Promoting pride

Sudharshan Durayappah gets tired of seeing members of his community erased or put into boxes. For years, he's gathered with others to do something about it. According to Durayappah, a professor at the University of Toronto's Department of Historical and Cultural Studies and one of the key organizers, the Queer Tamil Collective (QTC), based mostly in Scarborough, began in 2019 as an extension of collectives and projects that were already in place. The group first came together to protest the highly controversial film Funny Boy (2020), which caused great upset in the Canadian Tamil community for its offensive misrepresentations of the Tamil language and failure to cast Tamil actors in lead roles. They campaigned against the film and made sure that it didn't get an Oscar nomination. But from there, it became clear that people needed a supportive, lasting collective to belong to on an ongoing basis.