By Gary Kinsman
- I am writing this on Indigenous land in the days after the graves of 215 Indigenous children were uncovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential (Death Camp) School in BC. ‘Canada’ is based on racism, settler colonialism and genocide.
Against the sanitizing of Pride 1981.
2021 is the 40th anniversary of the start of Pride festivals and marches in Toronto at the end of June in 1981, coinciding with the anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion against police repression in New York City. The Pride Toronto theme this year is: “40 years of Pride, 40 years of protest.”
I was actively involved in organizing with the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee in 1981 and was the co-ordinating marshal for the June 28th march.
The high point for me that day was when close to 800 people stopped and chanted “Fuck You 52!” outside 52 Division of the Toronto Police at Yonge and Dundas. This was against the mass bath raids carried out by the police, since 52 Division was where these raids were co-ordinated. “Fuck You 52!” was very popular that year, along with “Enough is Enough!” and “No More Shit!” Pride day that year and this march would not have happened without the mass resistance to the police and the bath raids.
I remember this very well since as the co-ordinating marshal for the Pride March I was tasked at a meeting, when I was out of town, with getting and signing a police permit for the event since people wanted it to be what would now be called a ‘family friendly event.’ But the police refused to give us a permit to march on Yonge Street, but we organized and did so anyway! I had signed this permit with the police that also did not include us stopping outside 52 Division. The cops gave me shit for this!
I contrast this with what Pride Toronto writes in 2021 commemorating the 40th anniversary where they state, with no clear mention of the police, that:
“The Operation Soap bathhouse raids, which took place in 1981 – 40 years ago – generated a string of protests against queer oppression. Later in the year, ‘Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Toronto’, now Pride Toronto, was legally incorporated and an estimated 1,500 people celebrated Pride Day on Sunday, June 28th, 1981 at Grange Park. Near the end of a politically charged year, the day was billed as a time to relax and celebrate. …” (Feb. 24, 2021).
This sets up a major contradiction or rupture for me since I was there, and this is not at all how I remember what took place. Firstly, the police were active agents behind organizing the bath raids. Secondly, why is being legally incorporated so important to note, especially when this did not actually happen until much later? The Pride Committee remained a community-based group for many years without any need for incorporation. Thirdly, the expression “an afternoon of fun and frolic” as part of the text on a poster for the event gets translated as a time to simply “relax and celebrate” and not any actual description of what took place that year when more than 1,500 people gathered in the park and hundreds took to the streets to celebrate Pride and protest police repression. There is an attempt to sanitize Pride Day in 1981[1] and what I do here is to recover the radical (as in getting to the root of the problem) history of Pride in 1981 to resist this.
We need to resist the forgetting of the radical and activist roots of Pride in Toronto, including that done through the work of Pride Toronto itself, as it has been transformed from the movement and community-based committee which organized the 1981 festival and march. What I provide in these notes is partial and limited, but I hope others will use it as a resource to build upon. In particular, the voices and experiences of Black, Indigenous and racialized activists are needed to contest and transform the too white character of these historical sketches
Pride in the 1970s
To begin with Pride rallies and marches did not start in Toronto in 1981 but were held in Toronto in the 1970s. In 1971 a picnic and celebration was held at Hanlan’s Point on the Toronto Islands and in 1972, 1973, and 1974 rallies and marches were held. I remember one that started at the CHAT (Community Homophile Association of Toronto) Centre on Church Street, where I spoke for the Young Socialists, the left group I was then in; and another than started in Allan Gardens. These events commemorated the We Demand demonstration which was the first lesbian and gay rights demonstration on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in August 1971 (fifty years ago, this August). We Demand put forward a series of demands for the repeal of oppressive laws and for human rights. Aim was also taken at the limitations of the 1969 criminal code reform. The 69 reform exempted acts of buggery (usually anal sex) and gross indecency (often but not only oral sex, the police often used it more broadly) from criminalization, but only if they were engaged in in ‘private’ (basically behind closed bedroom doors), and only involving two people aged 21 and over. All other queer sex remained criminalized. This approach led to an intensification of sexual policing, especially against men having sex with other men in the mid to later 1970s and into the early 1980s, including in the Toronto bath raids.
