Activists on University Avenue during the 1972 Pride March. (Courtesy: Jerald Moldenhauer)
October is Queer History Month, and to celebrate, Queer & Now has dug into some of the most revolutionary moments in Toronto’s queer history.
As a group historically subjected to intense discrimination and persecution, the 2SLGBTQ+ community has a long, rich history filled with resilience and triumph. This includes moments of intense joy and deep sorrow, as well as fierce protests and colourful celebrations.
Dr. Craig Jennex, a Toronto scholar of performance, queer politics, and feminist theory and assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, explains that it wasn’t until after the Second World War that queer subcultures became visible in the city.
“There are many reasons for this: the development of suburbs for good ‘normal’ families, new apartment buildings allowing single or shared occupancy, the growing awareness of the ‘threat’ of homosexuality, increasing anonymity, and, in the 60s, publications, organizations, and social spaces that are explicitly framed around urban gay life,” Jennex told Queer & Now.
“There are queer people everywhere, but the seedy promise of urban life has lured many of us from smaller cities and towns,” Jennex explained. He shared that in the 1970s, as Toronto became Canada’s biggest urban city, lesbian and gay politics and culture were coming to the forefront of the city’s culture.
“In the 1970s it was possible to work part-time and survive in this city,” Jennex explained. “Queer activists and artists were able to devote time and energy to imagining and building alternatives. That’s not to say it was easy for them, but it was different from what many of us experience now when we work paycheque to paycheque and still worry about how long we can afford to stay in the city.”
While this is by no means an all-encompassing timeline, in honour of Queer History Month, Queer & Now is highlighting some of the most crucial moments in the queer history of Toronto.
THE FOUNDING OF GLAD DAY BOOKSHOP – 1970
Now standing proudly in Toronto’s Church and Wellesley Village, Glad Day Bookshop had very humble beginnings in 1970. Recognized as the world’s oldest surviving queer bookstore, Glad Day was founded by Toronto queer activist Jearld Moldenhauer as a response to the lack of available queer texts available in the city.
The first brick-and-mortar Glad Day shop was located at 65 Kendal Ave., with the iconic shop bouncing around various locations over the following decades before landing at its current Church St. home in 2016. As well as providing resources to the community, this venue has been the site of various events and iconic meetings among queer rights activists.
“[Moldenhauer] was very involved with a lot of important censorship cases with Canada Customs [which is] important from the perspective of Canadian legal history,” Dr. Elspeth Brown, a history professor at the University of Toronto told Queer & Now.
“He also was critical to founding The ArQuives. But he also founded the first university-based gay organization. In 1968, he founded the University of Toronto Homophile Association.”
Some of his other accomplishments include founding the Cornell University Homophile Association, as well as the Toronto-based queer magazine The Body Politic.
In addition to her work as a history professor, Elspeth Brown is also the founder and director of UofT’s LGBTQ+ Oral History Digital Collaboratory where she has worked on a variety of different projects focused on queer history.
TORONTO’S FIRST “GAY DAY” PICNIC – 1971
While Toronto Pride celebrations have bloomed into a month-long celebration, the very first Pride was a humble affair. The first Pride picnic was held on August 1, 1971, at Hanlan’s Point on Toronto Island. Organized by the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT) and Toronto Gay Action, the event focused on community and included food, music and joy.
A group of attendees at Toronto’s first Pride Picnic held in 1971 at Hanlan’s Point. (Courtesy: The ArQuives)
The following year, Toronto saw its first Pride Week, which included another picnic, panel discussions, an art exhibit, and dances. The inaugural Pride Week also included the city’s first Pride march, which had only 300 attendees, according to The ArQuives.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE 519 – 1975
In 1975, the City of Toronto purchased the building located at 519 Church St. to open the iconic community centre that still stands there today. The following year, the board that operated the space received an application from a youth services organization requesting permission for a group of gay youth to use the centre. According to the community centre’s website, the request was controversial, with a vote leading to a split between queer and heterosexual board members. The deciding vote, allowing the group to use the space, was submitted by a member who was bisexual but closeted at the time.
Since its inception, The 519 has provided crucial services to the community, including but not limited to support for people experiencing homelessness, safe-sex resources and educational materials, counselling, and early education services. The centre has also been home to many queer activist groups, including those who fought for marriage equality and against police brutality.
Fun fact, The 519 is the original home of Canadian comedy giant YukYuk’s, which has hosted the likes of Jim Carrey and Howie Mandel. Another fun fact, my brother introduced him to perform his stand up comedy show at Scarborough College (University Of Toronto).
OPERATION SOAP – 1981
Toronto was the location of many queer bathhouse raids carried out by police from the early 1970s to the beginning of the 2000s. However, one night in 1981 changed the course of Toronto’s queer history. On Feb. 5, 1981, in an effort dubbed “Operation Soap,” police raided four queer bathhouses in Downtown Toronto, arresting nearly 300 people. Following the raids, the names of those arrested were published in media reports, leading to additional consequences for those arrested, including homophobic discrimination from employers, friends, and family.
Toronto bathhouse raids on February 5, 1981. (Courtesy: Toronto Public Library Archives)
The following evening, community members took to the streets and protested the abuse they experienced at the hands of law enforcement. According to records, the protest included more than 3,000 participants and saw violence break out between police and protesters. A second larger protest calling for an end to police violence against 2SLGBTQ+ communities took place two weeks later. These raids also led to the forming of Lesbian and Gay Pride Day in Toronto.
Many of those who were charged in Operation Soap had their charges either dropped or dismissed. The 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids and the protests that followed are frequently compared to New York’s 1969 Stonewall riots, where guests of Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn gay bar retaliated against police brutality.
While a pinnacle moment in Toronto’s queer history, Operation Soap was not the end of bathhouse raids in Toronto, with police continuing to raid Toronto bathhouses, gay and lesbian strip clubs and nightclubs up until 2000, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. However, five years after Operation Soap, in 1986, Ontario added sexual orientation as prohibited grounds for discrimination into its Human Rights Code.
AIDS ACTION NOW! FOUNDED – 1988
During the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, several activist groups were established in Toronto, with members calling on elected officials and healthcare systems to take action to combat the ongoing crisis, this includes AIDS ACTION NOW!, founded in 1988.
“There was a lot of ignorance from politicians, from community members and AIDS ACTION NOW! was very rightfully fed up with it,” Roxy Moon, archives assistant at The ArQuives told Queer & Now.
via now magazine