Intersectionality and planning at the margins: LGBTQ youth of color in New York Clara Iraza ´bal a * and Claudia Huerta b1 a Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, 400 Avery Hall, 1172 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, USA; b 10052 Leavesly Trail, Santee, CA 92071, USA (Received 27 August 2013; accepted 9 March 2015) Through an intersectional lens, this article reflects on the dialog between planning and gender, feminist, and queer studies to analyze the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth of color (YOC) community in New York City (NYC). The community is subject to multiple disenfranchisements, given their ethno-racial status, class, age, gender, and sexual orientation. This community’s limited access to safe public spaces and amenities, housing, health services, job training, and other opportunities is an urban planning challenge insufficiently understood or addressed. Our methodology includes participant observation and analysis of an LGBTQ YOC tour of West Village in NYC, interviews with LGBTQ individuals and NGO staff, life stories, observations in LGBTQ-friendly meetings and facilities, and content analysis of LGBTQ reports and media coverage. The research shows the agency of an LGBTQ youth group as a resilient community organization effectively participating in planning processes and exerting rights to public space and services. Finally, it offers recommendations to planners and policy-makers to facilitate the recognition and expansion of rights to the city for LGBTQ, particularly YOC, by committing to understanding their unique conditions and needs and expanding their access to safe housing and public spaces, poverty reduction programs and job opportunities, and health and social support services. Keywords: intersectionality; youth of color; LGBTQ; West Village; New York City; tour Manhattan is home to many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people of color. 2 Many partook in ‘a queer migration for personal “sexile” from their places of origin’ (Roque Ramı ´rez 2010, 108) to New York City (NYC) to escape the alienation they felt from their communities or country’s laws and institutions. Despite certain advantages that some LGBTQ youth of color (YOC) have in NYC versus their places of origin, the community is disproportionally poor, house-insecure or homeless, and institutionally challenged for inclusion (May 2015). While gender, feminist, and queer studies have contributed to expand planners’ awareness of sexist, patriarchal, and homophobic biases (Doan 2011), the effects of ethno- racial status, class, and age on LGBTQ YOC’s disenfranchisement have only started to be considered, 3 leaving them largely outside the planning purview. Focusing on LGBTQ YOC in NYC, this article builds on intersectionality theory (Crenshaw 1991) to understand the connection between the multiple axes of disenfranchisements producing the conditions LGBTQ YOC are facing in NYC (ethno-racial status, gender, age). q 2015 Taylor & Francis *Corresponding author. Email: cei2108@columbia.edu Gender, Place and Culture, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2015.1058755 Downloaded by [Columbia University] at 10:06 23 August 2015