But there were no major events organized to mark the Stonewall rebellion against police repression, in June 1969 initiated by trans women of colour and the three days of open rebellion against the police which initiated the gay liberation, lesbian feminist and trans liberation movements, and which increasingly became the global day for Pride celebrations. Trans liberation also had earlier roots in the Compton’s Cafeteria riot in 1966 in San Francisco.
How did this come to change in Toronto in 1981? First the broader social and political contexts.
Resisting the Right-wing and neoliberalism
In the later 1970s there was a shift in political and social strategies in ruling state and capitalist circles. The global struggles of the long 1960s (including national liberation and anti-colonial struggles in what was then referred to as the ‘third world,’ Black rebellions, the Red Power movements, working class insurgencies, student revolts, anti-war movements, feminist, and gay/lesbian organizing and more) put racist capitalist social relations in question. In response neoliberalism emerged as the main capitalist strategy to try to cut social programs and the social wage; to tear apart working class and oppressed people’s power; to push capitalist globalization; to re-organize and intensify Anti-Black racism and other forms of racism; and to tighten up relations of discipline through expanding policing and the prison system, “law and order,” and the tightening up of borders.
The first form of this neo-liberalism that feminist and queer activists confronted was a highly moral conservative one perhaps best exemplified by the Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan regimes, but also by individuals like Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell and the “Moral Majority” (the Immoral Minority), and in ‘Canada’ by such groups as Renaissance, many anti-choice groups like ‘Campaign Life,’ REAL Woman, ‘Positive Parents,’ the Pro-Family Coalition, Canadians for Family and Freedom, and the League Against Homosexuals, as well as the revival of more overtly white supremacist groups like the KKK. These groups were defending capitalist social relations but also centrally white supremacy, the patriarchal and heterosexual character of the white coded ‘family,’ and the expansion of policing and prisons.
In response, there was a wave of organizing against this moral conservative right-wing and its racist, sexist, heterosexist, anti-working class and anti-poor people agenda. In New York City this included Dykes Against Racism Everywhere (DARE) from which Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE) in 1980 developed its name in fighting against the influence of the growing right-wing in Toronto and ‘Canada.’ GLARE would later change its name to Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere when most of the lesbians involved left it to be involved in Lesbians Against the Right (LAR).
While clearly a left-wing and anti-capitalist organization GLARE was also a white organization even though we tried to support anti-racist organizing. This white character often meant that while wanting to fight racism the way we organized reproduced it and the ‘normality’ of whiteness, cutting us off from really listening to and learning from Black, Indigenous and racialized people, and their struggles. This severely limited our ability to fight racism and white supremacy, and often excluded and marginalized the concerns of Black, Indigenous and people of colour.
GLARE described itself as “a group of lesbians and gay men dedicated to fighting the anti-lesbian and anti-gay attacks of the Right through educational work and cultural activities … We oppose the sexism and racism of the Right, particularly the recent arrival of the Ku Klux Klan — which combines a heavy dose of anti-gay bigotry with its racism.” GLARE also stated that: “the same forces that attack the lesbian and gay communities pose a threat to everyone who wants a freer, fuller life -especially workers, women, immigrants, Blacks, and all who oppose the arms race.”
Early activities by GLARE included distribution of close to 10,000 Lesbian/Gay Information Sheets against the “Homosexuality Fact Sheet” of the right-wing; a large picket at Yonge and Eglinton of the right-wing group, ‘Positive Parents’ which portrayed us as a major threat to young people and opposed us having any involvement in the schools; participation as an open queer presence in broader anti-right wing protests, including against anti-choice and ‘pro-family’ rallies; supporting a demonstration against US intervention in El Salvador; and actions against white supremacist groups like the KKK, including in Riverdale. A major source for the emergence of Pride in 1981 was this wave of resistance to racist, ant-feminist and heterosexist moral conservative and right-wing groups.
