Bodies in Context: Strengthening Intersectionality’s Potential for Addressing Structural Inequalities

Intersectionality, while powerful in identifying overlapping systems of oppression, remains challenging to use in judicial decisions and legal frameworks, particularly regarding its potential to capture structural inequality and discrimination. This chapter explores how a focus on human bodies can enhance legal and social understandings of intersectional discrimination and strengthen the structural dimensions of intersectionality. It critically examines how intersectionality in legal practice is constrained by three primary limitations: (1) the tendency to analyse single or additive categories of discrimination rather than exploring how they are created, interconnected, and mutually reinforcing; (2) a focus on identities more than on systems of oppression; and (3) an emphasis on vulnerable groups rather than the structural forces that place them in positions of vulnerability. To address these issues, this paper proposes a body-centred approach, positioning bodies as the material embodiment of intersecting inequalities, which can help reveal structural dynamics. The approach highlights four dimensions. Firstly, looking at bodies as a whole reveals the artificial nature of single-axis examinations of equality. Secondly, it views sexuality and reproduction as socially and culturally defined practices that shape the perceived function of bodies, offering insights into the socioeconomic, political, and interpersonal factors that shape discrimination and exclusion. Thirdly, it underscores the symbolic dimension of bodies, arguing that inclusive representation and meaningful participation can challenge stereotypes and reshape the social construction of difference. Finally, the framework explores how human bodies are situated within material contexts of place and space, unveiling larger structural dynamics. Through case studies from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on violence against trans women, this four-layered approach highlights how an intersectional perspective rooted in corporeal experience can reveal the structural and systemic forces that perpetuate inequality beyond individual cases, providing legal and theoretical tools to challenge entrenched biases within law and policy.