Describe yourself in one word. If you have experienced Welcome Week here at Creighton you have probably been asked to do this before. If you are anything like me you struggled endlessly with this question. You probably answered it differently every time and never really liked what you said. After all, how could somebody expect you to summarize the whole of your life experiences in one word?

You have multiple identities. Maybe you have one salient identity. Maybe, like me, you have three or four identities vying for first place. The point is one word will never be enough to sufficiently summarize a person. Feminists have come up with a term for this phenomenon: Intersectionality.

Intersectionality is the study of the intersections that exist between different groups of people. The idea is based on the fact that people who experience multiple forms of oppression are always left behind by movements that focus on only one issue. The second-wave feminist movement coined this term to express the need for feminism to represent more than upper class white women. The experiences of women of color, queer women and poor women are markedly unique.

At Creighton we have hundreds of multicultural student organizations. I could create a club for adopted transgender people of color who identify as queer and feminist. My friend could then create a club for gay Latino men from single-parent households.

But if we created a new organization for every intersection of identities that exist on our campus, we would have millions. And what progress would we make with millions of organizations that only have one member?

This example is one reason why we need to stress intersectionality on our campus and in our community. The Jewish Student Association cannot focus only on issues that concern being Jewish in America. They must recognize that members of their organization have many other identities.

I am a member of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance. We are trying to start this shift in thinking by making the theme of our Awareness Week related to intersectionality. Come to some of our events next week to learn more about how this issue impacts Creighton students in a very real way.

Queer people come in all shapes, sizes and colors from a whole series of backgrounds and experiences, so does every other human being. Take a moment this week to think about the intersecting identities that inform your life and the lives of your friends and classmates. Try to remember that whatever movements you are involved in should strive to be multiple issue movements.