experiences of white women
and men of color, for whom race or gender was often their primary and only concern
(Hull, Scott, & Smith, 1982).
 Social Identities 153

Within the field of sociology, intersectionality is theorized as interlocking systems

of oppression and privilege (Baca Zinn & Dill, 1994; Collins, 1990; King, 1988).
King (1988) and Collins (1990) attempt to correct additive models that treat race and
gender separately by proposing models that view different oppressions as interlock-
ing. While intersectionality primarily focused on the inclusion of race, class, and
gender in its analysis, other dimensions such as age, citizenship and religion are also
important factors shaping privilege and oppression among members in society.
Therefore, intersectionality can be used as a methodological tool to locate the
particular nexus in which various axes of inequality intersect.

Exclusion in the LGBT movement

Theorists have been critical of the ways gays and lesbians who are working class and/
or people of color are marginalized within the gay and lesbian movement
(Armstrong, 2002; Boykin, 2000; Han, 2007; Vaid, 1996; Ward, 2008). As marginal
members of multiple communities, lesbians of color questioned the universality of a
gay identity. The gay movement had produced an irreconcilable tension in which
asserting one’s gay identity also meant putting forth a prefigurative, single identity
politic (Armstrong, 2002). Lesbians of color criticized the dominant narrative that
privileged gay as the master identity, instead stressing the interconnectedness of race,
gender, sexuality, and class identities. Brekhus (2003) argues that privileging gay as a
master identity is problematic in its common assumption that everyone experiences
being gay in the same way. The measurability of being gay is projected as a
continuum in which one is more authentically gay if one is a highly visible subject
and displays shared characteristics that are presumably an outgrowth of one’s gay
identity. However, one is ‘less authentically gay or even a ‘‘self denying gay’’ if he is
closeted, invisible, or shows few auxiliary characteristics associated with gayness’
(p. 12). An underlying social logic privileges those people who are able to project gay
as their master status as the authentic queer.
Lesbians of color were excluded by gay and lesbian organizations, a result
of pervasive whiteness and its collusion in an agenda that disregarded the interests
of gays and lesbians of color (Han, 2007). As a result, the concerns of lesbians of
color were often dismissed and seen as peripheral to the mainstream gay agenda.
Issues of race, gender, and class exploitation, which were central to the lives of lesbians
of color, were seen as irrelevant to the mainstream movement (Vaid, 1996).
The sexism within the gay and lesbian movement forced many white lesbians to
create a separate lesbian feminist community. In contrast, lesbians of color were
forced to deal with their exclusion from the women’s movement, gay movement, and
subsequently the lesbian community. The movement of lesbian separatism privileged
the identities of white, middle class women (Burstin, 1999; Stein, 1992). Further-
more, ‘women of color, in particular, often felt that they were forced to pick and
choose among identities’ in which they ‘resisted pressures to make lesbianism their
‘‘dominant’’ or ‘‘master’’ identity’ (Stein, 1992, p. 558). Historically, hegemonic
lesbian feminism echoed the sentiment that issues of race and class should play a
secondary role to the ‘main’ movement identities, thereby erasing the intersectional
experiences of queer women of color. Lesbians of color advocated a multi-issue
social justice politics that combated sexism, racism, homophobia, and class
154 S. Alimahomed

exploitation and critiqued lesbian separatism as a strategy of lesbian empowerment

(Combahee River Collective, 1979[1977]).

The resistance of queer women of color

Alarcón (1990) argues that the theoretical subject espoused in This Bridge Called My
Back calls for a multiple, shifting subject position that is created outside of the either/
or binary constructions of dominant/subordinate categories of power (i.e. men/
women, straight/gay, white/black, rich/poor). By utilizing a multiple, shifting
subjectivity, queer women of color are able to challenge different modes of
domination. Instead of being restricted to a particular binary position that only
challenges one axis of domination, they are able to shift their subject position when
power is exercised to critique any form of domination that arises (Sandoval, 2004).
Queer women of color who embrace their marginality utilize an oppositional
consciousness.
The invisibility of queer women of color is both a product of domination and also
an unscripted resistance to ideologies about race, gender, sexuality. Their invisibility
translates to a flexibility that challenges allegiance to any one space or political
position, which offers room to maneuver. If one is not seen, then one is not registered
as a threat, which can be painful but it also offer avenues to provide alternative
definitions of organizing and notions of queerness. This source of marginality
provides a space to rethink the relationships between the constraining politics of
heterosexism, racism, sexism and classism by crafting alternative meanings of what it
means to be queer and a woman of color.
This position also allows for the possibility to create a new kind of queer politics.
It is a political intervention that is rooted in tactical subjectivity which explores
invisibility as a source of oppression as well as an unknown space to fashion
alternative modes of resistance. The margin is a sign of domination but
simultaneously a site of radical resistance (hooks, 2004). Marginalization produces
alternative knowledge formations and representations of resistance. ‘I am not
speaking of a marginality one wishes to lose
to give up or surrender as part of
moving into the center
but rather of a site one stays in, clings to even, because it
nourishes one’s capacity to resist’ (p. 157). Queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander
women use their invisibility as a location in which to register their marginality as well
as their resistance to assimilate into the core of queer and racial politics. The
racialized constructions of Latina and Asian women are underscored by notions of
the foreign-alien ‘Other’, which contributes to their collective invisibility to be
recognized as queer. Their presumed foreignness posits them as temporary and
ephemeral subjects. It is precisely their ‘not really here nor there’ subject location that
shapes their exclusion and frames their creative ability to resist. Their mobile politic
makes it difficult for the social order to register. It also means that their resistance is
not codified as hegemonic and has the potential to disrupt dominant discourses of
queerness and representations as authentic racial subjects. ‘The differential mode of
oppositional consciousness depends upon the ability to read the current situation
of power and self consciously choosing and adopting the ideological form best suited
to push against its configurations’ (Sandoval, 2004, p. 204). Therefore, differential
oppositional consciousness is a flexible strategy that allows for the analysis of the
 Social Identities 155

