Belonging Without Translation: How Toronto’s Asian Community AIDS Services Models Support for Chinese-speaking Queer International Students, and What Montréal Needs

Introduction

On World AIDS Day, December 1, 1994, three grassroots groups serving Southeast Asian community members affected by HIV/AIDS united in Toronto to establish Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS).  Over thirty years, this organization has evolved into a trusted community anchor to address the urgent need for culturally and linguistically appropriate HIV education, prevention, and support services, while creating a unified voice for East and Southeast Asian communities in Canada [3].

From there, ACAS acknowledges that the intersection of health, culture, and identity, recognizing that HIV, stigma, and discrimination are inseparable from the broader structural conditions facing Asian communities, particularly newcomers, women, 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals, and migrant workers. Over the decades, its programs have expanded to encompass HIV prevention and care, peer outreach, LGBTQ+ Asian community-building, women’s health initiatives, and migrant farm worker health projects. Today, ACAS stands as a trusted advocate and community anchor, fostering solidarity and intergenerational empowerment across Asian communities in Canada.

Background: Key Local Challenges

In February 2026, Statistics Canada released an in-depth report profiling the Chinese Canadian community based on data from the 2021 Canadian Census. Chinese Canadian population had reached 1.7 million, accounting for 4.7% of Canada’s total population among whom the majority are immigrants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong [4]. Meanwhile, the 2021 Census also reported that there were 6.4% non-permanent Chinese population and over half of them were having student status. According to the data released in December 2025 by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), students from PRC particularly make up the second largest group in the post-secondary sector in Canada, accounting for nearly 13% of all international students by 2025, despite the fluctuations, which suggests that PRC remains a major source for international students.

While the statistics reflect a massive presence, they often mask the silent anxieties of those most at risk. Especially for queer Chinese students who have not yet established themselves, fear forms the backdrop of everyday life. What they face is not only the sudden threat of violence but also a constant sense of underlying danger, as they navigate life on the margins at the intersection of migrant status, ethnic minority, and sexual minority identities, combined with language and cultural barriers that often prevent them from accessing adequate support services [5-8]. Community-based anecdotal sources also reveal that many queer Chinese students here feel caught in-between. They don’t quite belong to the LGBTQ+ community in China due to the distance, can hardly find support within the Chinese international student community, and struggle to fit into the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in the host countries.

Lived Experiences of the Community

The Continuum of Violence

The reality of oppression is first and foremost embodied within broader patterns of physical violence. Sexual violence is characterized by high prevalence, systemic social and institutional factors that enable assault, and significant barriers that prevent survivors, particularly sexually and ethnically diverse students, from seeking help or reporting incidents [9, 10]. Adopting Liz Kelly’s perspective of “the continuum of sexual violence”, the sexual violence is also considered as the interlinked experiences, rather than just isolated, extreme criminal acts. What is recognized in law as crimes are situated at one end of a broad spectrum of socially sanctioned cisgender male aggression, coercive behaviors, and deep-rooted patriarchal norms [11]. Racist exclusion, heterosexist jokes, sexual harassment, intimate intrusions, coerced, non-consensual sex with dates or partners, are all included in the same logic of sexual violence. However, there is a lack of knowledge of Chinese-speaking population in general and a lack of understanding as well as representations of queer Chinese migrant youth experiences in particular.

Even though there are few comprehensive data specifically detailing the experiences of sexual violence against those who identify simultaneously as Chinese and queer, the experiences of Asian students, queer students individually offer valuable insights regarding their compounded vulnerabilities and significant risk they face [10, 12]. Statistics show that 2SLGBTQIA+ students experience far higher rates of assault and a growing crisis of safety and well-being than their heterosexual peers in Canada. Hate crimes targeting sexual orientation surged by 69% in 2023 alone which was part of a devastating 388% increase since 2016 [13]. While down from their 2023 peak, remain at more than triple their pre-2020 level, 77% of sexually and gender diverse youth were targeted by bullying in the past year (based on the census in 2019), significantly higher than the 69% reported by their cisgender, heterosexual peers [14, 15]. Moreover, according to the findings from the Foundation Jasmin Roy’s report (2024) on violence against 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals in Canada highlights especially trans, and non-binary youth populations endure higher rate of systemic victimization across multiple forms of violence among sexually and gender-diverse individuals experienced violence or discrimination [16].

