It’s week two, and I still have Olympic fever. I’ll admit I still have some mixed feelings about the Olympics, but I’m not alone in that. Politics aside, I love to watch the actual sporting events, see the nuances of expression on the athletes’ faces as they anticipate, compete, and then react to their own performances. There’s elation, disappointment, glory, rage. Amazing.

Aside from the competitions, I’ve also got my eye on Pride House, a public space for queer athletes and their supporters to gather. There has never been an official space for queer athletes at any other Olympics, and organizers of Pride House at the 2010 Winter Olympics are hoping it will be a statement about the outlook of British Columbia and of Canada in general. It’s an amazing thing to have a space that defies homophobia in sport.

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A recent headline about humanpapillomavirus (HPV) made me glad, because it underlines the importance of talking about all kinds of safer sex. Researchers are finding HPV DNA in various tumours where the cancer is found in mucosal tissue, such as the nasal cavities or the throat. The connection between oral sex and HPV that leads to these cancers can be used as another argument in favour of the HPV vaccine, which has been controversial. I support parents’ rights to make decisions about what vaccines their kids receive, but am also for illuminating the prevalence of HPV.   

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Right around the time this post goes online, the Olympic torch will be running by my house.  I’ll be standing on the corner with my camera and pretending that’s not my dog barking in the window, driven insane by all the “trespassers”.    I don’t know what these two weeks will hold for me and my family, but for many people – especially athletes and visitors – the Olympics will be one big party.  If you’re not somebody who regularly participates in international sporting events, you might not know that there’s an awful lot of hanky-panky and partying that goes on.

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“Our gender (as transgender and transsexual people) is … invalidated, insulted, and hated. We are denied personhood because our gender is not heteronormative enough: Proper men do not want to become women, and proper women do not become men….”  writes Lisa, of Questioning Transphobia.  

Lisa’s words well describe the discrimination that many trans women face: the message that they’re not "right" in a fundamental way, or so says mainstream society. When it comes to women-specific services, the discrimination against trans women can be particularly pronounced, and many trans women are left without services because they aren’t "women enough."

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