Against Police Repression: Resistance Explodes
The second source was in the resistance to the intensification of policing against not only men who have sex with men but also more generally Black, South Asian, and other racialized communities. Those in positions of power feared the loss of the white and heterosexual character of the city as they perceived the city becoming a city of ‘minorities.’ Rooted in both moral conservative and what can be described as more ‘liberal’ currents within neoliberalism strategies were developed to expand and militarize policing in response to social struggles and ‘social problems’ in Toronto. The anti-Black and racist aspects of this were central including the police murders of Buddy Evans (1978) and Albert Johnson (1979) and the police harassment of South Asians. Police action was also directed against sex workers including as part of the “Clean Up’ Yonge Street campaign.
It was in this broader context that the growing public visibility of gay men/men having sex with men in Toronto led to the use of the sexual policing strategy set out in the 1969 reform against us. Police were mobilized against the public visibility of men having sex with each other, and the broad notion of ‘public’ in the 1969 reform allowed them to claim bath houses and bars (along with washrooms and parks) as places that were ‘public’ in character. In particular, they used the bawdy house law and it’s “acts of indecency” section to do this. In 1978 they raided the Barracks bath, and these raids escalated with the mass raids of “Operation Soap” (coded as getting rid of queer dirt) in early Feb. 1981 of four bath houses, followed by more raids including in mid-June 1981.
But what was most significant and inspiring about the bath raids was the amazing resistance we organized. This ranged from 3,000 people taking over Yonge street the next night on Feb. 6th and getting all the way to Queen’s Park turning the city, as I put in earlier writing, “on its ear”; the more than 1,000 at the mass meeting to rejuvenate the Right to Privacy Committee (RTPC), the mass defence organization for those arrested in the bath raids, at Jarvis Collegiate on Feb. 10th; the second demonstration of more than 4,000 on Feb. 20th; the hundreds of people at the public action committee meetings in the auditorium at the 519; to the major fund raising and legal support that was organized and countless other actions.
The RTPC called for the repeal of the bawdy house laws and an end to the police campaign against gay sex. It called for no collaboration with the police and rejected dialogue and liaison committees with the police since we would be forced into policing people within our own communities given the many unjust laws that police were enforcing. Although there were many Black, Indigenous and people of colour involved in the mass demonstrations and involved in the public action committee, the RTPC remained a white dominated organization. It tried to ally with the Black and South Asian communities, in part through the Citizen’s Independent Review of Police Action (CIRPA) which responded to police repression in various communities. Lemona Johnson, the widow of Albert Johnson was a featured speaker at the Feb. 20th demonstration.
This history both overlaps with and precedes the years in which the self-organization of queer Black, Indigenous and people of colour, with much earlier roots, was taking place against the racism they experienced within white gay and lesbian community formation and the heterosexism and anti-trans practices they often faced within Black and racialized communities. Over the years this included groups like Gay Asians of Toronto (formed 1980), Zami (formed 1984), Aya (a Black men’s group, succeeding Zami), Sister Vision Press (formed 1985), the collective organizing around Dewson Street (starting 1983), The Black Women’s Collective (formed 1986), Gays and Lesbian of the First Nations in Toronto (formed 1988), Lesbians of Colour, and cultural festivals like CeleBrAsian (starting in 1983), Desh Predesh, and later within Pride, Blockorama (on this and more see references at the end). Much later this history of self-organizing against racism, white supremacy, and police and carceral state relations would lead to the formation of groups like Black Lives Matter.
Moving and Making Connections
In response to the rise of the right-wing and police repression hundreds of people in the queer communities were in movement and radicalizing that year identifying the police and the criminal injustice system as a major enemy and making vital connections between different forms of oppression. As just one instance of this hundreds of gay men joined the RTPC and GLARE organized gay contingent on International Women’s Day (IWD) that year. Feminists opposed the bath raids, and many gay men in returning that support on IWD were also developing a greater understanding of feminism and the relevance of feminism to our own struggles.
In the midst, of this mass organizing against the police raids, organizing against the inter-related racist, anti-queer, and anti-feminist right-wing continued. GLARE hosted a series of speakers and workshops at the 519 Community Centre on fighting the right-wing in April 1981. This included US gay left activist Scott Tucker speaking about the limitations of narrow notions of right to privacy and our right to the world; organizing against the bath raids; and lesbians fighting the right. In my memory it was here, that talk began among people in and around GLARE about possibly doing something for ourselves for Pride Day at the end of June 1981 combining celebration and protest that would not simply be reacting to the police or right-wing. As we described it a bit later, we wanted to organize “a celebration to mark the twelfth anniversary of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City where the gay and lesbian communities fought back.”
