Summary Of Transatlantic Dialogues And Identity Politics

In her article, ‘Transatlantic dialogues and identity politics’, Maite Escudero-Alías explores the ways in which queer studies as an academic discipline has failed to acknowledge the role of non-white individuals in the creation of queer theory. She discusses the history of the LGBT+ rights movement and the ways in which academics and activists have communicated and interacted between cultures, specifically examining the differences between the movement in the United States and in the UK. In this article, Escudero-Alías attempts to highlight the bias against intersectional queer identities and the lack of academic exploration of the subject.
‘Intersectionality’ was defined by the legal feminist thinker Kimberle Crenshaw as the intersection

Although she points out that “in the UK there was a proliferation of queer cultural (re)presentations” (Escudero-Alías 391), Escudero-Alías critiques what she calls the “global amnesia of queer studies” in regards to recognizing the contributions of non-white and lesbian feminists toward feminist and queer scholarship. She explores the background of the term ‘queer’ and the ways in which it was used to refer to identity categories “such as non-white and/or working-class homosexuals, HIV-infected, bisexual, transsexual, transgender or intersex persons who had been historically and linguistically excluded from...what counts as human” (Escudero-Alías 391). While Escudero-Alías points to this term as a more inclusive form of categorization, the issue of erasing these identities from public awareness still remains. Escudero-Alías argues that individuals who occupy multiple identities must come together to discuss queer identities in order to better unite as a members of academic circles and as activists for social