Although the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia is tomorrow, May 17, this evening will see a rally take place at Grand Parade.

This year's theme is Our Bodies, Our Health, Our Rights. Speakers at the rally, which kicks off at 6pm, include The Raging Grannies; Gabe Saulnier, from Healing Our Nations; and many more individuals and groups speaking on everything from trans rights to the gay blood ban.

For more information, check out the Facebook event page.

Keeping in the same vein, prideHealth and the Aids Coalition will present Health Impacts of Homophobia and Transphobia at the IWK Health Centre. It features a panel discussion with Jacqueline Gahagan, from Dalhousie School of Health and Human Performance; Ellen Taylor, with the Atlantic Centre of Excellence for Women's Health; Sheena Jamieson, from the YouthProject; and Chris Aucoin, with the AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia.

For more info, check out prideHealth's poster.

The Capital District Health Authority (CDHA)’s public health unit, along with the provincial Department of Health and Wellness, are looking to launch an education campaign related to the ongoing syphilis outbreak among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Halifax.

The campaign’s main target will be online advertising, but posters in various drinking establishments are a key component of the campaign. That's where you come in.

PrideHealth is asking MSM to tell them their top five bars in Halifax. In fact, anywhere alcohol is served -- pubs, clubs, lounges and more.

"We want the campaign to reach as many guys as possible, so we want to know, 'Where do you and your friends go to socialize,'" says Kirk Furlotte, prideHealth's health-promotion intern. Furlotte mentions that they are looking for bars that may not be viewed as strictly gay or queer spaces, such as Menz & Mollyz, Reflections or Seadogs. "We’re already planning to go there," he says. He also points out that individuals who participate don’t need to list five bars. "Even one or two would be helpful."

As for privacy, Furlotte assures that your name and personal responses won't be shared and will be deleted once all the information has been gathered. He notes that not every bar that is suggested will be guaranteed to be a part of this campaign.

Send your results to kirk.furlotte@cdha.nshealth.ca with your top five bars. If you’d like to know the final results, mention that as well.

This edition of The Reading List is all about sexual health.

- If you haven't had the chance, check out Xtra's recent coverage on sexual health issues. Nancy Irwin wrote a great piece on the rise of syphilis amongst men who have sex with men.

- Andrea Houston reports on the rise of STI infections in large urban centres in Ontario.  

- Over at The Atlantic, Alice Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, looks at a recent report by the United Nations looking to repeal health practices such as "genital normalizing therapies" for individuals born with genitals that are sexually atypical. Read it.

- And if you're interested in healthcare practices and issues, prideHealth is holding a Trans* Community Forum next week. In partnership with the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health (CPATH), prideHealth is hosting a discussion on ways to expand access to healthcare for the trans community. The event happens March 6 in the Parker Reception Room at the IWK. For more information, contact prideHealth at 902-473-1433 or pridehealth@cdha.nshealth.ca.

This Thursday, the Gay Men's Health Project presents a panel discussion entitled "Is HIV Stigma Fueling New HIV Infections Among Gay/Bi Men?"

The discussion takes place in the Royal Bank Theatre at the Halifax Infirmary, 1796 Summer St. The talk begins at 7pm.

Speaking that evening will be Chris Aucoin (gay men's health coordinator for the AIDS Coalition of Nova Scotia), Cybelle Rieber, (prideHealth), Hugo Dann (queer community activist) and Matt Numer (assistant professor of health promotion at Dalhousie University).

For more information, contact Chris Aucoin,at gmhc@acns.ns.ca.

This morning, CBC's Nova Scotia website reported about a recent upswing in cases of syphilis.

The article states that 47 men in the HRM have tested positive this year, up from 35 last year. The story also discusses how many of the men who tested positive often met other men online. Holly D'Angelo-Scott, a senior epidemiologist at Capital Health told the CBC that "when we look to see the connections between cases, a lot of our cases are meeting their sexual partners through the internet. That's probably a common link between some of the cases."

It's a tricky business to talk about sexual health to the masses, especially when you're hoping to reach certain demographics -- in this case, men who have sex with men. It can be tricky with men who have sex with men (MSM) because you're dealing with a population that doesn't always want to be identified, or even identifies with that moniker.

Let's say you're a straight-identified, married man named X. To X, sex is what he does with his wife/girlfriend/et cetera. He loves her and enjoys having sex with her. Sex involves very specific forms of physical intimacy with that one person. But X also happens to occasionally meet certain men to do certain things. It could be in public places, it could be online, it could be in a bathhouse. For X, what happens in those locations and in those times may not be viewed as sex, because it isn't the same forms of physical intimacy that he engages with his wife/girlfriend/et cetera. So when a local news source posts a story about a recent upswing in STI rates amongst MSM, it doesn't faze him, because it doesn't affect him. He doesn't think what he's doing is having sex with men.

So how do you reach X? How do you reach a population that doesn't want to be identified or outed?

At this stage in the game, the best way to do this is to use broad strokes when talking to the public.

The CBC story never uses any terminology that denotes sexual orientation in its description of the men. It does, however, indicate that "all the 115 confirmed syphilis cases since that time have been men" and includes a quote from a Capital Health staffer: "It is possible that there will be a progression from this population of men who have sex with men to women." Here, they are talking about X. They are talking to X. And hopefully X will get the message.

This is not to say that X is emblematic of every MSM who doesn't want to be identified. X may be closeted. X may have myriad reasons for not wanting to be counted amongst MSM. Those reasons are X's alone. But X is amongst the population of MSM. 

I am amongst that population. And I have many friends, as well as current and former lovers, who are as well.

It doesn't matter what the STI is or how and when a person may or may not contract it. What matters is getting the information out there without a heavy-handed message or propagandist polemic. And I take it as my personal responsibility to share that information with as many people as possible. With friends, colleagues, internet followers and more. Because it's an important story. It's a story about your -- and everyone's -- health.

"This is an opportunity for the rainbow community to learn what is happening with the syphilis outbreak, how big it is," says Cybelle Rieber, of prideHealth. "It's an attempt to try and change misinformation while engaging the community to be part of turning around the outbreak."

According to Rieber, there have been as many diagnosed cases of the STI in the past four months as there were last year. "We’re still waiting to see if the raise is due to more testing, or if it’s a similar number of people being tested and diagnosed positive. We’re hoping that we will have that info by the night of the forum."

On the agenda are the mechanics of how the disease spreads, as well as forms of treatment and prevention.

"Anyone can come from any community. We want to engage the pride community in all ways," Rieber says.