Lesbians Against the Right (LAR), the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
The session on lesbians against the right at the GLARE event led to a May 9th forum on “Lesbians Against the Right” attended by 100 women and the formation of Lesbians Against the Right (LAR). LAR was a public and visible lesbian group organizing against the right-wing and using a lesbian feminist analysis to do this. LAR was an active and energetic group that organized the Dykes in the Streets march of 300 dykes on October 17th, 1981, and was very active in feminist organizing against right-wing groups.
In this context GLARE formalized the proposal for a Lesbian and Gay Pride Day event to be held at Grange Park, behind the Art Gallery on June 28, 1981. We gained the active support of LAR and the RTPC. In response to this event being initiated by GLARE, a left-wing organization, some gay business interests, and members of the Metropolitan Community Church were hesitant to support it viewing the organizers as too left-wing. This could almost be seen as a form of ‘red-baiting’ of GLARE and its members. In response to these concerns, members of the RTPC were most often successful in cutting across this view and garnering support for the event.
To facilitate the organizing for the event GLARE initiated the formation of a Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee which involved a few people from outside GLARE, LAR and the RTPC. Permits were applied for, groups were contacted to have tables, entertainers and performers were approached, outreach and promotion was initiated. Combining celebration, pride and protest plans were made for a march to take it to the streets as a core part of the event.
But there were also debates and tensions. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI) were formed in Toronto as a “convent” of gay men who dressed as nuns to target the moral conservative right-wing in particular. They became a common presence at demonstrations GLARE organized against the right-wing. At the same time some lesbian feminists felt that drag was ‘sexist,’ sometimes forgetting their own vibrant histories of butch/femme relationships, and some did not want the Sisters at Pride. To try to resolve this debate a meeting was held between members of LAR and men involved in GLARE. My memory is that it was very emotional, with lots of crying on all sides, and we came up with a compromise that would allow SPI to be at the events in the park and on the march but not to be on the stage. While drag in no way equals trans this was also a precursor to much deeper and broader debates over the participation of trans people within our movements and communities even though they were and are crucial parts of our communities and movements from way before the Stonewall rebellions.
More raids, the police and queerbashers
The police also continued to shape the context for Pride. Two smaller baths that were not raided in Feb. 1981 were raided on June 16th and twenty-one more men arrested. The following Saturday June 20th the RTPC held another large demonstration to protest the police raids and charges. As the crowd again took over Yonge and Wellesley the police issued a clear the streets ultimatum and threatened to seize the sound system and disperse the crowd by force. But people were angry and not to be moved. The march moved north on Yonge on the way to Police HQ which was then on Jarvis Street. There was a rowdy group of queer bashers harassing and following the crowd.
After the demonstration dispersed at the Police HQ many moved over to Church Street where the queer bashers re-appeared armed with wooden pickets ripped from a fence. The angry crowd moved them north on Church Street but the police who had disappeared suddenly re-appeared, initiating a police riot, and acting to protect the queer bashers. The police attacked and pushed queer demonstrators in what came to be called ‘The Battle of Church Street.’ A number of marshals were injured by the cops, sending several queer people to hospital, and a police car tried to run demonstrators down. The police arrested six demonstrators. Despite clear photos of the police violence no police were disciplined for their actions. This was eight days before Pride took place both fueling and showing the continuing anger in our communities against the police.
Pride Day: June 28, 1981
On June 28th more than 1,500 people gathered. In Grange Park the two main speakers and MCs were Lorna Weir from Lesbians Against the Right (LAR), and long-time gay liberation activist and writer, Michael Riordon setting the historical and political context for the day. Many community groups had tables and displays. There was face-painting, food, drink, and lots of balloons. The Red Berets (a political feminist choir) sang, and Lim Pei Hsien, associated with Gays Asians Toronto, did a powerful dance sequence.
