Canada’s Stonewall (2nd Draft)
Since the legalization of gay marriage in the United States many American citizens have claimed they want to move to Canada. Now this may seem ridiculous to Canadians as gay marriage has been legal for 11 years. But prior to 2005 Canada was a very different place for its gay citizens. In Toronto in 1981 for example four bathhouses were violently raided by police and over 300 men were arrested. (A bathhouse at its most basic purpose is a place where men could bathe publicly). Bathhouses during this time were most commonly known as places where men could have casual sex with other men, but they were also places were men could socialize, workout, or just somewhere to stay the night. Bathhouses acted as safety zones for gay men who were rejected by their families or friends.
Imagine, it’s a Thursday night in February and you are at one of these bathhouses with a few friends. Although the atmosphere is much like a seedy bar, and the maze of hallways is always a little confusing, this is a place where you can be yourself freely without fear of persecution. Suddenly you hear a loud rumbling noise. The thought that it might be an earthquake crosses your mind until you see the hundreds of police officers storm into the building. “What’s going on?” you ask but your voice is drowned out by the loud commands of the officers and the deafeningly loud crashing sounds of sledgehammers against, well, everything. You are completely surrounded, the police officers force you from your room and mark your room number on your hand. Its been three seconds and you already feel like a prisoner. The police officers begin cutting open lockers with bolt cutters. Some of the men offer up the keys to their lockers but they are ignored or pushed aside. Lockers that can easily by opened are aggressively ripped apart with crowbars and searched. The police take you and your friends to the shower room with everyone else in the club. At this point you are terrified. You and the rest of the men in the shower room are ordered to “strip completely, face the wall and don’t move”. You ask one of the officers what is happening, mostly because your brain is on autopilot and you can’t stop the question from repeating itself over and over again in your head. You are promptly told to shut up. The man next to you angrily whispers, “now I know what my parents must have gone through during the Holocaust”. At this comment you can’t help but realize the similarities.
Its cold and you’ve been standing in the shower room completely naked for a while now. You peek over your shoulder to see what is happening behind you and the police are searching some of the men for drugs. Now since you are all naked I’m sure you can imagine that there aren’t many places to look. It is absolute chaos. While this is going on the police are acting like lunatics. You can hear loud crashing sounds from everywhere in the club. It sounds as if they are destroying any part of the building they can. The police are shouting derogatory remarks at the “prisoners”. You even see some of the officers taking pictures of the naked men. The worst moment of the entire incident is when you overhear one of the officers casually say to his friend “gee, it’s too bad we can’t hook this up to gas”.
At this remark your feelings of shame start to disappear and you begin to get angry. Your night has been ruined, your safe place has been absolutely destroyed, and you are being completely degraded by the police for doing absolutely nothing wrong. The whole situation is completely ridiculous. It really does feel as if you could be a Jewish man being taken to a concentration camp during the rise of Hitler’s power. You shudder at the thought. Finally, you are charged as a found-in and taken away.
Once you are processed by the police you are given a court date. You feel as if you have lost everything. You are finally able to return home the next evening feeling completely and utterly alone. Unsure of what to do you turn on your TV and the news comes on. A reporter is standing amidst a large crowd, “Due to the raids of four bathhouses last night a massive riot has broken out in support of the homosexual community” he says “over 3000 people have gathered as a response to the actions of the police that occurred last night here in Toronto”. You listen intently and the camera shows the most orderly riot you have ever seen. Thousands of people are marching respectfully through the streets chanting things like “Gay rights now”, “No more shit”, and “2, 4, 6, 8 Toronto’s a police state”.
A few weeks later another protest is made and over 4000 people demand increased rights for the LGBTQ community. Of all the 300+ men arrested in the raids a majority were not successfully prosecuted. Others, who had no one to turn to pleaded guilty out of fear or recommendations from lawyers. Due to the lack of necessity of the bathhouse raids, outrage lead to a formal investigation into community relations between the police and the gay community. The investigation did not go well, the Board in charge of the police department acted with disinterest and had decided prior to the meeting not to support a public inquiry into the actions of the police that took place on February 5th. However, with the massive show of support from the larger community you knew this was a turning point not just in your life but in the lives of many LGBTQ people. After this horrible moment in time things would slowly change for the better. It didn’t happen overnight as raids of bathhouses still continued for the next 20 years and sexual orientation was not included in the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law within the Charter of Rights until 1995. But Toronto inaugurated a Pride Day after the horrendous events of Operation Soap (the name of the four bathhouse raids you were witness to). Between the 1980s and 2005 many many many steps were taken in a positive direction. It has been tough battle and still things are not perfect, especially outside of Canada, but legislation and law are definitely much more accepting than they used to be.
- sources used for the article