What is intersectionality? The foundations for a more inclusive workplace

None of us is defined by one part of who we are.

Our experiences are shaped by many things, including our race, gender, sexuality, disability, neurodivergence, socio-economic background, culture and more. These parts of our identity don’t exist separately from one another. They interact, and can affect how we experience the systems and environments around us.

The workplace is no exception.

Intersectionality gives us a way to understand this more fully. And with August marking Intersectionality Awareness Month, it is a useful opportunity for organisations to consider whether their inclusion efforts reflect the complexity and nuance of people’s actual lives.

What is intersectionality?

The term intersectionality was coined by American civil rights scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989.

Crenshaw originally used the concept to explain how Black women could experience racism and sexism in ways that could not be properly understood by looking at either form of discrimination separately. The idea has since become an important way of understanding how different aspects of identity and inequality can interact and shape people’s experiences.

In simple terms, people are never just one thing.

Someone’s experience of work may be influenced by their race, gender, sexuality, disability, socio-economic background, faith, language, immigration status and many other factors.

These don’t sit neatly in separate boxes. They can interact.

That interaction is what makes an intersectional lens useful.

What does intersectionality have to do with neuroinclusion?

Neurodivergence does not exist separately from the rest of someone’s life or identity.

Two people may experience similar differences in processing, communication, attention or sensory needs, but encounter very different barriers at work and in life.

For example, someone’s experience may also be shaped by:

• race or cultural background
• gender or sexuality
• disability or mental health
• socio-economic background
• language or immigration status
• faith
• trauma
• geography

This matters because a neuroinclusion strategy designed around one assumed experience of neurodivergence can unintentionally leave people out.

What might intersectionality look like at work?

Intersectionality can affect whose experiences are recognised in the first place.

Imagine an organisation is developing its approach to neuroinclusion. It runs employee listening sessions, invites people to share their experiences and uses those insights to shape future activity.

That sounds positive. But an intersectional lens encourages us to look at whose experiences are actually being heard.

Some employees may feel relatively comfortable talking openly about neurodivergence at work. Others may be more cautious because disclosure sits alongside other experiences of being stereotyped, marginalised or treated differently.

Cultural attitudes towards disability or neurodivergence may also influence whether someone uses particular language to describe their experience. Access to diagnosis and support can differ too. And some people may simply not see themselves reflected in the neurodiversity conversations happening around them.

As a result, the people most visible within an organisation’s neuroinclusion work may not represent the full range of experiences across its workforce.

This doesn’t mean organisations should pressure people to disclose or share personal experiences.

It means being careful not to assume that the experiences we hear most often are the only experiences that exist.

An intersectional approach encourages organisations to notice whose voices are present, consider whose may be missing, and think about what might be shaping that difference.

Why looking at one part of identity can miss the full picture

Workplace inclusion is often organised into separate areas.

An organisation might have work on race equity, gender inclusion, disability inclusion and neuroinclusion, for example. There are good reasons for focusing attention on particular barriers.

But people’s experiences don’t divide themselves so neatly.

Someone can experience barriers associated with neurodivergence while also experiencing racism. Another person may encounter sexism alongside assumptions about how they communicate or behave. Someone’s cultural background or first language may affect how differences in communication are interpreted by colleagues or managers.

And these experiences don’t simply sit alongside one another. They can interact.

For example, imagine two employees communicate very directly in meetings. Their communication style might be interpreted differently depending on assumptions relating to gender, race, age or seniority. If one of those employees also processes social communication differently, it becomes difficult to understand their workplace experience by looking at neurodivergence, or any other aspect of identity, in isolation.

This is the value of an intersectional lens.

It asks organisations to consider not only what barriers exist, but also:

• Who is more likely to experience them?
• Whose behaviour is more likely to be misunderstood or judged?
• Who feels safe enough to ask for support?
• Whose experiences are represented in our inclusion work?
• Are stereotypes or assumptions affecting how the same behaviour is interpreted in different people?

The aim isn’t to predict someone’s experience based on their identity. People with apparently similar identities can have very different experiences.

It is to recognise that discrimination, bias and workplace barriers can overlap, and that looking at only one dimension of someone’s experience may mean we miss something important.

Intersectionality is not about making assumptions about people

There is an important distinction here.

An intersectional approach should help organisations question assumptions, not create new ones.

We shouldn’t assume that because someone belongs to a particular demographic group, we know what barriers they experience or what support they need.

Instead, intersectionality encourages curiosity about patterns.

For HR, L&D and leadership teams, useful questions might include:

• Whose experiences are informing our neuroinclusion work?
• Who participates in our networks, training and events, and who doesn’t?
• Do our policies work equally well across different roles, locations and levels of seniority?
• Are some employees expected to disclose more personal information than is actually necessary to access support?
• Are our ideas of ‘professionalism’, confidence or good communication based on a narrow set of cultural or social expectations?
• When we gather employee feedback, are we looking closely enough to notice different experiences?

The aim isn’t to categorise every employee.

It’s to become better at spotting where apparently neutral systems may work differently for different people.

Look beyond representation to everyday experience

Intersectionality isn’t only about who is represented in an organisation’s networks, events or inclusion campaigns. It can also help us examine everyday workplace experiences.

Consider an employee who is struggling with organisation, deadlines and workload.

Those difficulties might be understood very differently depending on who is experiencing them.

