ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a short introductory vignette of one participant, Carmen (a Mestiza queer non-binary individual), who was enrolled at a large public historically white institution in the Mountain West. Carmen’s narrative introduces the chapter that will articulate the other social identities that informed participants’ exploration (e.g., gender, ability, socioeconomic status, undocumented status). In particular, Carmen was one individual who spoke at length about how their non-binary identity and undocumented status shaped their understanding of race and sexuality. This chapter then discusses the social identities that informed participants’ exploration of race and sexuality (e.g., gender, ability, socioeconomic status, undocumented status). This chapter thus provides an important contribution to the study of Queer Students of Color because it emphasizes the within-group differences of this collegiate population. Furthermore, participants fell into two main identity patterns covered in this chapter; whereas some students saw their identities as intersecting, others conceptualized them as largely separate. This chapter offers possible explanations for why Queer People of Color differed with these identity patterns.
