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ABSTRACT
The recent Black Lives Matter disruptions of Pride marches in Toronto and Montreal have brought to light a persistent conflict over the exclusion of people of color within LGBTQ movements in Canada, the United States, and elsewhere. Yet, they also reflect a recurrent form of organizing observed in these movements, namely the creation and mobilization of LGBTQ organizations formed around specific racialized identities. Using Canada and more specifically Montreal as a case study, this paper aims to understand what drives activists of color to engage in LGBTQ movements in general, and in particular within LGBTQ organizations formed around specific racialized identities. Previous work on social movement participation has underlined structural and identity-related processes that explain participation, such as networks, social ties, and collective identity. However, I argue that with its emphasis on marginalization and politically excluded identities, intersectionality as a theoretical framework is more suitable to fully grasp why activists of color participate in the Canadian LGBTQ movement today. Drawing from in-depth interviews conducted with 15 activists in Montreal, results show that experienced marginalization at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and race, shape structural and identity-related processes in specific ways, thereby acting as a driving force of social movement participation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 I use the acronym LGBTQ to refer to people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer.
2 The use of the term racialization serves two purposes. First, it presupposes the social construct of race. Second, it implies a categorization process undergone by a group that is in a majority position that exerts symbolic violence on categorized groups by assigning these groups a particular essence of which are derived all social, cultural, and individual attributes (Eid Citation2012).
3 More precisely, “the acts had to be in private, only two people could be present, and the participants had to be at least twenty-one years old” (Hooper Citation2019, 258).
4 Inspired by the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).
5 Police repression against gays and lesbians intensified in 1975 in anticipation of the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games (Higgins Citation2011), and extended from Quebec City to Toronto (Gentile Citation2016).
6 The Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a provincial human rights legislation that prohibits discrimination in areas that are of provincial jurisdiction. In 1985, the equality rights provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect and in 1996, the Canadian government adopted Bill C-33, which amended the Canadian Human Rights Act by adding sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination (Hurley Citation2005).
7 The Village refers to a part of the Montreal downtown area.
8 While there was no LGBTQ organization structured around a particular racialized identity in Montreal prior to this period, such organizations did emerge elsewhere in Canada as early as the 1980s, namely in Toronto with the founding of Gay Asians of Toronto and Lesbians of Color (Warner Citation2002).
9 The reasonable accommodation crisis emerged following the intensive media coverage of accommodation demands formulated by religious groups. If was followed by the Bouchard-Taylor commission in 2007, mandated to paint a portrait of reasonable accommodation practices in Quebec (Le Moing Citation2016).
10 Bill n°60 entitled Charte affirmant les valeurs de laïcité et de neutralité religieuse de l'État ainsi que d'égalité entre les femmes et les hommes et encadrant les demandes d'accommodement, was introduced by the Parti Québécois in 2013. If adopted, it would have prohibited State employees from wearing ostentatious signs and displaying any religious affiliation. The project was eventually withdrawn.
11 Bill n°21, entitled Loi sur la laïcité de l’État bans public sector employees from wearing religions symbols, and modifies Quebec’s Charte des droits et libertés de la personne by clarifying that fundamental rights and freedoms must be exercised while respecting the secular nature of the State.
12 There is also a general agreement that the first expression of intersectional thinking was verbally articulated by the former slave and anti-slavery activist Sojourner Truth at the Women’s Rights Convention in Ohio in 1851 (hooks 2015; Brah and Phoenix Citation2013).
13 Interviews with white LGBTQ activists have also been conducted as part of this research.
14 Jeunesse Lambda is a non-profit organization for French-speaking youth in Montreal, from 14 to 25 years old created in 1987.