When Regan Byrd was 8 years old, she wanted to be a lawyer. This came from growing up in Highlands Ranch, a conservative and predominantly white community — 80% of the population identifies as white according to 2023 census data — where Byrd learned to advocate for herself in response to directly experiencing racism. This shaped her interest in anti-oppression work later in life. In 2008, during the Great Recession, Byrd graduated from the University of Denver where she studied public policy and sociology. After speaking with lawyers, Byrd decided to take another path.
Byrd spent about 14 years working in nonprofit operations, data systems management and human resources. During those years, she honed in on her interest in anti-oppression work after seeing how different institutions operate. After former president Donald Trump was elected in 2016, many people took interest in anti-racism work, she said.
“I offered some community trainings that were about how to be an anti-racist ally,” Byrd said. “I received a lot of positive responses and had a certain number of seats available for those trainings that sold out within a couple of hours. So from there, that kind of became my current business, Regan Byrd Consulting, where I do anti-oppression training, consultation, individual coaching and strategic planning.”
Byrd was recently invited to speak at MANAUS’ Equity Symposium along with others. “Given the audience of the symposium, it’s a lot of folks who are running nonprofits in the Roaring Fork Valley and folks who are interested in [diversity, equity and inclusion] work,” Byrd said. “I wanted to talk more about intersectionality, and more from an advanced kind of perspective.”
Byrd provided an introduction on intersectionality, which is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Black lawyer and scholar, after she tried to explain how oppression showed up for Black women in ways that do not impact Black men or women of other races. Intersectionality, according to Byrd, is an idea that people have multiple identities.
“We all have a race, a gender, sexual orientation and class, and not only can we analyze those independently, but we can also analyze what sorts of things show up at the intersection of multiple identities,” Byrd said.
She elaborated on advanced intersectionality by bringing attention to the ways that intersectionality is used incorrectly. “People will try to discount the exploration of their privilege by talking about where they’re marginalized,” Byrd said. “For a lot of men of color, they might say, ‘I don’t experience male privilege’ or ‘I don’t experience benefits from patriarchy because I experience racism,’ and that’s an incorrect way to use intersectionality. It does not discount the areas where we have privilege. Or people think that someone based off of one identity can be representative of everyone within that identity.”
Byrd shared that there are many ways to stay aware of intersectionality and its impacts on daily life. One way is to understand the 12 major identities and systems of oppression presented by the Social Identity Wheel which is specific to the U.S.
“That can help one say, ‘Okay, are we thinking about all of these identities? Are we thinking about experiences at the intersection of multiple identities?’” Byrd said.
She pointed to an example of where one can use intersectionality or see if it’s present. The example was with Spanish speakers and the word “Latinx,” which can be controversial. Some advocate for the word saying that it’s more inclusive of all identities that exist within the Latino community, but others say that there’s already a word to address the Latino community which is the original word, “Latinos.” Many don’t like it because the Spanish language defers to the masculine when referring to a group that includes multiple genders.
“This is a good place to use intersectionality because you can say, ‘What do women and non-binary Spanish speakers have to say about the term ‘Latinx?’” It’s recognizing who is at the intersection of the multiple identities that we are actually trying to examine or address,” Byrd said.
The importance of understanding the concept of intersectionality, she continued, is to dismantle systems of oppression in an effort to have systems of meritocracy and justice.
“[Intersectionality] helps us better to reduce harm and to have a better impact on the communities we’re trying to serve,” she said. “There’s a lot of depth to it and ways to think about it.”
Byrd encourages those who are interested in intersectionality to read about it or simply have conversations about its relevance to daily life and experiences.
To learn more about Regan Byrd and her business, visit www.bit.ly/reganbyrd