These patterns are not abstract for Chinese international students in Montreal. In its 2024 annual report, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) recorded 375 hate crimes, a 6.2% rise over the previous year with ethnic origin or race targeted in nearly half (47.7%) of all cases [17]. That sits on top of the COVID-era surge: between March and December 2020, the SPVM recorded 30 crimes targeting the city’s Asian community, compared with six in all of 2019, and community organizations have continued to document anti-Asian harassment in Montreal neighborhoods such as Chinatown in the years since [18]. For queer Chinese international students specifically, this layered exposure to racialized targeting from outside their communities and to limited recognition within them means daily life carries a low, persistent risk that shapes whether they feel safe seeking help, identifying themselves to institutions, or being visible at all.

Epistemic Violence: The Erasure of Identity

Beyond physical violence, queer Chinese international students face what can be termed epistemic violence, a form of harm that occurs when a group’s experiences and ways of knowing are systematically dismissed, mischaracterized, or rendered invisible by the institutions and discourses that shape public understanding. [19]. In practice, this means they are systematically unheard and their complex, multifaceted identities are not recognized.

There are vivid phenomena of racism within queer community. If the mainstream queer community is imagined as a playing field, queer Chinese often find themselves standing outside but looking towards inside, perpetually subjected to a taste test based on White aesthetic norms and sexualized racial stereotypes, where their entry is conditional on their ability to minimize their Chineseness and maximize conformity to Western expectations [6]. The complexity of racism against queer Chinese within the broader queer community manifests through various forms, including racism, heterosexist and sexist violence, subtle microaggressions, and explicit community exclusion [20, 21]. Queer Chinese and other queer Asian likewise, particularly for those who self-identify as gay or bisexual face specific sexual racism and are frequently subjected to racialized hierarchies and stereotypes where they are depicted as submissive and emasculated [20, 22]. Especially, since the Covid-19 pandemic, Chinese international students in general living in the diaspora encountered hate slurs that explicitly linked their race/ethnicity to disease and hostility [23].

In the fields of both Chinese studies and queer theory, the distinct experience of queer Chinese identity is often obscured by a failure to apply an intersectional lens. The presentation of racial histories and formations through an overwhelmingly heterosexual framework while queer scholarship has historically been Euro-American dominated and white-centered [24]. Although the experiences of visible minorities are acknowledged, the holistic observation of the Chinese/ Asian queer gets flattened or disappears when dominant images of emasculated Asian American men and hyper-heterosexualized Asian women collide [19, 24]. The erasure of Chineseness as solely Asian occurs when the distinct ethnic and cultural experiences of queer Chinese individuals are subsumed under the generalized and often stereotyped concept of the pan-ethnic Asian category [25]. Crucially, as mentioned before, there is little data that tracks students who identify as both Chinese and queer. That invisibility is itself a form of institutional violence.

This epistemic injustice could extend from academia to public discourses. As Chinese international students, they are often problematically portrayed in a monolithic manner in scholarly discussions, media discourses, and state policies [8]. As Chinese queer, they may feel invisible in the dominant queer community because they are not read as truly queer. With the dominance of Western values in queer communities, little recognition of queer Chinese histories that assume queerness is Western while Chinese culture is inherently homophobic [8, 26, 27]. For example, Western media inflicts its own harm through the “escape narrative” portraying China as a living oppressive hell for queer folks and the West as a space of liberation, which erases the real history of queer activism within China and denies the agency of queer Chinese students [27].

Support Gaps

In Canada, supports for 2SLGBTQIA+ students in the campus are typically realized through specialized groups, societies, and resource centers that aim to reduce prejudice, discrimination, and sexual harassment, contributing to a safer, more inclusive campus climate [9, 28, 29]. Despite such efforts, resource allocation is often inadequate or poorly tailored to meet the specific, intersecting needs of queer Chinese international students and they still face difficulties and barriers when engaging as well as seeking for support [28, 30]. Queer student organizations often lack the racial and ethnic diversity and prevention frameworks are typically anchored on the experiences of their white counterparts [9]. Therefore, participating in such spaces can make queer Chinese students feel uncomfortable and underrepresented, as outsiders who struggle to integrate into Western cultural circles [28]. Sometimes, such organizations are perceived as too political or activists which could deter queer Chinese international students who prioritize academic achievement, fear drawing unwanted attention or worry about implications for the visas or immigration status [22, 28]. Languages and lack of culturally relevant background knowledge also become barriers when institutions direct them to counseling or psychological support services [31]. Specifically, key information regarding sexuality or violence response may not be able to explain in their native languages, resulting in limited comprehension and limited successful accesses to these resources [22, 29]. Compounding this issue, Chinese-speaking cultures prioritize the passive-coping strategies to avoid stigmatization instead of actively seeking professional help [30]. Confucian culture also contributes to these challenges. Queer Chinese students are sometimes tied to the obligation of filial piety (xiaoshun) and upholding collective family over individual experiences while open discussions of sexuality remain taboo in Chinese Confucian culture [22, 25, 29, 32].

