Explaining LGBTQ Activism of Colour in Canada: An Intersectional Theoretical Framework

While an extensive amount of research has been conducted on the LGBTQ movement in Canada over the years (Smith 1999; Rayside 2008; Tremblay 2015), the participation and contribution of people of colour within the movement has been continuously overlooked. However, LGBTQ people of colour in Toronto and Montreal have been mobilizing within the movement since the 1980s and 1990s (Warner 2002). Throughout the years, various groups such as Blackness Yes! and Arc-en-ciel d’Afrique, have exposed several barriers faced by LGBTQ activists of colour, be it their underrepresentation in the movement, their insecurity vis-à-vis police officers during Pride events, or the on-going racism within the LGBTQ community. In light of these constraints, how can we account for the continuous participation of people of colour within the LGBTQ movement? Previous work on social movement participation has mostly relied on either structural factors, such as the role of networks (Passy and Giuigni 2001; Diani 2004) and social contexts (Fillieule 2001; Corrigall-Brown 2012), or on identity-related processes (Taylor and Whittier 1992; Melucci 1995), to explain participation. However, these approaches accentuate a dichotomous-type of explanation by dissociating structural factors from identity processes and in so doing fall short of explaining LGBTQ people of colour activism. We intend to bridge this gap by developing an intersectional theoretical framework to understand participation of people of colour within the LGBTQ movement in Canada. The main purpose of this communication is to present our intersectional theoretical framework on social movement participation and to provide an innovative way to further understand activism situated at the intersection of marginalized and politically excluded identities. Our secondary objective consists of presenting the preliminary results of an on-going research derived from semi-structured interviews conducted with fifteen LGBTQ activists of colour in Montreal involved with Arc-en-ciel d’Afrique, Helem Montreal, and Qouleur Collective.