* This presentation was originally recorded in French. Closed captioning is available in both English and French.
Bilingual, diverse in origin, and culturally rich, Montréal’s Black queer and trans communities have played an active role in making our city the vibrant metropolis that it is today. Despite these massive contributions, though, there is still a systemic underrepresentation of Black folks who are accessing services at organizations like RÉZO. The Kominote project set out to understand this underrepresentation. This community-run initiative consulted a vast array of Black guys who are into guys and non-binary folks to see how we could better address their needs and make our services safer and more accessible to them. The results that stemmed from this community needs assessment encourage us to think critically about the role that 2SLGBTQ+ organizations play in maintaining white supremacy—often without even being aware of it—and allow us to reflect on how we can do better to ensure that all members of our communities feel represented by our service offerings. This presentation will provide an overview of our theoretical framework, methodology, as well as the results of the study and the concrete actions that we plan to take to implement the recommendations of this report.
Vincent Mousseau (RÉZO)
