The purpose of this study is to analyze the significance of Pride House at Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at this particular geopolitical historical point time and to locate it within the current debate on neocolonialism, globalization, and corporatization of diversity, borrowing from Nagao Nishikawa’s theory of ‘neo’ colonialism (2006), Lisa Duggan’s homonormativity (2002), and Jasbir Puar’s homonationalism (2006; 2007). Pride House was created in Vancouver and Whistler during the 2010 Winter Olympics as the first Olympic venue in its history for gay and lesbian athletes, coaches, their family and allies. It was founded by two successful gay businessmen who run the hotel and gay tourist businesses. Although Pride House was not an official Olympic venue, it was generally well received as a sign of progress in the fight against homophobia in sports. However, when juxtaposing the celebration of gay-friendly space in the Olympics and the struggles of native Canadians and people with low-income reflected in the anti-Olympic movement, a different picture of Pride House emerges. Theories of ‘neo’ colonialism, homonormativity, and homonationalism help us recognize how the discourse of liberal-inclusion of LGBT people, typified by Pride House, could be used by or become complicit with capitalist’s interest and the nation’s war against terrorism through binaristic and colonialist notions of homo-friendly, civilized, “Occident” and homophobic, savage, “Orient.” The Olympics will return to Asia in 2018. It is still too early to tell if there will be any form of Pride House. However, one thing to learn from the analysis of Pride House for our own battle against the oppression of queer people is that it is important to be critical of how homonationalist discourse relies on the problematic binaristic discourse that produces further marginalization.

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