particularity of domination in any given situation, thereby opening up the possibility

to assume a position in response to that domination.

Outsiders-within the LGBT movement: Invisibility as both marginality and resistance

The data in this study suggest that race, gender and class inequality in the LGBT
movement has undergone a distinct shift. In the past, exclusion was a central aspect
contributing to the marginalization of queer women of color. The exclusion of
women of color in the early feminist movement was a result of segregation and
explicit forms of racial inequality (hooks, 1981). The primary source of margin-
alization experienced by lesbians of color in the early gay movement was also the
result of their collective and systematic exclusion (Armstrong, 2002). However, it is
well documented that efforts have been made to challenge explicit forms of
domination and inequality within the LGBT movement (Stockdill, 2003; Vaid,
1996; Ward, 2008). However, Vaid (1996) argues that within the gay and lesbian
movement these concerns have centered on representation or token inclusion as
opposed to a fundamental revision of programs, policies, and politics that take into
account the concerns of marginalized queers.
In today’s LGBT movement, women of color are no longer formally excluded;
instead they face an array of less explicit forms of marginality within the movement.
That is, the present relegation of women of color to the margins of the LGBT
movement is not the result of an explicit form of exclusion, but instead is the
outcome of an unmarked, yet pervasive form of invisibility. By integrating Collins
(2004) notion of the outsider-within along with Sandoval’s (2004) concept of
differential oppositional consciousness, I assert that queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific
Islander women experience marginality within the mainstream LGBT movement
primarily as a function of invisibility that serves simultaneously as a source of
alienation and empowerment ultimately serving to challenge hegemonic notions of
queer identity and politics.
This paper argues that queer women of color use their invisibility as a site to
highlight their experiences of marginalization as well to resist dominant conceptions
of what it means to be queer, Asian, and Latina. The construction of gayness as
white contributes to the invisibility of queer women of color within not only the gay
and lesbian community, but also their own racial-ethnic communities. This
invisibility translates to an inability to meet, express, and mobilize around the
particular needs of queer women of color. Therefore, an embracement of their
subject positions as invisible ‘outsiders-within’ actively decenters gay as a universal
identity and its concomitant projects that privilege this perspective.
What links today’s younger generation of queer women of color with previous
generations of queer women of color is a collective sense of marginalization.
However, exclusion is no longer the predominate critique underlying the margin-
alization of today’s queer women of color as was the case with previous generations.
Instead, invisibility
not exclusion
is the theme by which today’s queer women of
color voice their marginalization within the LGBT movement. Invisibility is thus a
recurrent theme linking the marginalization of queer Latina and Asian/Pacific
Islander women in the following arenas: (1) the coming out process; (2) representa-
tion; (3) politics; and (4), structures and organizations.
156 S. Alimahomed