Gendered or racial stereotypes, for example, can influence whether someone is perceived as overwhelmed, disorganised, unreliable or simply in need of support. Previous experiences of discrimination may also affect how comfortable that person feels explaining what is happening or asking for help.

This is where an intersectional lens matters.

It asks us to consider whether our interpretation of someone’s experience is being shaped not only by what is happening, but by assumptions connected to different aspects of their identity.

That doesn’t mean managers should try to identify every possible bias behind every workplace interaction. Nor should they make assumptions about someone’s experience based on their identity.

It means creating space to ask better questions: Are we interpreting this situation fairly? Could stereotypes or bias be influencing our response? Are there barriers here that we might miss if we look through only one inclusion lens?

Four ways to bring an intersectional lens into neuroinclusion

You don’t need to redesign your entire inclusion strategy before you can start.

1. Look at who is shaping the conversation

Review the voices informing your neuroinclusion work.

If the same perspectives appear repeatedly, consider what experiences might be missing.

That doesn’t mean asking individual employees to represent an entire identity group. Instead, widen the range of perspectives you learn from through research, external expertise, employee listening and lived-experience contributions.

2. Review participation, not just provision

Don’t stop at asking:

‘Do we offer this?’

Also ask:

‘Who can realistically access and use it?’

For example, if an awareness session is available during office hours, can frontline or shift-based employees participate? If support requires formal disclosure, might that discourage some people from accessing it?

Provision and accessibility are not always the same thing.

3. Examine who workplace norms advantage, and disadvantage

Workplace norms can appear neutral, but they aren’t always experienced equally.

Consider what your organisation associates with being ‘professional’, ‘credible’ or ‘leadership material’. Then ask whether expectations around communication, appearance, behaviour or relationship-building could interact with stereotypes or biases relating to race, gender, disability, sexuality, class or other aspects of identity.

For example, a behaviour seen as assertive in one person might be interpreted as difficult or aggressive in another. Someone who already experiences racial or gender bias may face additional judgement when their communication, behaviour or ways of working also fall outside expected norms.

An intersectional lens helps organisations recognise that the same workplace expectation can interact with different forms of bias in different ways.

The aim isn’t to assume discrimination is happening in every interaction. It’s to become more thoughtful about which behaviours an organisation rewards, where those expectations came from, and whether some people have to work harder to be viewed in the same way.

4. Connect inclusion work that often happens separately

In many organisations, different areas of inclusion are understandably supported through different strategies, networks or areas of expertise.

There may be separate work around race, gender, disability, LGBTQ+ inclusion and neurodiversity.

But employees don’t experience these parts of themselves separately.

Look for opportunities for the people leading different areas of inclusion to share what they are learning. Are similar barriers appearing in different conversations? Are there experiences that might be missed when neurodiversity is considered on its own? Could an initiative designed through one inclusion lens have unintended consequences for people whose experiences sit across several?

For example, if an organisation is reviewing its approach to neuroinclusive recruitment, it could also consider what colleagues working on race, disability or socio-economic inclusion know about barriers within recruitment and selection.

This isn’t about combining every inclusion initiative into one programme. Different forms of discrimination have their own histories, contexts and challenges, and those differences matter.

It is about avoiding organisational silos that can make people’s intersecting experiences harder to see.

Intersectionality Awareness Month: use August to ask better questions

Awareness months can be useful because they give organisations a reason to start conversations that might otherwise be overlooked.

But awareness is most valuable when it changes what happens afterwards.

Rather than trying to cover every aspect of intersectionality in August, organisations could use the month to examine one part of their current approach.

Review participation in an employee network. Look at whose voices appear in internal neurodiversity communications. Ask whether adjustment processes feel equally accessible across different parts of the workforce. Include intersectionality in manager or leadership conversations about inclusion.

Choose something tangible.

Then learn from what you find.

Frequently asked questions

What is intersectionality in simple terms?

Intersectionality is a way of understanding that different parts of a person’s identity and circumstances can interact and shape how they experience the world.

Rather than looking at race, gender, disability, neurodivergence or other factors completely separately, it considers how they may overlap.

Why is intersectionality important for neurodiversity at work?

Because there is no single neurodivergent experience.

People may encounter different barriers depending on their identity, circumstances, role and environment. An intersectional approach helps organisations avoid designing neuroinclusion around one assumed experience.

Does intersectionality mean treating everybody differently?

Not necessarily.

It means recognising that treating everybody identically does not always create equitable outcomes. Organisations can create flexible systems that work for more people while still responding to individual barriers where needed.

Do managers need to know everything about someone’s identity?

No.

Managers don’t need, and shouldn’t seek, unnecessary personal information. The practical goal is to create an environment where people can explain what helps them work effectively, where appropriate, without feeling pressured to disclose or justify every aspect of who they are.

Final thought

Intersectionality asks us to actively consider how different aspects of identity, including race, gender, sexuality, disability, neurodivergence and socio-economic background, can interact with discrimination, bias and inequality.

In the workplace, that matters because these intersections can shape who feels understood, whose needs are recognised, who feels safe to speak up, and how people’s behaviour and capability are perceived.

There is no single neurodivergent experience. Building more thoughtful neuroinclusion means recognising that reality and ensuring the experiences shaping our decisions reflect the breadth and complexity of the people within our workplaces.

What next?

If your organisation wants to build a more intersectional approach to neuroinclusion, we support leadership teams, HR functions and all colleagues to understand how workplace systems, culture and everyday practices can affect people differently, and identify practical ways to reduce barriers.

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