Queer Professionals and Settler Colonialism

This book analyzes queer organizations in Canada and explores the ways health care, counselling, and social services address the intersecting oppressions facing Indigenous people, families, and communities.

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Queer Professionals and Settler Colonialism works to dismantle the perception of an inclusive queer community by considering the ways white lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ2S+) people participate in larger processes of white settler colonialism in Canada.

Cameron Greensmith analyses Toronto-based queer service organizations, including health care, social service, and educational initiatives, whose missions and mandates attempt to serve and support all LGBTQ2S+ people. Considering the ways queer service organizations and their politics are tied to the nation state, Greensmith explores how, and under what conditions, non-Indigenous LGBTQ2S+ people participate in the sustainment of white settler colonial conditions that displace, erase, and inflict violence upon Indigenous people and people of colour.

Critical of the ways queer organizations deal with race and Indigeneity, Queer Professionals and Settler Colonialism highlights the stories of non-Indigenous LGBTQ2S+ service providers, including volunteers, outreach workers, health care professionals, social workers, and administrators who are doing important work to help, care, and heal. Their stories offer a glimpse into how service providers imagine their work, their roles, and their responsibilities. In doing so, this book considers how queer organizations may better support Indigenous people and people of colour while also working to eliminate the legacy of racism and settler colonialism in Canada.