The energetic balloon filled march was led by the dykes on bikes from the Amazon Motorcycle Club and we moved south to Queen, across to Yonge where we took the street against police instructions, and then up to Dundas and back to the park. On the way we stopped outside 52 Division, where people expressed their anger against the police and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence performed an exorcism of the police. When the march returned to Grange Park we were greeted with the music of the feminist band, No Frills.
For the first time doing an event of this type it was a great success and established Pride as something that would happen every year at the end of June. But it is crucial to remember that without the mass resistance to the bath raids opening the space for this, and GLARE initiating it, it would not have taken place in 1981. The Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee continued organizing similar Pride Day events. The next year was again held at Grange Park, the march was led by Gay Asians of Toronto (GAT) and Alan Li of GAT was a speaker. It then moved to King’s College Circle at U of T and then in 1984 to what was then called Cawthra Square Park on Church Street.
The character of the Committee shifted as it became more formalized and following the decision to take corporate sponsorships in 1986. But the transformation of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee into Pride Toronto is a story for another time.
The Continuing Legacy of 1981 Pride
Ten of the founding members of Pride in 1981 came together again to issue a statement in defence of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) in 2010 against attempts to censor and ban the group from the Pride Parade. This captured some of the spirit behind Pride organizing in 1981. This solidarity letter includes many of the people who organized Toronto Pride in 1981, aside from Kyle Rae. Rae was active in Pride organizing in 1981 as a member of GLARE and became very involved in the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee. But Rae moved in a very different trajectory as he became the Executive Director of the 519 Community Centre and then a city councillor.
The ten of us wrote:
“As founding members of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee, and people involved in organizing the first Pride event in Toronto at the end of June in 1981, we stand totally opposed to the decision of the current Toronto Pride Committee to ban the use of ‘Israeli Apartheid’ at Toronto Pride events. This banning of political speech is clearly an attempt to ban the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) and queer Palestine Solidarity supporters from the parade and from participation in a major event in our communities.”
The statement went on that:
“We call on the Pride committee to immediately rescind this banning and to instead encourage QuAIA’s participation in the pride parade.… We remind people of the political roots of Pride in the Stonewall rebellion against police repression in 1969 and that the Pride march in 1981 in Toronto grew out of our community resistance to the massive bath raids of that year.… We also remember in the 1980s that lesbian and gay activists around the world, including in Toronto in the Simon Nkoli Anti-Apartheid Committee, took up the struggle not only for lesbian and gay rights in South Africa but linked this to our opposition to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white supremacy.… Solidarity with all struggles against oppression has been a crucial part of the history of Pride. To break this solidarity as the Pride Committee has now done not only refuses to recognize how queer people always live our lives in relation to race, class, gender, ability and other forms of oppression but also breaks our connections with the struggles of important allies who have assisted us in making the important gains that we have won.”
This was part of a successful campaign to turn back the attempt to ban QuAIA.
A number of us, were also involved in support for Black Lives Matter (BLM) in 2016 when it brought the Pride parade to a stop to protest Anti-Black and other racism within Pride and the participation of the police within Pride – a major danger to Black, Indigenous and racialized people more generally, including many queer, trans and Two-Spirit people. I was able to be directly involved in defence work for the BLM contingent, and it also recaptured the history of resistance of Pride to the police. Despite the severe Anti-Black racist response to BLM from too many white gay men, the mass media, and the political establishment we have been able to keep the police out of Pride since then. It was as part of this struggle that the No Pride in Policing Coalition was formed.
In concluding, I hope these notes bring to life the radical roots of Pride in 1981 and its living relation to the resistance to the police raids and to struggles against the white supremacist, anti-feminist and anti-lesbian/anti-gay right-wing. It was not just about relaxation and celebration. Instead, celebration and rebellion must be brought together in Pride. These connections must actively define our approach as we chart our struggles for liberation in the present and for the future. It is this history of rebellion and resistance that the No Pride in Policing Coalition initiated events under the theme of “We Must ‘Change Everything’: Creating Liveable Queer, Trans and Two Spirit Lives without Police and Prisons,” build on and recaptures this year. We are part of this continuing history as we come together, and take to the streets as proud queer, trans, and Two Spirit people and with our allies against racism, colonialism, genocide and the police this year.