Methods
For this study, ethnographic data were collected over the course of one year spanning
from 2004 to 2005. The data gathered utilized participant observation at Gay Pride
events both in Los Angeles and San Francisco in order to understand the climate of
the LGBT community, given that Gay Pride is the primary focal representation of
the mainstream LGBT community. In addition to attending Pride events, I
conducted a series of informal interviews with representatives from five LGBT
organizations in Los Angeles. Four of these representatives were from queer
organizations that catered to people of color and one was from a mainstream
LGBT organization. I interviewed representatives of these organizations at LA Pride.
Along with immersing myself in the field of study, I also conducted 25 in-depth semi-
structured interviews with queer-identified Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander
women.
The interviewees in this study were solicited through two methodological
techniques. Many of the queer women were contacted utilizing a snowball method,
in which primary contacts were made with women who vocally identified as queer
who were active in gay and lesbian organizing efforts that were known to the
researcher. During these interviews, the women were asked if they knew of others
who would be interested in being interviewed for this study. The remaining
interviewees were gathered through an announcement on an online community
forum, Craigslist, which delineates a portion of its site to personal advertisements.
Since Craigslist has an active ‘women seeking women’ section, this serves as
important cyber-community where queer women post events, personals, and threads
of conversation.
In terms of the demographic makeup, the interviewees were asked to freely self
identify their class, gender, sexuality, age, and race in any way they felt most
comfortable. Since the intent of this study was to gather a diversity of voices, the
term ‘queer’ is used to encompass women who identified as bisexual and lesbian.
Many women who were bisexual and lesbian also used the term queer interchange-
ably when discussing their experiences. In terms of the descriptive label of women,
the interviewees all identified as women who were either non-transgender or
genderqueer. The primary racial identification of women was self described by
interviewees as Chicana, Latina, mixed race, or Asian/Pacific Islander. Women who
were sampled drew upon a variety of national, ethnic, and racial identifications in
which several of these identifications were used interchangeably, or at different times
in the interviews. These identifications encompassed the following: Chinese, Mestiza,
Sri Lankan, Guatemalan, Indian, Latina, Korean, Mexican, Asian, Colombian,
Vietnamese, Chicana, Filipina, and mixed race. The women sampled ranged from
immigrant, first generation, 1.5 generation, second generation, and third genera-
tion.1 The age range of the interviewees was 18
33 years old. The class background
of the interviewees was self reported and all identified as either working class, middle
class, or upper middle class.2
The possibilities of internal contradictions and contestations within identity
categories remains an important site of investigation and it was the intent of this
study to see these categories as conflictual, fluid, and hybrid so as to allow for the
possibilities of self articulation of intersectionality and marginality. Additionally,
since this study is exploratory it was most useful to gather a diversity of voices that
 Social Identities 157

could shed insight into the multi-dimensional aspects of marginality along the lines
of class, gender, race, and sexuality.
The in-depth interviews ranged from 1.5
3 hours and occurred in the places
where respondents felt most comfortable, including coffee shops, parks, schools, and
the interviewees’ homes. All of the women interviewed resided in California at the
time of the interview; either in Los Angeles or San Francisco Bay area. There was an
interview guide used, and depending upon what seemed most relevant to the
interviewee, topics were probed in more depth. Two of the interviews were conducted
over the phone when travel arrangements could not be made to meet in person. The
responses were recorded by typing on the computer while conducting each interview.
Some interviewees chose to look over their responses immediately following the
interview to add or clarify any of their comments.
While attending Gay Pride events, I observed the spatial arrangement, demo-
graphic representation, organizational booths, corporate sponsorship, food, music,
speakers, location, and cost of attendance of these events. I collected any materials
that were distributed at the event by organizers and attendees. The ethnographic
observation of all these aspects illustrated a comprehensive overlay of Gay Pride as it
occurred in these locations.

Resisting dominant ‘coming out’ narratives

The women I interviewed grappled with being recognized as queer subjects in
multiple spaces. Being ‘out’ extended beyond assumptions of pride in expressing
their sexuality, but also included complex resistance strategies combatting singular
identity politics. The resistance to declare that one is ‘out of the closet’ hinged on an
array of political decisions. Jenny discusses the difficulty in privileging her lesbian
identity because of the cost of invisibility to other parts of her political identities as a
person of color, immigrant, and working class person:
Among [white] LGBT folks, they were always like ‘why aren’t you wearing rainbows and
saying you’re a proud lesbian?’ I am who I am. I fit into so many categories. I don’t want
to just say one thing about me. It’s like when you say you are gay, it’s like everything is
gay, and that’s all I am to them. I don’t want to be seen as just one thing. (Jenny,
genderqueer, mixed race, working class, 25 years old)

Jenny further demonstrates that being out as a lesbian might inhibit the recognition
of her intersectional identity as a queer, mixed race, working class woman. The
refusal to be categorized in terms of a singular positionality, in this case as a lesbian,
is a strategy to resist mainstream, white conceptions of queerness. If a lesbian of
color refuses to wear rainbows it is often assumed that she is ashamed of her sexual
identity. This narrow conception fails to account for the fact that the refusal to wear
rainbows is a purposeful act to resist hegemonic notions of a queer identity.
Similarly, Marcia voices concern about being accepted in her entirety if she
declares herself as out of the closet. Marcia states, ‘I don’t consider myself ‘‘in’’, but
I don’t make an announcement that I am gay. Coming out is complicated. It’s so
difficult having a triple minority status because getting accepted in all of those ways
is very hard’ (Marcia, lesbian, Latina, working class, 33 years old). Marcia expresses
her unease with discussing her sexuality for fear that other people will not
understand her specific intersectional identity. Her lesbian identity is complicated
158 S. Alimahomed

by her other subordinate statuses in society both as a woman and as a person of

color. Despite the notion that queer people do not come out of the closet for fear of
homophobic backlash in communities of color, Marcia’s comments lead us to a
much more complicated coming-out process. Marcia’s reluctance to disclose her
sexuality stems from the difficulty of being able to discuss the myriad ways she feels
marginalized.
The difficulty in traversing the in/out dichotomy is apparent in Rochelle’s
comments as well. Rochelle discloses,
I expose different parts of myself in different communities. There are a lot of other parts
of me I want them to know and I don’t want them to fixate on that one thing. There are
already so many layers I am dealing with. It’s so complex. Once it’s put out there, there’s
a focus on that. There are so many other parts to me. Coming out as queer is always
within an exchange. I don’t go out there waving my rainbow flag. (Rochelle, queer
Filipina, working class, 26 years old)

