Online dating challenges persist for racialized LGBTQ community

Swiping right to find love is pretty common these days, and more so as we inch closer to Valentine's Day. But some people of colour who are part of the LGBTQ community say their experience has been marred with unpleasant conversations — often racist and discriminatory. 

According to a 2021 report by eharmony, a dating website with more than 15.5 million users, 36 per cent of Canadians use online dating apps to meet a potential partner.

"I dated this one guy, and a month into dating, he turned to me, and he was like, 'Sasha, I can't wake up next to you for the rest of my life because you're not white," said Sasha Mark, who is Cree-Métis and a resident of Vancouver. 

As a gay user of dating apps, Mark says his options are limited. 

"I just get a grid of people who are the closest to me, and it's kind of like shopping at a grocery store … It's a very disposable way of dating."

He says while conversations around racism have changed in the last three years, it is still deeply coded in online behaviours.

"It strikes me as like a weird thing because I think as people who have been oppressed, you would think that there wouldn't be any racism in this community. But there's been long lines of people saying 'No fats, No Femmes, No Asians' on dating apps."

'Do I really belong here?'

Myriah MacIntyre, a clinical psychology doctoral student at the University of Ottawa and co-author of the research paper The Traumatizing Impact of Racism in Canadians of Colour, says people with intersecting identities experience racism from not only heteronormal people but also, surprisingly, from their own community.

MacIntyre, a queer woman with both Black and Indigenous ancestry, says the LGBTQ community can be an isolated space for people of colour.

"This is all, kind of, due to standards that are perpetuated by the media or by those types of spaces for what is the ideal queer person," she said. 

She says individuals frequently experience two sides of the discrimination spectrum. 

Either they are ghosted or just completely ignored due to their looks or appearance, or in certain cases, they receive messages that directly target certain aspects of their appearance. 

"So I think that racism has been there, and it has never left," she said. "Some people feel more comfortable now saying more overtly racist things from behind a screen."

She says people who join the queer community looking for a welcoming and open space don't really expect to be faced with other layers of discrimination. 

"This kind of leads to more feelings of uncertainty and more uncertainty even about your identity. 'And do I really, really belong in this space?'" she said.  

The discussion has also raised questions in the community to differentiate when somebody is trying to be racist and trying to hurt others versus somebody who is attracted to a specific kind of person.

'Broaden your horizons'

Matchmaker Susan Semeniw, who runs Divine Intervention, a matchmaking service located in Vancouver, says there's a distinction between preferences and prejudice. 

"People do have a type. We're very visual creatures," she said. 

"Prejudice to me is when someone says, 'I will never do this,' and they have ill-conceived ideas about people from a certain place or certain background."

In matchmaking, she says she tells her clients to always be open-minded. 

The number of interracial unions in Vancouver, Semeniw says, is twice that in other parts of the country due to the city's diverse cultural and ethnic population. She says same-sex marriages are also often higher within these unions.

"So, we are progressing," she said.

She says the more open your parameters and the broader your horizons, the greater your chance for success in falling in love.

"Because, again, we're about the person."