The Pandemics of Racism and COVID-19: Danger and Opportunity

The study frames racism and COVID-19 as intersecting crises that disproportionately affect racialized communities, echoing prior patterns seen in HIV. In Canada, the absence of systematic race-based COVID-19 data obscures inequities, though existing analyses show higher infection in communities with more Black and low-income residents. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT), the paper investigates how structural and interpersonal racism shaped the lives and sexual/social experiences of gay, bisexual, queer, and other men who have sex with men (GBQM) of colour during the COVID-19 epidemic across Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver. The research question asks how white supremacist discourses and intersectional identities (race, gender, sexuality, HIV status, class, citizenship) influenced when and how GBQM of colour experienced discrimination in everyday social and sexual contexts during COVID-19, and how this affected their health and care-seeking.

The paper mobilizes CRT to center marginalized experiences, view race as socially constructed, and highlight racism as normalized and embedded in structures, policies, and institutions. Narrative-based methods are emphasized to capture everyday racism often invisible in quantitative data. Intersectionality is used to analyze how overlapping identities produce specific vulnerabilities. The authors situate anti-Asian racism during COVID-19 within the historical 'yellow peril' discourses and exclusionary laws, and anti-Black racism within legacies of slavery, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. Prior studies show lower trust in institutions among LGBTQ+ people, especially people of colour, and disruptions to HIV care for GBQM of colour during COVID-19. CRT is further used to critique biomedicalization and to understand how racism shapes perceptions of safety, healthcare, and public space. The review connects contemporary experiences to historical pathologizing of racialized groups as disease vectors, showing how COVID-19 amplified entrenched racialized and sexualized discourses.

Design: Mixed-methods Engage COVID-19 study component using qualitative methods. Setting: Montréal, Toronto, and Vancouver, Canada. Sample: 93 in-depth qualitative interviews with GBQM across two rounds (Round 1: n=42, Nov 2020–Feb 2021; Round 2: n=51, Jun–Oct 2021). Of these, 59 identified as Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Colour (BIPOC). Mean age 36 (range 20–64); 13.6% Black; 23.7% East Asian; 86.4% cisgender; 78.0% gay; 18.6% living with HIV. Sampling: Maximum variation sampling based on age, ethnoracial background, gender, HIV status; targets set for BIPOC (≥60%), Indigenous (≥10%), Black (≥20%), age strata, trans men (≥10%), bisexual (≥20%), and PLHIV (≥20%). Recruitment from the Engage cohort. Ethics approvals obtained from multiple institutional REBs. Data collection: All interviews conducted virtually via Microsoft Teams due to COVID-19 restrictions. Semi-structured guide covered seven domains: demographics; COVID-19 experiences and public health messaging; finances/work/everyday life; healthcare access; sexual health and decision-making; mental health/substance use; other concerns. Interviews averaged 81 minutes; audio recorded; conducted in English or French (Montréal), English (Toronto, Vancouver). Interviewers were GBQM with local contextual knowledge; two white researchers (Montréal, Vancouver) and one Black researcher (Toronto). Participants received CAD $50 honorarium. Data management and analysis: Interviews transcribed verbatim; French interviews translated/transcribed; transcripts verified against audio. QSR NVivo 12 used for coding. Inductive thematic analysis with iterative codebook development; high-level code ‘discrimination’ with subcodes (e.g., anti-Black racism, anti-Asian racism). CRT informed attention to normalized everyday racism and historical/structural context. Themes refined through team discussions and reflexive interpretation by analysts with lived experience of racism.

• Two main themes: (1) Anticipated impacts of COVID-19 on racialized communities; (2) Manifestations of racism during COVID-19.
• Anticipated impacts: Participants recognized structural vulnerabilities in racialized and lower-income neighborhoods (e.g., housing precarity, under-resourcing), and noted racist/moralistic blame narratives targeting communities (e.g., Surrey’s South Asian community). Anticipated discrimination in healthcare based on prior experiences and perceived racialized association with COVID-19 (e.g., East Asian participants fearing less sympathy from providers; reliance on white family advocates).
• Manifestations of racism: East Asian and Black GBQM most frequently reported racism, primarily verbal harassment in public and online spaces. Incidents included being followed and yelled at, racial slurs, and being blamed for COVID-19. Mask-wearing compounded risks: East Asian GBQM feared being targeted when masked; Black GBQM reported heightened surveillance and being perceived as threatening when wearing masks, even in residential spaces.
• Sexual racism and desirability: Participants described COVID-19-specific sexual racism, including being perceived as vectors of disease in online/sexual contexts (e.g., East Asian GBQM facing harassment during camming; Latino participant anticipating rejection due to presumed vaccination or travel-related risk). These dynamics reinforced racialized notions of ‘clean’ (white) versus ‘unclean’ (racialized, immigrant) bodies.
• Descriptive statistics: Among BIPOC participants (n=59) in the analytic sample, 13.6% identified as Black; 23.7% as East Asian; 18.6% living with HIV; 86.4% cisgender; 78.0% gay; mean age 36 (20–64).

Findings show that racism during COVID-19 operated at structural, community, interpersonal, and intimate/sexual levels for GBQM of colour. Structural racism produced under-supported racialized neighborhoods and barriers to healthcare, while interpersonal racism manifested as public harassment and surveillance, intensified by mask mandates. Sexual racism was amplified by pandemic discourses that racialized disease risk, reinforcing exclusion in sexual networks. These results address the research question by demonstrating how racialized and sexualized discourses shape daily and sexual experiences of GBQM of colour under COVID-19, consistent with CRT’s emphasis on the embeddedness of racism in institutions and everyday life. The study highlights how historical stereotypes (e.g., ‘yellow peril’, ‘Black brute’) intersect with gendered and sexualized assumptions to produce unique vulnerabilities for East Asian and Black GBQM. Public health implications include potential hesitancy to seek care due to anticipated discrimination and mental health burdens from harassment, underscoring the need for anti-racist, intersectional public health strategies during epidemics.

Racism remains a significant threat to the health and wellbeing of GBQM of colour during COVID-19, shaping access to appropriate care and imposing social and psychological harms. CRT provides a crucial framework for understanding how racialized and gendered discourses influence experiences across multiple epidemics (COVID-19, HIV, mpox). Public health interventions in Canada must prioritize anti-racist approaches, anticipate the stigmatization of racialized and sexual minority populations during epidemics, and address impacts on social and sexual relationships. Future research should deepen focus on under-represented groups (e.g., Black, Indigenous GBQM) and further examine pandemic-driven sexual racism and its health consequences.

• Under-representation of Black and Indigenous GBQM despite targeted recruitment goals, limiting generalizability to these groups.
• Structural barriers and COVID-19-related constraints (e.g., work schedules, resources) may have reduced participation among some racialized groups.
• Limited ability to fully assess experiences among other GBQM of colour (e.g., Latin American, South Asian, Middle Eastern) over time.
• Potential recall bias: interviews conducted months after the initial surge when racism was most pronounced; some second-round participants had difficulty recalling earlier incidents.
• Reliance on qualitative self-report may under- or over-capture subtle everyday racism; however, CRT-informed analysis sought to contextualize these narratives historically and structurally.