Moreover, material realities shape queer Chinese international students’ experiences. Most of their presence in Canada is development-induced and capital-driven as their families have invested significant resources in their education abroad [33]. This economic dimension shapes everything from their ability to be open about their sexuality (risking family financial support) to their precarity as temporary residents whose legal status depends on maintaining student status [33, 34]. Taken together, these factors reveal a layered set of vulnerabilities.

Despite the important presence of Chinese international students in Canadian universities, there is still limited literature on understanding the unique personal and sociocultural experiences of queer Chinese international students. Existing literature does not adequately address how the intersection of Chineseness, queer identity, and unsettled immigrant status together specifically shape their experiences of violence and help-seeking behaviors within Western educational context [8]. Therefore, there is need of exploring culturally relevant alternatives to Western-centric queer support that account for cultural values, transnational identity dynamics, and non-Western conceptions of queerness.

ACAS Programs and Initiatives Addressing Local Challenges

This publication turns to Toronto, ON precisely because Montreal has no organization currently offering Chinese-speaking, culturally grounded programming for queer international students. The Toronto program is treated here not as a destination but as a working proof of concept whose design and outcomes can inform what a Montréal initiative would need to do.

Asian Community AIDS Services (ACAS) operates the only Canadian program identified in this work that meets the language, cultural, and population specificity that the population needs: a Mandarin-based, peer-led, culturally embedded program for queer Chinese international students since 2023, the International Students Rainbow Connection (ISRC). ISRC is a targeted program serving Mandarin-speaking gay, bisexual, and men who have sex with men (gbMSM) international students, recent graduates, and newcomers in Toronto [35]. The program aims to reduce social isolation, strengthen community belonging, and promote sexual health knowledge and HIV prevention [36].

Rather than leading with clinical programming or formal HIV education, ISRC prioritizes sustained, low-stakes community-building, peer connection, and accessible HIV prevention education first. This creates the trust and social connection necessary for Chinese-speaking students, newcomers to engage with sexual health information, access clinical services, and build peer support networks. ISRC operates on five integrated pillars around building up community belonging.

Weekly Drop-in Programming

ISRC hosts weekly drop-ins in Downtown Toronto and Scarborough, designed as low threshold, recurring, social spaces where participants can connect, make friends, and build supportive networks. These drop-ins are intentionally not framed as clinical or educational events though health information naturally emerges within them.

During the 2024–2025 program year, ISRC documented 56 cultural and social activities integrated into drop-in programming, ranging from movie nights and board game sessions to harbor outings and potluck dinners [37].

ISRC’s outcomes among regular Mandarin-speaking international gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (ISgbMSM) participants are striking [37, 38]:

• 80% of drop-in participants attended regularly, indicating sustained trust and engagement over time
• 100% of regular Mandarin-speaking ISgbMSM participants reported reduced social isolation
• 95% reported feeling more connected to the Asian LGBTQ+ community in Toronto
• 80% reported “very” positive change across the five dimensions of belonging measured.
• Over 90% agreed having cultural relevance, safety, and meaningful-friendship outcomes.

ISRC removes this layer of cultural translation and language fluency. It provides one of the only environments where participants can have deep, intimate conversations in their mother tongue without being forced into the exhausting role of explanation. Such drop-in model successfully decoupled queer proximity from romance, enabling a critical new category of relationship, genuine camaraderie inside queer community. The 100% reduction in reported social isolation among regular participants is particularly significant in the context of this project, given that isolation and the absence of community recognition are central to the conditions this toolkit responds to.

Sexual Health Education

ISRC’s workshop approach differs from conventional health education. Rather than delivering statistics or formal clinical information, workshops use peer-friendly conversation and real-life scenarios to build knowledge and confidence. The topics included: PrEP information sessions (co-facilitated with local PrEP clinics), Sexual communication and consent workshops, harm reduction sessions, hookup story-sharing sessions, etc.

• 90% reported knowing their HIV status following program involvement
• Among those assessed as eligible for PrEP, 80% expressed intention to start or continue PrEP

These figures demonstrate that culturally and linguistically specific programming delivers concrete HIV-prevention outcomes. Also, according to a briefing conducted in spring 2026, all the participants reported improvements in their HIV knowledge and awareness. Specifically, everyone gained a better understanding of prevention, felt more comfortable discussing sexual health, learned where to get tested in Toronto, and understood PrEP better. Additionally, majority could name at least three HIV prevention methods [38].

