Identity, Intersectionality and Welfare MG Majumdar University of Cambridge In this paper, nuances of identity, intersectionality and welfare are explored. I begin with a historical overview of the subject followed by an evolution of the concept. I move on to different realizations of intersectionality in politics and policy-making, healthcare, education, employment and property. I end the paper with a statement, based on the workings of the paper, that true welfare is always intersectional, in nature. Keywords: Intersectionality, Identity, Welfare I. Introduction Christina Hoff Sommers beautifully captured the central idea of this article when she said, ``There is a theory behind the culture of victimhood: It's called intersectionality. This theory posits that racism, sexism, classism, ableism, etc. are interconnected, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing. Together they form a "matrix of oppression." The various axes of disadvantage in society intersect one another, mutually influencing and even modifying each other. Indeed, some widely held conceptualizations of these axes hold that race, class, and gender cannot have any meaning all by themselves. There is a certain indeterminacy of the concept of intersectionality since there is a wide range of patterns of social organization that are consistent with the core idea of intersectionality. The ways and extents to which these identities reinforce or negate the positive or negative effects of each other is up for debate. The importance of these intersections has been reflected in its consideration in welfare policy lately, even though historically such an understanding of addressing welfare concerns has been fairly limited. For instance, Williams [1] argued that the literature on gender and the welfare state does not attend to racial/ethnic dimensions of welfare state development, while McFate et al [2] discussed how welfare policies affect race relations in their seminal book `Poverty, inequality, and the future of social policy: Western states in the new world order, but the volume focuses on