Pride in diversity: Uplifting the voices of queer communities of colour

As B.C. heats up with the summer haze, tourists pour into the cities and towns, the parks grow full with out-of-school teens and after-work beach dwellers, and Pride is upon us. With upcoming Pride parades and a summer of celebrations, city streets will come alive with rainbow flags, shimmering floats and people celebrating love and human identity in all their diverse forms.

But behind the glitter and festivities, a growing number of voices — particularly within queer communities of colour — are raising critical questions on representation: Who exactly is being represented? Whose stories are being told? Who is being left out, or actively excluded from Pride and the greater queer community?

Rooted in radical resistance

Across North America, modern Pride celebrations are often characterized by glamorous parades of colour, charisma and corporate sponsorship. While the parades are invigorating displays that can be enjoyed by quite a range of demographics, the current trend of Pride parades fails to reflect the origins of 2SLGBTQIA+ rights. The Pride movement grew from origins in radical resistance, often led by Black and Brown trans women.

In 1969, the Stonewall riots erupted, not just as a reaction to homophobic policing but as a desperate act of survival and defiance by some of the most marginalized members of the queer community — trans women like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who were both people of colour (POC) and deeply familiar with systemic violence.

The birth of the 2SLGBTQIA+ Pride movement across North America was not isolated from other struggles, but rather was intertwined with the civil rights movement, the fight against police brutality and efforts to dismantle economic oppression. This could be seen most throughout the 1960s and 1970s, when queer liberation was an inter-community effort where numerous marginalized populations united in a legal fight for equality.

Feelings of exclusion

While the Vancouver Pride parade of 2024 did represent a variety of skin colours and gender and sexual identities, many members of the community expressed feelings of exclusion. Amidst the dazzling creativity, colour and pageantry, there was noticeably an absence of broader cultural diversity, which in hindsight may serve as a stark reminder that representation is still a work in progress.

Some may argue that the lack of cultural diversity reflects personal choices or cultural conservatism, such as the common belief that people of certain cultural or national backgrounds don’t show up unnecessary questions. “A lot of people think that if they ask me enough questions, or debate me theologically, that they can save me, or liberate me. I need saving because I’m just a backwards Brown perfor Pride. While there are barriers to self-expression among certain cultures, this view ignores the structural barriers that many queer people of colour still face.

As Vancouver and other regions continue to grow in diversity with the arrival of new immigrants, migrants from other parts of Canada and refugees, these new arrivals will include Queer people. However, many POC and cultural minority queer folks feel a lack of welcome in a 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

“I won’t pin this on a specific racial group, but a lot of Western queers like to talk about intersectionality while refusing to be welcoming to people who actually exist at the intersection of multiple identities,” reflects Nisha K., a Burnaby-based Muslim and hijab-wearing lesbian.

“There’s already such a huge phobia of religious people in really liberal areas — and I get it,” she adds. “Religion has caused a lot of people trauma, and they can feel free not to trust religious institutions if they don’t agree with the ideology. But people aren’t institutions[…] I was born Brown, born Muslim and born gay. I believe in God, I wear the hijab. I obviously don’t follow everything my religion tells me to do, but I shouldn’t be expected to sacrifice parts of my identity for acceptance in the queer community.”

Nisha relayed that she has never been directly asked to leave a queer space, but that she often gets strange looks and is subjected to many son, and only once I take off the piece of fabric that’s apparently oppressing me, only then can I be my true self.”

Culture shift

With Canada’s population growing increasingly diverse, the culture of the queer community may need to shift to understand the nuances of identity held by LGBTQIA+ people from around the globe. People are born with their sexual orientations and gender identities integrated into the framework of who they are, but culture, faith and the context in which people are socialized are all factors contributing to personality.

“I’m lucky to have my own community, I guess,” says Nisha, “but not everybody has that. Queer refugees or immigrants coming here for the first time obviously don’t have communities, and it’s hard to build community when you’re expected to sacrifice important parts of your identity — literally change who you are — to integrate into a community that doesn’t actually accept you for who you are.”

Vancouver is home to many queer spaces centred around people of colour. If Pride organizers worked more closely with these groups, the event could be even more powerful. It could become a true celebration of love and a way to grow stronger communities. Queer people of colour in Vancouver only get one Pride Parade a year, and that’s a long wait for people who are still trying to find community.

Yasmine Modaresi (she/her) is a writer and student negotiating Vancouver's queer and cultural communities.