Rochelle conveys a similar concern to Jenny’s comments in regards to her reluctance

to wave a rainbow flag. The flag assumes the privileging of lesbian identity and
celebrates the individual declaration of being out as queer. The refusal to be seen as
one thing is not simply a desire to be read as whole, but also a way of resisting the
pressure to collude with the universal, hegemonic queer coming out story. They
choose to utilize an oppositional strategy that refuses to conform to the dominant
narrative and instead opt to find situations in which they can voice the multiplicity of
their experiences.
Takagi (1994) demonstrates that her lack of visible, lesbian identifying
characteristics is an outgrowth of her dual identity as Asian American and lesbian.
There are so many different and subtle ways to come out. I am not much of a queer
nation type, an ‘in your face’ queer
I catalogue my own brand of lesbian identity as a
kind of Asian American ‘take’ on gay identity. I do not wear pink triangles, have photos
of girls kissing in my living room, or make a point of bringing up my girlfriend in
conversation. In effect, my sexual identity is often backgrounded or stored somewhere
in between domains of public and private. (p. 28)

Takagi illustrates the ways being Asian American shapes her gay identity. More
specifically, she equates being an ‘in your face queer’ as being in opposition to what it
means to be Asian American. Therefore, gay identity and coming out has been
constructed as a phenomenon that has not been expressed through the eyes of Asian
Americans (Eng & Hom, 1998). The relevance of Takagi’s observations questions the
unmarked whiteness in the visible expression of gay pride.
Refusing to represent one’s sexuality through the symbolism of the rainbow flag
destabilizes the notion of what it means to be a proud queer person. Furthermore,
being out moves beyond a stable, fixed identity and is instead representative of a
mutual exchange in which being out is negotiated depending upon one’s social
context. These women are prudent in reading differing reactions, situations, and
community contexts in order to adapt in a way that reflects their own political and
personal identity. While people in general negotiate their identities depending on
their social context (Brekhus, 2003), these women demonstrate that their negotiation
is based upon more than just everyday situational contexts, but also an adoption of a
particular oppositional politic that stresses the interconnectedness of their marked
and subordinate identities. The choice to reveal some parts while concealing other
 Social Identities 159

parts of their identity further indicates the agency these women hold in social
exchanges. It is evident in their interpretations that they control their own
representation of themselves in the eyes of the perceiver and simultaneously reject
a monolithic identity based upon a single axis of oppression.

Representation as invisibility
Broader racial and gender stereotypes of Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women
as traditional, conservative and foreign contribute to their invisibility within LGBT
spaces. This invisibility presents both a significant problem in being read as queer,
but also an opportunity to create new queer expressions. It is difficult for queer
Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women to gain visibility among their white
counterparts. Thus, visibility in the LGBT movement is connected to whiteness in the
eyes of queer women of color. White women’s queer expressions are the measuring
stick by which all non-white women are compared. Moreover, when women don’t
conform to the dominant, recognizable queer (white) forms of expression, they
become demarcated as inauthentic queers and thus rendered invisible within LGBT
spaces.3 ‘[M]ost lesbian communities make evaluations according to white American
hegemonic norms for gender and white lesbian standards for femme/butch identities,
thus distorting, or simply being unaware of, the cultural differences’ (Lee, 1996,
p. 124). Thus, non-white women’s gender expressions are only read against the
backdrop of white lesbians’ interpretations of gender and sexuality. Karen notes her
invisibility as a butch Korean woman,
Asians are seen in general as more passive, in comparison to white culture. I experience
different dimensions of invisibility. Just being Asian you’re not really noticed. At least in
LA, in mostly female spaces, being an Asian butch is being invisible. This is very
frustrating for me. But, sometimes it allows me to be who I am. So when it comes to
dating, culturally, I might treat a woman differently than a white butch. I don’t feel
pressure to be hard and aggressive. (Karen, queer Korean American, upper-middle
class, 29 years old)

Karen mentions her invisibility because being both Asian and butch references the
racial and gender construction of Asian Americans as passive (Espiritu, 1997).
Karen’s invisibility is paradoxical in that she is not read as butch in queer spaces, but
her invisibility allows her to redefine butchness as being limited to being ‘hard and
aggressive’. Through her invisibility, she finds empowerment by identifying with her
Korean cultural interpretation of what it means to be a butch.
In a similar vein, Nellie highlights her invisibility as a femme at queer events due
to the racial and gender construction of Asian/Pacific Islander women as foreign and
traditional. She notes,
There are lipstick lesbians at these gay events, but they are white. And they have
the privilege to be more accepted. But if I dress femme then I am read as straight
because white women see us as traditional or conservative. There is something about our
culture that keeps us from being queer in their minds. Or they just ask me constantly:
‘what country are you from?’ (Nellie, bisexual Filipina, working class, 21 years old)

