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Gay Pride on Stolen Land: Homonationalism and Settler Colonialism at the Vancouver Winter Olympics

A new form of sporting settler homonationalism emerged in the Pride Houses at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. For the first time ever, Pride Houses were set up where gay and lesbian supporters watched and celebrated the Olympic events. Drawing on poststructuralism, queer and settler colonial studies, the paper analyzes how the Pride Houses were based on settler colonial discourses about participation and displacement. A settler discourse about First Nations and Two-Spirit participation in the Pride Houses allowed gay and lesbian Canadian settlers to both remember and forget the history of settlement. Another settler discourse took for granted the displacement of Two-Spirit youth from their community center and Indigenous people from their traditional territories in order for the Olympics and the Pride Houses to take place. The paper suggests that queering settler politics in sport means confronting, rather than disavowing, colonialism and challenging homonational forms of gay and lesbian inclusion in sport mega- events.