Personalized Support

ISRC also provides individualized counseling and care navigation for participants. The services include:

• Information about PrEP and how to access it within Toronto’s healthcare system
• Guidance on HIV/STI testing, including location navigation and accompaniment to clinics
• Harm reduction advice and safer sex communication
• Mental health support and referrals

During the 2024–2025 program year, ISRC delivered 186 individualized support sessions, demonstrating the high demand for personalized guidance beyond group programming[37].

Implications for a Montreal-Based Initiative

Reading through the RE-AIM lens, these design choices speak directly to Reach and Adoption. Crucially, the program was built with Mandarin-speaking community members rather than designed for them and then translated. A co-produced pathway helps explain both ISRC’s reach into a population that other services have struggled to engage and the depth of uptake within that population once contact is made. This is the central operational lesson for Montreal: deeper community consultation at the design stage, not at the rollout stage, is what produces reach and accessibility once the program runs. Copying ISRC’s program elements without copying the co-design process that produced them would be to copy the visible structure while losing the thing that makes it work.

Toronto’s ACAS/ISRC model is instructive precisely because Montreal shares many of its structural conditions while lacking any equivalent response but not the same contexts. Montreal’s French-language environment, distinct immigration pathways, and particular geography of queer space (including the Village and its dynamics) introduce additional layers of navigation for Chinese-speaking queer international students. But the underlying need is comparable, and in some respects more acute.

Montreal is home to several major research universities with significant Chinese international student populations. At McGill alone, students from China represent 29% of all international graduate students [39]. Concordia and Université de Montréal add further to this population. Yet no specific organization in Montreal currently offers Chinese-language, culturally grounded programming specifically for queer international students. Existing 2SLGBTQIA+ campus resources operate primarily in English, French and Spanish, while off-campus organizations in Montreal serve the broader queer community without language- or culture-specific capacity for this group. The ACAS/ISRC data offers several transferable lessons for any Montreal-based initiative.

First, language access is not supplementary; it is foundational. The concentration of positive outcomes among Mandarin-speaking participants strongly suggests that linguistic accessibility itself removes major barriers to trust, and care. Many Chinese international students arrive with limited French, navigating a different healthcare system that, outside of a limited number of anglophone institutions, operates primarily in French [40]. Any locally grounded initiative would need Mandarin- and/or Cantonese-speaking outreach workers embedded from the start, not added later as translation support.

Second, the drop-in model low threshold, recurring, social in character appears to be what builds the trust that makes other forms of support (PrEP navigation, HIV testing referrals, mental health conversations) possible. The ISRC data suggests that community bonding is the mechanism through which harder-to-reach conversations such as HIV prevention, mental health, intimacy become reachable. A Montreal equivalent would need to resist the institutional tendency to lead with clinical or educational programming and instead invest in sustained, low-pressure community space first.

Third, and most directly relevant to this publication itself that can function as an early-stage infrastructure for a Montreal initiative. It can reach students where they already are through university counselling centers, international student offices, 2SLGBTQIA+ campus groups, and peer networks and begin building the visibility, sense of recognition, cultural difference that a more formal initiative would eventually require.

Finally, the broader orientation of this project can be summarized through the idea “empowerment first, resistance one step back.” The central aim is to facilitate greater communication and connectivity and empower Chinese queer diaspora across the campuses, in Canada.

Life in Canada is far from easy. Before advocating for rights related to their identities, many diasporic queer individuals must first address issues of immigration status, employment, housing, and long-term security which are often more immediate and urgent over direct political engagement. It may help explain why Chinese queer international students rarely engage in political or rights-based activist protests or actions. This is not a deliberate attempt at depoliticization, rather, for many, simply finding ways to remain in the country already requires significant effort, and daily life itself is marked by precarity.

As international students without strong support networks or as newcomers just entering the workforce, they already face considerable pressure from life, study, and work. Asking them to spend their spare time engaging in heavy or potentially distressing discussions would likely undermine their willingness to participate. The most meaningful form of support is grounded in self-care, community connection without the pursuit of broad social impact. Self-care operates on many levels that involves choosing actions that align with one’s own values and needs. Here, building spaces where queer Chinese international students can simply exist safely, speak comfortably, and form relationships without constant translation or explanation is a deeply meaningful political and community-building act.

AI Use

For this CKP, I used ChatGPT to support initial organization discovery and locate program. All sources surfaced by AI tools were independently verified by me before being included in this publication. All AI-drafted sources were independently reviewed by the author while all sources cited in those passages were independently verified by the author. Generative AI was not used in the original research, data collection, or analysis.