The Queering Cancer origin story
Queering Cancer (QC) was founded by three graduate students from cancer-related backgrounds, Meghan McInnis (psycho-social oncology), Evan Taylor (social work), and Amanda Bolderston (radiation therapy).
They met at the launch of a 2017 Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant competition “Hacking the knowledge gap”. The “gap” was the lack of tailored resources, information, and support for SGD people affected by cancer.
The healthcare communications company Bird Comm supported the design and implementation of QC’s website and social media platforms. Mary Morgan, a lesbian living with multiple myeloma in British Columbia became the founding community partner with QC and prominent guiding voice in its aims and ethos. We were soon joined by Kim Meeking and later by additional community partners and people with lived experience Laura Imayoshi and Tristan Bilash. Between us the QC team identifies as lesbian, bisexual, queer, gay, cis, and transgender.
We published a paper on the development and work of QC in 2023 in the Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences. In early 2025 QC was incorporated as a non-profit organization with Laura, Kim and Amanda as the first directors.
You can read more about our work and how we make a difference in our CIHR funded impact evaluation, published in 2024.