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What started as a space for queer racialized folks to connect eventually evolved into a support system of stability, connection, and collectiveness. Shades of Colour (SOC) is an organization that focuses on creating and fostering community for queer folks of varying racial backgrounds to access support through mutual aid and social, health, and financial resources.
On the University of Alberta Campus, LGBTQ+ students can find a supportive safe space through the Landing. However, a group of student volunteers working for the Landing felt as though Edmonton was lacking a different space that could better cater to the needs of queer Edmontonians who existed within unique racial intersections. While Rohan Parikh, one of the student volunteers, was working at the Landing, they started a meetup group for people who fit into this demographic. Their office became a space where queer racialized folks came together, connected, and expressed their unique needs, finding common ground between one another.
Rohan remains a part of SOC, and credits the other co-founders’ original initiatives in having contributed to the organization’s long-term success. SOC is currently primarily run by Rohan and Nicole Jones-Abad, who has been a part of the organization for nine years now. While the University of Alberta’s Landing office was the original place for meetups, SOC meetings now take place in more flexible locations, either public or private, based on wherever may be best suited to the needs of who is attending.
SOC’s existence and purpose is spread through its community’s connections. The experience of being queer and racialized in the province of Alberta can come with fear and a sense of isolation. It is important for them to know that the city is full of people with similar situations in order to maintain hope. While word of mouth and social media platforms function to notify the public of what SOC does, they put hard work into fostering relationships with other community organizations. The Edmonton Lesbian Event Network (ELEN) is an inclusive social club for Sapphic, Non-Binary, 2Spirit & Trans humans. While ELEN functions differently than SOC, with a focus on community activities, their inception came through a similar need for a space that caters to unique needs. ELEN has hosted a variety of successful events throughout Edmonton and maintains a close relationship with SOC. Amongst the fun that happens at ELEN events, attendees are reminded that a space like SOC exists to support them in times of need. The long list of organizations that they have worked with before include Rarica Now, the PCE, CHEW, Fyrefly, E2S, and OSYS.
Since its establishment in 2014, there have been other organizations that have come about in Edmonton that do similar work. SOC cited the Cherry Pit, a community support society founded in 2024, that provides art-centred programming to marginalized youth as having similar mutual aid elements in their functioning. The Zetna Collective was founded in 2024 and shares the sentiment of providing support to racialized folks, with a focus on Black, African, and Caribbean queer and trans people. A new organization formed this year, INTERA, was also cited by SOC as doing work similar to them. INTERA is a “Gender Navigation Project, a whole-person focused gender-affirming care initiative that will serve Edmonton’s Two Spirit, Trans, Intersex, and Gender Expansive (2STIGE) community and beyond.”
What separates SOC from other organizations is its sole funding through Patreon. They use funding from this to give directly to community members. For other services that they provide, they also connect community members with resources that benefit their unique needs. This involves care providers, therapists, and other queer or racial support organizations. Nicole and Rohan are both trans and racialized, with combined experiences with addiction, sex work, medical transitioning, and houselessness/transience. They said that their experiences inform their “unique perspective when we are engaging in advocacy for and with community, especially as it pertains to harm reduction work, and giving resources directly to community / removing barriers that often occur in government funded social services.”
With the focus of their work being on groups of people who have traditionally been and still are marginalized, their work has received criticism and discrimination, particularly over social media (where their work is often publicized). Racism, homophobia, transphobia, religious oppression, and death threats have all contributed to the issues that they have faced since forming, as well as being in contention with local government and legislation. Especially in recent years, they have accommodated a wider range of backgrounds according to the regression of the province’s views on LGBTQ+ people. While SOC initially focused its energy on the support of racialized queer folks, Alberta’s hostility towards all trans people has led SOC to provide mutual aid to white trans folks as well.
Despite these difficulties and the changes that SOC has undergone in its 12 years of operation, they have managed to continue the initiative that they set out to do. Nicole and Rohan operate completely within their means and attribute their success to the support of their friends, other organizations, and their therapists, as well as being supported by the people whom they support through SOC. Through trial and error, SOC has remained stable and have found the balance between supporting themselves as much as they support their community.
Additional Reading:
Shades Of Colour
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/shadesofcolouryeg
Patreon – https://www.patreon.com/shadesofcolour
At the intersections: Finding community with Shades of Colour
The Gateway Online
Funding for this story made possible by the Edmonton Heritage Council and the City of Edmonton
Rhys Primus
Rhys Primus is a writer and musician from the Alberta prairies. After moving to Edmonton to attend MacEwan University for journalism, he immersed himself in the city’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community and began pursuing his passion for writing. Dancing at Evo and attending drag shows allowed him to network and exercise the skills he learnt in university, filming and creating content for local performers.
While completing his internship as a reporter for the St. Albert Gazette, he worked on a 65th anniversary archival project. The archival project inspired him to help the YEG Queer History Project to preserve Edmonton’s queer history.
- Rhys Primus
Ariadna Ramirez-Granados
Ruth DyckFehderau