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Thanks to Brian Conway, Cheri DiNovo, Amy Gottlieb, Tom Hooper, and Tim McCaskell for their feedback. But they bear no responsibility for what is written here.
In 1981 Gary Kinsman was involved in Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE), the Right to Privacy Committee (RTPC), and one of the founders of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee. In 2021 he finds himself involved in the No Pride in Policing Coalition, the Anti-69 Network, and the AIDS Activist History Project. He is the author of The Regulation of Desire (which he is currently working on a 3rd edition of), and co-author (with Patrizia Gentile) of The Canadian War on Queers. Recent book chapters include “Policing Borders and sexual/gender identities: queer refugees in the years of Canadian neoliberalism and homonationalism,” inEnvisioning Global LGBT Human Rights; “Forgetting National Security in ‘Canada’” in Choudry (ed.) Activists and the Surveillance State; “Not a Gift From Above,” in Dummit and Sethna, No Place for the State; and “Learning from AIDS Activism for Surviving the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in BTL Editorial Committee, Sick of the System (ebook). His website is https://radicalnoise.ca/
References, Both, for this piece and for those who want to go further.
Beverly Bain. “Fire Passion and Politics: The Creation of Blockorama as Black Queer Diasporic Space in the Toronto Pride Festivities.” In Gentile, Kinsman, and Rankin, eds., We Still Demand!, Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017, 81–97.
Alison Burgess, “The Emergence of the Toronto Dyke March,” in Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, and L. Pauline Rankin, eds., We Still Demand! Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017, 98-116.
Jade Crimson Rosa Da Costa, “Pride Parades in Queer Times: Disrupting Time, Norms, and Nationhood in Canada,” in Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 54 Issue 2-3, Spring-Fall 2020, 434-458.
Debbie Douglas, “That Collective House on Dewson Street,” in Chambers, Farrow et al., Any Other Way, How Toronto Got Queer, Toronto: Coach House Press, 2017, 176–7
OmiSoore H. Dryden, “Ma-ka Juk Yuh: A Genealogy of Black Queer Liveability in Toronto,” in Haritaworn et al., Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2018, 62–83.
Sharon Fernandez, “Desh Pardesh: A Cultural Festival With Attitude,” in Chambers, Farrow et al., Any Other Way, Toronto: Coach House Press, 2017, 261–4
Amy Gottlieb, “Toronto’s Unrecognized First Dyke March,” Stephanie Chambers, Jane Farrow, et. al. Any Other Way, How Toronto Got Queer, Toronto: Coach House Press, 2017, 330-332.
Jin Haritaworn, “It Was a Heterotopia: Four Decades of Queer of Colour Art and Activism in Toronto,” interview with Richard Fung, in Haritaworn, Moussa, and Ware, eds. Marvellous Grounds, Toronto: Between the Lines, 2018, 35–45.
Jin Haritaworn Ghaida Moussa, Syrus Marcus Ware, and Río Rodríguez, eds. Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2018.
Jin Haritaworn, Ghaida Moussa, and Syrus Marcus Ware, eds. Marvellous Grounds, Queer of Colour Histories of Toronto, Toronto: Between the Lines, 2018.
Tom Hooper, ‘Enough Is Enough’: The Right to Privacy Committee and Bathhouse Raids in Toronto, 1978–1983.” PhD diss., York University, 2016.
Tom Hooper, “‘More Than Two Is a Crowd’: Mononormativity and Gross Indecency in the Criminal Code, 1981-82.” Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue d’études Canadiennes 48, no. 1 (2014): 53–81.
Tom Hooper,.“Queering ’69: The Recriminalization of Homosexuality in Canada.” Canadian Historical Review 100, no. 2 (2019): 257–73.
Tom Hooper, Gary Kinsman, and Karen Pearlston, “Anti-69 FAQ,” February 14, 2019, https://anti-69.ca/faq/
Gary Kinsman, The Regulation of Desire: Homo and Hetero Sexualities, Montreal: Black Rose, 1996.
