Triple Threat: My Journey as a Black Lesbian Athlete in Search of Additional Black Lesbian Student-Athletes

Black lesbian women experience a triple threat based on three components of their identity – race, gender, and sexual orientation – places them on the lower ranks of the totem pole of U.S. social hierarchy. With this in mind, the purpose of this study was to explore how Black lesbian student-athletes negotiate three components of their identity – race, sexual orientation, and being a female NCAA Division I student-athlete – through semi-structured interviews in order to provide these student-athletes with a mechanism to have a voice and express their individual experiences. Since I experienced difficulty in obtaining participants that met the criteria, I have included myself as a co-participant in order to tell my journey of researching a population I identify with – one who has been forced to the margins of society along with the black community.