Amidst all the hoopla and outrage about Proposition 8, I stumbled across an article on BBC about a new character coming to the venerable British soap EastEnders. The show’s producers have announced they are adding a new gay character (pictured). Now, at first blush this wouldn’t seem like such a big deal, many daytime and nighttime dramas and comedies have openly gay characters. What caught my eye was that this new character is Muslim.

Naturally, gay groups in London are lauding this new character as being a breakthrough saying it helps to show that London is an ethnically and culturally diverse city. Queer Muslim groups are thrilled to have representation on a mainstream show while a spokesperson for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee feels the Muslim community deserves better representation than a gay Muslim character considering there is so much Islamophobia in Britain and around the world. At least it’s being discussed.

This story got me thinking that there is so little racial diversity in the queer community. With the media all over the Prop 8 story and images of queers on the Internet, news and daily papers, you’d think that most gay people are white. It’s something I’ve noticed in the gay community for years. The advertising, postering, imagery, iconography mainly features white men. Occasionally you’ll see a Black man or a young Asian guy, but not very often. Where’s the rainbow?

As global as we are (hey, there are queers everywhere, right?), we are very myopic when it comes to racial diversity – especially in North America. Do we even consider for a moment that there are queer Muslims or Hindus or Inuit? It may pass through our consciousness on occasion but not too often. Just look at the advertising for bars, nightclubs, events, web sites, chat rooms et al and see how often they diverge from the archetypal muscular white guy 18 to 35 years old.

We wave the Rainbow flag.
Let’s start showing more colour!

Here in Toronto’s gay Mecca: Church Street, you see very little ethnic diversity. I think it’s time our community does more to reach out to non-White queers. I think it’s time our businesses break the mold with their advertising. Imagine a poster for a bar, club or event that had a couple of sexy Sikhs or hot Hindus? Imagine if they were over 40! Ok, one thing at a time.

Our community is represented by a Rainbow flag. It’s time we started showing more colour.