Nellie points out that the definition of femme as it is currently normalized among
white lesbians prevents her from being recognized as queer. The inability to be read
as a queer femme is a direct result of the white racial frame of the LGBT movement.
160 S. Alimahomed

White femmes experience acceptance easier than her because Asian/Pacific Islander
women are perceived as foreign, and as immigrants from countries that are viewed as
politically and culturally conservative. Therefore, Asian/Pacific Islander women and
Latinas, especially immigrants, are not afforded the same range of choices in how
they construct and express their queerness which often leads them to be looked over
as queer because they do not mimic the normative construction of white queers.
Martha clearly points to this problematic construction of invisibility as an outcome
of her immigrant status: ‘White people think it’s not possible to be from Guatemala
and be gay. It’s like you’re from a Third world country: ‘‘oh you can’t possibly be
gay!’’ Part of it is being white and privileged in America and having these notions
about the exotic woman who is poor and miserable anywhere but in the States’
(Martha, queer, Latina, working class, 23 years old). This dichotomy projects Third
World women as an opposing category to women in the West (Mohanty, 2003). This
conception further solidifies the idea that the US is more liberated than the Global
South in terms of dealing with freedom to express one’s sexuality (Ferguson, 2007).
It also marginalizes women from the Global South in current political conceptions of
sexuality within the US. It signals a demarcation of territory and space, in which
Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women are seen in opposition to authentic
Western lesbian identity.
Similarly, Los Angeles Gay Pride echoed a similar logic where groups targeting
Asian/Pacific Islanders were clustered together under the banner ‘Asian Pacific
Islander Village’ within the event itself. The use of the term ‘village’ as a banner
naming groups that primarily served Asian/Pacific Islanders reinforces a colonial
logic that assumes these groups are not part of the modern, Western nation but
instead implies that they are somehow less advanced and originate in the Third
World given the fact that villages do not exist in industrialized nations. The concept
of the village also reifies the outsider status of Asian/Pacific Islanders and
emphasizes their location as outside the mainstream and implies that there is
something traditional about their location within the gay and lesbian movement and
within Gay Pride itself.
Although the women interviewed voiced intense frustration at being invisible at
queer events and social spaces, they also utilized strategies to resist marginalization.
Emma comments, ‘A couple of friends of mine and me were coming back from Pride,
and we were so fed up with the ignorance there. We decided to start a zine by and for
Latin American lesbians, so no one else could ever say we didn’t exist again’ (Emma,
queer Latina, middle class, 22). The invisibility of Emma and her friends as queer
immigrants from Latin America was used to challenge and empower themselves to
claim and assert their interpretation of queer identity.

Politics of invisibility
Due to the multiple axes of stratification queer women of color experience, it is
difficult for many of them to ally themselves with mainstream organizations. Since
the priority of many organizations focus on only one aspect of inequality, whether it
is sexuality, race, gender, or class; women who occupy multiple positions of
subordination face difficulties in voicing their intersectional experiences. The
marginalization of their experiences is attributable to the collective invisibility of
their concerns. I asked Marcia if she is involved in any organizations and if so, how
 Social Identities 161

does she feel being a member of those groups. Marcia comments on her involvement
in both a queer women’s group and an immigrant rights group,
I feel like my opinion is not valid a lot of times. My labels are too many. My mom was a
migrant worker but, because I am gay, I don’t have the authority to speak in certain
groups or on behalf of people. I just feel like people don’t see me. I feel like I am a
walking billboard. But the world doesn’t see me because I don’t look Latina enough
because I’m gay. Or I don’t look gay enough ‘cause I am Latina. (Marcia, lesbian
Latina, working class, 33 years old)

Marcia illustrates her invisibility in working within particular organizations.

Marcia’s experiences point to the erasure of her voice because she does not fit the
hegemonic mold of what is means to be lesbian or Latina. Since her presence defies
many mainstream conceptions of being lesbian or Latina she is seen as an outsider to
both groups. This outsider status erases the authority of her experiences with most
groups she chooses to be involved with politically. Furthermore, when choosing to be
part of any organization at least one part of her identity is relegated as invisible.
Similarly, Sylvia notes the forced invisibility of her particular identities depending
upon the organization she attends: ‘Here there is the Mexican group, part of your
identity is going to be segregated because of your queerness, and if you go to a gay
group it’s like you have to leave your Mexican side over there. The issues they are
focused on are not my issues’ (Sylvia, lesbian Chicana, working class, 20 years old).
Sylvia’s observations challenge her invisibility in both spaces. She draws upon her
marginality to challenge the type and choice of issues pursued in each group. The
result of being marginalized in both one’s racial/ethnic community and within LGBT
organizations provides an opportunity to focus on the issues they envision as most
pressing. ‘I never stick with any one group for too long. I have to move on to work on
new issues. It keeps momentum for my organizing if I don’t have any loyalty to a
particular group’ (Teresa, genderqueer Asian, working class, 23). Teresa fashions a
different approach to organizing that draws upon her distance as an ‘outsider within’
each group; thereby relying on disloyalty and mobility as a tactic of organizing.
Despite her frustration, she uses her political transiency as a source of opportunity
to keep active in different organizing efforts.
The marginalization of queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women from the
mainstream queer political agenda was vocalized in several ways. One of the most
notable mainstream queer issues that has received widespread national attention is
the issue of gay marriage. Erika demonstrates how this myopic focus leads to a lack
of political integration of queer Chicanas/os into the larger queer community.
According to Erika,
I don’t make a point to go to certain organizations because there is not an agenda to
organize ourselves politically. The only agenda is queer marriage. There are people who
don’t even have the papers to be living here legally, even though they have been living
here for many years. Same-sex marriage is not among my top five agenda items. (Erika,
queer Chicana, working class, 27 years old)