Gary Kinsman, “From Resisting Police Raids to Charter Rights: Queer and AIDS Organizing in the 1980s.” In A World to Win: Contemporary Social Movements and Counter-Hegemony, edited by William K. Carroll and Kanchan Sarker, Winnipeg, MB: ARP Books, 2016, 209-232.
Gary Kinsman, “Queer Resistance and Liberation in the 1970s, From Liberation to Rights.” in Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, and L. Pauline Rankin, eds., We Still Demand! Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017, 137-162.
Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile, The Canadian War on Queers, National Security as Sexual Regulation, Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010.
Alan Li, “The Only Time Gay Asians Led the Pride Parade,” in Stephanie Chambers, Jane Farrow, et. al. Any Other Way, How Toronto Got Queer, Toronto: Coach House Press, 2017, 333-336.
Alan Li, “Power in Community, Queer Asian Activism from the 1980s to the 2000s,” in Haritaworn, Moussa, and Ware, eds. Marvellous Grounds, Queer of Colour Histories of Toronto, Toronto: Between the Lines, 2018, 47–60.
R. Cassandra Lord, “We Have Always Been here: Pelau MasQUEERade Disturbing Toronto Pride History,” Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 54 Issue 2-3, Spring-Fall 2020, 360-394.
Tim McCaskell, Queer Progress: From Homophobia to Homonationalism, Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016.
Tim McCaskell, “Pride: A Political History,” Stephanie Chambers, Jane Farrow, et. al. Any Other Way, How Toronto Got Queer, Toronto: Coach House Press, 2017, 326-329.
Phlip McLeod, “Out of the Cold the Thousands Came,” in Stephanie Chambers, Jane Farrow, et. al. Any Other Way, How Toronto Got Queer, Toronto: Coach House Press, 2017, 181-184.
No Pride in Policing Coalition, “We Must ‘Change Everything’: Creating Liveable Queer, Trans and Two Spirit Lives without Police and Prisons,” https://www.facebook.com/events/2953481741647073/
Philip Pike, Our Dance of Revolution: The History of Toronto’s Black Community, directed and produced by Philip Pike (Toronto: Roaring River Films, 2019).
“Open Letter to Pride Toronto from Founders of Pride in 1981,” Queers Against Israeli Apartheid QuAIA), https://queersagainstapartheid.org/2010/05/27/open-letter-to-pride-toronto-from-founders-of-pride-in-1981/, May 27, 2010.
Rise Up! A digital archive of feminist activism, (especially for entries on Lesbians Against the Right and Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere), https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/
Makeda Silvera, “From St. Helens Avenue to Dewson Street,” in Chambers, Jane Farrow, et. al. Any Other Way, How Toronto Got Queer, Toronto: Coach House Press, 2017,178–80.
Sharon Dale Stone, “Lesbians Against the Right.” In Women and Social Change: Feminist Activism in Canada, edited by Jeri Dawn Wine and Janice L. Ristock,. Toronto: J. Lorimer, 1991, 236–53.
Scott Tucker, ‘Our Right to the World: Sex, Public Space, and Community,” The Body Politic, # 85, July/August 1982.
Belinda Demeen Wallace,” Our Lives: Scribal Activism, Intimacy, and Black Lesbian Visibility in 1980s Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 54 Issue 2-3, Spring-Fall 2020, 334-359
Syrus Marcus Ware, “Power to all People: Black LGBTTI2QQ Activism, Remembrance, and Archiving in Toronto,” in Rodney Diverlus, Sandy Hudson, and Syrus Marcus Ware, eds. Until We Are Free, Reflections on Black Lives Matter in Canada, Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020, 279-294.
Endnote
[1] Some of this seems based on the historical fragments (often limited and littered with mistakes) at https://www.pridetoronto.com/pride-toronto/history/ This is where the formulation Pride Toronto seems to draw on comes from : “1981 … Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Toronto is legally incorporated. 1,500 celebrate Pride Day on Sunday, June 28th, at Grange Park. In spite of the politically charged atmosphere that year, the day is billed as a time to relax, celebrate, and as ‘an afternoon of fun and frolic.’” This is clearly not based on talking to anyone involved in organizing the event that year.