Desiring Diversity: The Limits of White Settler Multiculturalism in Queer Organizations.

Abstract: Multiculturalism in Canada is touted as an all‐inclusive policy and practice that celebrates difference and welcomes diversity. In 2012, gays and lesbians were included in the Discover Canada document amongst various cultural, racial, and ethnic groups, marking such inclusion as foundational in Canada's imagining of itself as tolerant and accepting. Despite these narratives of multicultural diversity, people of colour and Indigenous peoples continue to experience strife, violence, and erasure. This paper looks to the ways Canadian multiculturalism is utilized by queer and trans people as part of their understandings and imaginings of queer politics. In particular, it discusses the queer service sector and the ways queer and trans service providers do diversity and multiculturalism within their work. Findings highlight the complex ways in which queer and trans service providers utilize diversity as a tactic to create further exclusion and direct attention towards wanting, needing, and desiring diversity. The paper highlights the ways diversity is desired within the institutional walls of queer service provision and draws attention to the ways the whiteness and colonialism of the organizations themselves goes unquestioned and unexamined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]