Erika points out the problems with focusing on single-issues such as gay marriage
without considering the issue of citizenship status as a prerequisite for marriage.
Boykin (2000) problematizes the priority of gay marriage within the LGBT
movement, noting the movement’s lack of commitment in combating issues of class
162 S. Alimahomed

and race exploitation. The mainstream gay agenda has served white men’s interests
more than any other population (Armstrong, 2002; Bérubé, 2001). The sole focus on
marriage precludes those members of the queer community who perceive more
immediate issues such as threats of deportation and lack of citizenship as important
barriers to their social and economic standing. Furthermore, the issue of citizenship
extends beyond her identity as queer to include the racial and class injustices that
plague her particular community.
The attempt to keep one’s individual identity intact when working within
political organizations requires tremendous effort. Queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific
Islander women rely on a politic of mobility to traverse various political
organizations where one is marginalized in all areas. It is challenging for these
women to carve out space that allows the totality of the expression of their personal
and political identities. At times, this marginalization operates in a contradictory
fashion as Susan points out,
Gayness is very white. In the white community everything has always been geared to the
white population. At the same time in people of color communities the families will not
recognize that you are gay because it is a white thing. Being queer is being kind of
hidden. It’s harder to find your place as a queer woman of color. (Susan, lesbian Korean
American, middle class, 25 years old)

Susan is able to voice her concern over the binary opposition she experiences in being
queer and Korean American. She encounters a dual erasure of her experiences
because of the perceived whiteness of the gay community. She is seen as whitewashed
by her family if she identifies as queer. Additionally, since the mainstream LGBT
community has primarily catered to a white population she feels invisible as a
Korean American. The invisibility in both spaces leads to a qualitatively different
experience of being queer in and of itself. Therefore, being queer for Susan is to be
hidden as her experiences in both the LGBT community and her family lead to this
conclusion. However, the presence of queer Asian/Pacific Islander women and
Latinas in either political sphere directly undermines the homophobia of their own
community and the racism of the LGBT community. The relentless effort of these
women to remain heard and seen in their totality is a challenge to the current
discursive practices that seek to marginalize their experiences.
Many women expressed the limitations of the queer community’s politics as a
function of class and race configurations. Sylvia notes, ‘The West Hollywood scene
has no room for brown people. That community can only be fluent in one language.
You have to have money to go there. You have to wear trendy stuff. It’s a box that
says this is how we have a community for gays, but it’s a world of fine dining’ (Sylvia,
lesbian Chicana, working class, 20 years old). The gayborhood nestled in West
Hollywood poses class and racial conflicts for those who do not occupy positions of
privilege. The historical formation of LGBT spaces hold class and race implications
that conflict with the political interests of many queer, working class Latinas and
Asian/Pacific Islander women. Many of these women critique the establishment of
these communities as focal points of privilege and oppression and they refuse to
remain complicit with these agendas. The San Francisco Bay area poses problems
similar to West Hollywood because of its complicity in the gentrification of
communities of color. This conflict is illustrated in Rochelle’s comments,
 Social Identities 163

In Oakland they are trying to make part of it like the Castro, but there are different
issues at hand, like the gentrification of poor people of color. I don’t necessarily see the
Castro as something for me. It is for white men and if they weren’t gay they would be
Republican. Queer issues haven’t dealt with class issues or race issues. A lot of the issues
right now in the queer community don’t apply to me because of this disconnect with
race and class. I feel like I am down for the people in Oakland not for the folks who are
trying to change this whole space. (Rochelle, queer Filipina, working class, 26 years old)

Rochelle demonstrates that being queer does not necessarily translate to a progressive
stance in terms of combating racial and/or class oppression. Rochelle’s identity
allows her the ability to see the consequences of aligning with the mainstream queer
community’s capitalist agenda. Even though she is queer, she resists identifying with
the economic political agenda that seeks to marginalize people within her own
community. Most importantly, she is able to articulate the conflict of interest that her
positionality, and subsequent politics pose because she identifies as a queer, working
class person of color. Given her multiple political identities, it makes it difficult for
her to participate fully in the mainstream LGBT movement because of their
complicity in oppression.

