When the community that was supposed to be yours isn't a refuge either
Yes — we know. And no, you are not imagining it.
The Enchanté Network found that 86% of Black 2SLGBTQI+ people in Canada have encountered anti-Black racism inside 2SLGBTQI+ spaces. Not out in the world. In the rooms that were meant to be the safe ones.
That number matters because of what people are usually told when they mention it — that they're being sensitive, or divisive, or bringing something into a space that had nothing to do with it. Eighty-six per cent is not a sensitivity. It's a description of the room.
The specific arithmetic of it
You may be managing two things at once that most people only manage one of:
- Racism in the queer spaces. Research going back over a decade found that systemic racism runs straight through LGBTQ communities, making the lives of queer people of colour effectively invisible inside them. A 2021 study found people excluded by a white-dominated gay scene, and named the result plainly: loneliness and social isolation.
- The fetishising, which is not a compliment. Being wanted for a category rather than for yourself is its own kind of alone, and it's harder to complain about because it arrives dressed as interest.
- Homophobia where your culture and your family are. Sometimes the people who share your language, your food and your history are the ones you can't be out to.
- And the tax of explaining. In one room you're the only queer person. In the other you're the only Black or Brown one. Either way, some part of you is on duty.
The apps make it worse rather than better — racialized people report the same exclusions and the same fetishising on dating platforms that they meet in person, with the filtering built directly into the product.
What you shouldn't have to do
- Choose which half of yourself to bring.
- Be the educator. You didn't sign up to run a workshop every time somebody says something.
- Be grateful for the bare minimum.
- Prove it happened. It happened.
Organisations built by and for us
These exist precisely because the general spaces weren't enough.
- Ubuntu — Black Trans, Non-Binary and 2Spirit Collective (Toronto).
- Black Queer Youth Collective (London, ON) — and the Black Queer Youth Initiative, for Black, African, Caribbean and multiracial LGBTQ2S people 29 and under.
- UPlift Black (Barrie, ON) — including work supporting queer newcomers.
- Fondation Massimadi (Montréal) — Afro-LGBTQ+ arts and culture.
- Sher Vancouver (Delta, BC) — for South Asian LGBTQ+ people, their friends and families.
- Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (Toronto).
- Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance (Halifax) and Two-Spirited People of Manitoba (Winnipeg).
- Support Network for Indigenous Women & Women of Colour (Victoria, BC).
- African Centre for Refugees in Ontario Canada (Toronto).
- Rainbow Health Ontario — publishes research on racialized 2SLGBTQ health, useful if you ever need the evidence in writing.
More organisations, by province →
And one room that's open right now
We'll be straight with you, because you've been sold enough welcomes. We are a new and very small community, and we cannot promise you a room that has never said anything stupid. No honest platform can.
What we can tell you is what we've built and what we'll do. Hate speech is refused by the system before it ever reaches a room — not reported afterwards, refused. "Give yourself some space" removes someone from your view instantly, privately, with no confrontation and no explanation owed to anybody. And you can tell us when something is wrong, and we will actually read it.
The rooms are always open — Wednesdays and Sundays, 7–9:30pm EST is when you'll find the most people.
The lights are on, and there's someone to talk to.