Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered athletes will find the first-ever Olympic pavilion welcoming them in 2010, a place at the Games to hang out, chill out, or come out. “The whole purpose behind Pride House” — actually a conference room at Whistler, B.C.’s Pan Pacific Hotel—“was really to create a dialogue about homophobia within sport,” […] More »

Queer rights are on trial left, right and centre this month. Here in Canada, an HIV-positive gay couple from the States has won their appeal against Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Until now, the majority of HIV-positive applicants have been excluded because of the excessive burden they posed on health services. This couple was initially rejected, […] More »

Uganda may soon follow Nigeria in making homosexuality an offense punishable by death. The proposed legislation was apparently sparked by a visit from American members of the ex-gay movement, who believe homosexuality can be cured through therapy. Most of these groups though have since denounced the bill, which is perhaps a mark of how extreme […] More »

It’s hard to read the story of Chris Skinner, the 27-year-old gay man who was beaten and then run over at Bay and Adelaide in Toronto just over a month ago, without feeling chilled. In addition to the obvious horror, there is something extremely disturbing about a violent attack you can’t pin an explanation on. […] More »

Guests at Ottawa’s Heaven dance club expect to have a good time and dance the night away. What the mostly heterosexual crowd was not expecting this spring Saturday night was for the club to be overrun by the Gay Guerrilla Takeover. The Gay Guerrilla Takeover is an organization that does what its name says: once […] More »

In a case before the Ontario Superior Court this month, an Ottawa man is challenging the ban on blood donation by gay men. Currently, any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 is “indefinitely deferred” from giving blood. Not only is this ban unnecessarily broad, it does a disservice to the very […] More »

The legalization of gay marriage in Canada has coincided with an era that might be dubbed the first “queer baby boom.” As such, this generation of queer parents and their children have been forced to adopt the ambivalent role of pioneers in a social space in which the model of the “traditional” nuclear family does […] More »

I am on a gay beach, surrounded by half-naked, toned, tanned, Speedo-sporting gay men. Somewhere a random diva is belting out a dance hit. The tropical sun has ensured all bodies are dripping. At the makeshift beach bar, ice is plunked into orange and incarnadine cocktails, and the bartender screams, “Cheers to queers,” kissing each […] More »

A provision governing hate speech in Canada is under the microscope this week, after a tribunal of the Canadian Human Rights Commission concluded that it violates the right to freedom of expression guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This body doesn’t have the power to strike down Section 13(1) of the Human Rights […] More »

Above I’ve embedded a video made by Scott Thomas, design director of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential run, stumping for a book he’s working on called Designing Obama. And in classic Barack-the-vote style, he’s relying on a web-savvy, crowd-sourced, grassroots internet campaign to get it off the ground, requiring readers to collectively pledge the US$65,000 it […] More »

Marriage certificates in hand, middle-class gays and lesbians have drifted away from the fight for queer rights. Underfunded and burnt out, the activists left behind say there’s still plenty of work to do. Last January, Helen Kennedy sat behind the Hockey Night in Canada desk with CBC’s Ron MacLean, explaining why her organization, Egale Canada, […] More »