Structures of invisibility
There was not a single organization at either San Francisco Pride or Los Angeles
Pride that primarily served queer Asian/Pacific Islander women or Latinas. It is not
to say that the absence of such groups indicates that there are not accessible spaces
for these women, but that the lack of any such group in the midst of an abundance of
identity-based organizations is theoretically important. While race or gender (i.e.
lesbian support groups or queer of color support groups) are common organizing
structures that are used as the basis of services within numerous organizations, it
should beg the question: ‘why aren’t race and gender groups as common as singular
identity-based groups?’ The primacy of these modes of organizing structures alludes
to a binary polarization around race and gender present within the LGBT
community.
When I interviewed some of the representatives of racial/ethnic queer organiza-
tions regarding their services for either queer Latinas or Asian/Pacific Islander
women, there was an inability to account for the lack of services provided for these
groups. Mike, a representative of an Asian/Pacific Islander LGBT organization
mentioned,
We don’t have any programs for women. We just haven’t had the time where we can do
that yet. [How long have you been around?] We’ve been around for about 10 or 15 years.
I guess we don’t do a good job of reaching out to women. It’s not our focus. There are
other groups for that. [What are those?] Umm, well, you know, I guess I can’t think of
one right now, but I am sure there are lots.

It is important to note that this particular organization’s literature, booth, and name
purported to serve the entire Asian/Pacific Islander community. It appears that the
absence of women seemed to be irrelevant to the organization’s aims. Queer Asian/
Pacific Islander women were viewed as transient members of existing organizations
and their absence was further used as a legitimating factor in their marginalization.
164 S. Alimahomed

There was also a lack of visibility within larger mainstream organizations. When
I asked one of the representatives of a premier mainstream LGBT organization about
whether they had any programs for women of color in general, Kim, a white woman
responded defensively, ‘What do you mean by that? [Do you have anything
specifically for Latinas, Asian American, African American, or Indigenous women?]
We have services for women regardless of their ethnicity. We have stuff for them.
Here’s a list for all the groups and services’. There is a binary dichotomy set up that
reinforces the idea that one is either a woman or a person of color. Services
ultimately exist to only cater to either population and assume that the concerns of
women of color can be integrated into either category of service. Karen, a queer
Korean American, highlights the dual marginalization that she experiences as a
person of color within mainstream LGBT organizational infrastructures as well as
queer of color organizations. Karen states,
A lot of services and money are put into the white communities. Any services that are
for people of color are targeted for men and the only money is for HIV services. They
don’t see a need to educate women of color. When you hear all the funding requests for
substance abuse and mental health stuff I never see anything that wants to give money
to queer people of color. That might be different for an agency that was white and deals
with substance abuse issues and mental health. (Karen, queer Korean American, upper-
middle class, 29 years old)

Karen’s experiences illustrate the lack of funding in general that is funneled to queer
people of color organizations. Additionally, she also remarks that the funding
allotted for communities of color is restricted to HIV services which severely inhibits
the development of programs for queer women of color. Since lesbians are not
considered high risk populations for HIV/AIDS transmission, it is difficult to secure
funding within organizations that receive money primarily dealing with HIV/AIDS.
Another important point that Karen alludes to is that queer people of color are not
prioritized as much as queer white people in other organizations that deal with issues
such as mental health and substance abuse. Implicitly, queer people of color are not
viewed as either being queer or are not seen as a visible population deserving of
funding for any issues unrelated to HIV/AIDS. In general, there is a scarcity of
resources that are allotted to the LGBT community, but among the resources
distributed it is unequal. This is not just an issue of racism and sexism within the
queer community, but is deeply connected to the lack of funding of for LGBT
organizations. Heterosexism is the main driving force behind the minimal funding
for LGBT organizations. These organizations are also restricted in the amount of
funding they receive from outside donors. Unfortunately, for queer women of color,
the intersections of homophobia, racism, and sexism within these various funding
structures leaves them in a particular precarious situation.
Some might argue that the invisibility of queer women of color among
organizational structures and services is a result of their numerical minority in the
broader LGBT population. However, in regions where they constitute the numerical
majority it seems that they are still not visibly represented or served compared to
their more privileged counterparts. An example that illustrates this point is the case
of Justine, who is a queer Latina student activist at a large university in California.
Upon attending a women’s queer support group at the campus LGBT Center she
voiced her concern about the whiteness of the LGBT Center: ‘I said to the director:
 Social Identities 165

‘‘how come that at a people of color majority campus [eighty percent people of
color], you don’t have any staff of color or support groups for women of color?’’ The
director just looked at me, dumbfounded and confused. She replied: ‘‘I never
thought of it that way’’’ (Justine, Chicana lesbian, middle class, 19). Justine relayed
to me that, based on her university demographic data, women of color collectively
outnumbered all demographic groups on campus in terms of population density.
Even though white students only represented roughly twenty percent of the total
campus population, white queer students were most represented at the LGBT
campus events and support groups. While the LGBT center catered to gendered
differences among queers on campus, the queer women’s support group was
exclusively facilitated by white women and white women students were consistently
the largest groups being served. This story serves as an important example in
framing the collective invisibility of women of color. In this case, the organizational
structure was formulated not in response to the needs of the population, but instead
relied upon an ideological framing that privileged white students
the actual
‘minority’ racial group on campus. After many months, the director refused to
institute a queer women of color support group on grounds that it would be
exclusionary to white queer students. As a result, Justine and an organized coalition
of queer women of color formed their own support group and called for a boycott of
the campus LGBT center. Justine comments, ‘We were so frustrated that we had
spent so much time being so patient to get them to change, and then we realized if we
had just put that time into ourselves we would be so much stronger as a group. So
that’s what we did. We were successful in organizing our own group which turned out
to have a weekly attendance with twice the amount of members each week than the
group run by the LGBT center’. Despite the visibility of women of color as a campus
population, they still remained invisible as a group that needed services. Their
collective frustration at being invisibilized by the LGBT center prompted an
empowering act, which was to create a space that was able to cater to their own
needs. This example can serve as a microcosm of metropolitan areas of California.
In urban cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, people of color are the
majority demographic population and women of color are collectively the largest
group of women; this demands a reassessment of the true need for services among
queer women of color.

Conclusion
The data collected in this study offer important insight into the experiences of queer
Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women. The women in this study used their social
positions, as ‘outsiders within’ both the LGBT movement and their own racial/ethnic
communities to challenge their invisibility within the representation, politics, and
structures of the LGBT movement.
Stark differences in coming out are a site of contested terrain in which these
women have to do battle in ways that white, middle class queers do not have to
conceptualize. This juggling of competing interests within different contexts speaks
to the multiple layers of identity and resistance that queer women of color have to
navigate. The women resist hegemonic molds of coming out by utilizing an
oppositional consciousness that relies on integrating their lived racial, gender, and
class differences with identifying as queer. This study demonstrates that coming out
166 S. Alimahomed

is based upon more than just everyday situational contexts, but also an adoption of a
particular oppositional politic that stresses the interconnectedness of their marked
and subordinate identities.
Queer representation and expression in the LGBT movement has embodied a
narrow, white racial frame in which queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander
women’s representations of themselves are often rendered invisible by the main-
stream. However, this source of invisibility allows them to produce new and resistant
meanings and expressions of their identity that interrogates the implicit white racial
construction of hegemonic queer identity. The hegemonic queer identity serves both
to legitimate the interests and positions of the dominant constituents within the
movement itself and invisibilize the varied perspectives of those who do not fit this
mold. Political interests are shaped by this hegemonic movement identity thereby
producing a chasm between the experiences of queer Asian/Pacific Islander women
and Latinas and the LGBT movement’s objectives. This tension produces the
position of queer Latinas and Asian/Pacific Islander women as ‘outsiders-within’.
They utilize this positionality to question the core of dominant queer politics, thus
constructing new political forms of organizing.
This research suggests that race, gender, and class inequality within the LGBT
movement has undergone a distinct shift. In the past, exclusion was a central aspect
contributing to the marginalization of lesbians of color. In today’s LGBT movement,
queer women of color are no longer formally excluded from the movement but still
face a form of marginality which relegates them as invisible queer subjects within the
broader queer community. The women interviewed marked their experiences as
particularly invisible in a variety of contested queer arenas: (1) coming out, (2) queer
representation, (3) politics, and (4) organizational structures. It is clear that their
invisibility positions them as outsiders-within their own racial/ethnic communities
and the LGBT movement. However, this invisibility also serves as an opportunity to
develop an oppositional queer consciousness which challenges hegemonic notions of
queer identity and politics.
While this study focused on the voices and experiences of marginalized ‘Others’,
this only reveals to us one side of inequality. There still remains the need to explore
how dominant members and organizations view the position of queer women of
color. This would provide us with more information about the collective production
of dominant queer identity and politics by those in privileged positions. Moreover,
this study warrants further investigation into the differences among and between
women of color that shape their experiences of domination, such as age. This
exploration could further hone the specific historical forces shaping the collective
marginalization of queer women of color by age cohort.

Acknowledgment
This article is dedicated in loving memory of my mom.

Notes
1. The term first generation refers to interviewees who were immigrants. The term 1.5
generation refers to those who were born outside the US and immigrated here as a child.
Second generation refers to people who were born in the US, but their parents were
not. Lastly, third generation refers to people who were born in the US as well as their
parents.
 Social Identities 167

2. In general, the interviewees’ self identification was consistent with what the researcher was
able to garner about their class backgrounds in terms of education, occupation, and family
background. In some cases, the women represented a more mixed class upbringing,
meaning their families were working class, but the women had been able to attend college
and therefore were experiencing upward mobility.
3. Green (2008) found that among gay men’s communities, there was a sexual hierarchy that
privileged young, white, middle class men over men of color, poor men, and old men in
sexual encounters. Gay men’s desirability within the gay enclave was shaped by their race,
age, gender, and class.

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