blind â¦â and ââ¦Â you donât know what the hell youâre talking about â¦â Then Jessicaâs bedroom door opened.
Silence.
Jessica and I made sure our eyes were closed. Put on innocent, sleeping-young-girl expressions.
When her parents had closed the door and gone into their own bedroom, Jessica leaned over to me and whispered, âSo your fatherâs a faggot, big whoop. At least heâs not a lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch, drunken asshole.â
My laughter came out as a giant snort, something that sent us both into pillow-muffled hysterics.
âSo quit yer belly-achinâ,â she said, elbowing me under the covers. âYour lifeâs a bed of fucking roses.â
I laughed half-heartedly. Then a thought came to me. âPansies, actually,â I whispered, and we both nearly fell off the bed stifling our giggles.
Gradually, the syrup of drunken exhaustion poured over us and I heard Jessica fall asleep, her throat rustling with the faintest of snores. I couldnât sleep, the combination of nausea and the hugeness of our small lives making me feel that I was falling through space. The bed seemed to be moving, winding and twisting through the darkness. I blinked away soundless tears, the black night a thick ink against my eyes.
âI know where we are,â I whispered. âWeâre lost.â
FEBRUARY 5, 1981
WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM TO BRING YOU AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
Toronto Metropolitan Police have raided four homosexual bathhouses and have arrested approximately 300 men. This is the largest mass arrest in Canada since Prime Minister Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act during the October Crisis of 1970, when 465 individuals were arrested and detained after the kidnappings of two government officials.
In a series of coordinated raids code-named Operation Soap, more than 150 Toronto police stormed four of the cityâs gay bathhouses. A total of 286 men were charged with being âfound-insâ at a bawdy house, a term (with an admittedly quaint colonial ring to it) that means brothel, essentially, or a place where âlewd or indecent actsâ take place. The employees and owners of the bawdy houses (also an admittedly fun homonym, for they were certainly all about
bodies
) were also detained.
The police inflicted in excess of $50,000 in damages on the bathhouses, some of it with sledgehammers and crowbars, and everyone on the premises was arrested, all for suspicion of conduct that was, since the Criminal Law Amendment Act, legal between two consenting adults in private. *
Despite the removal of homosexuality from the Criminal Code more than a decade earlier, in 1981 being out of the closet was still a major risk, even in Toronto. It was still legal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and being a fag could mean losing your job without recourse, risking the love of family and friends, being ostracized, being beaten up in the street (and having, letâs see, the police to protect you). This was long before gay characters were written into television shows, and before talk-show hosts, athletes and celebrities began coming out publicly. Such things were still unimaginable. And these were the earliest days of a gay political presence in the city of Toronto, with its first unabashedly gay-positive and openly gay politicians.
John Sewell was mayor of Toronto at the time of the bath raids. Two years earlier, he had spoken in support of the gay newspaper
Body Politic
, as well as for the proposed amendment to the Ontario Human Rights Code that would protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Mayor Sewell admitted later that he was surprised by the vociferous criticism and opposition he faced for taking such a stance; he hadnât counted on people actually defending discrimination.
In the 1980 Toronto municipal elections, an openly gay politician by the name
Silence.
Jessica and I made sure our eyes were closed. Put on innocent, sleeping-young-girl expressions.
When her parents had closed the door and gone into their own bedroom, Jessica leaned over to me and whispered, âSo your fatherâs a faggot, big whoop. At least heâs not a lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch, drunken asshole.â
My laughter came out as a giant snort, something that sent us both into pillow-muffled hysterics.
âSo quit yer belly-achinâ,â she said, elbowing me under the covers. âYour lifeâs a bed of fucking roses.â
I laughed half-heartedly. Then a thought came to me. âPansies, actually,â I whispered, and we both nearly fell off the bed stifling our giggles.
Gradually, the syrup of drunken exhaustion poured over us and I heard Jessica fall asleep, her throat rustling with the faintest of snores. I couldnât sleep, the combination of nausea and the hugeness of our small lives making me feel that I was falling through space. The bed seemed to be moving, winding and twisting through the darkness. I blinked away soundless tears, the black night a thick ink against my eyes.
âI know where we are,â I whispered. âWeâre lost.â
FEBRUARY 5, 1981
WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM TO BRING YOU AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
Toronto Metropolitan Police have raided four homosexual bathhouses and have arrested approximately 300 men. This is the largest mass arrest in Canada since Prime Minister Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act during the October Crisis of 1970, when 465 individuals were arrested and detained after the kidnappings of two government officials.
In a series of coordinated raids code-named Operation Soap, more than 150 Toronto police stormed four of the cityâs gay bathhouses. A total of 286 men were charged with being âfound-insâ at a bawdy house, a term (with an admittedly quaint colonial ring to it) that means brothel, essentially, or a place where âlewd or indecent actsâ take place. The employees and owners of the bawdy houses (also an admittedly fun homonym, for they were certainly all about
bodies
) were also detained.
The police inflicted in excess of $50,000 in damages on the bathhouses, some of it with sledgehammers and crowbars, and everyone on the premises was arrested, all for suspicion of conduct that was, since the Criminal Law Amendment Act, legal between two consenting adults in private. *
Despite the removal of homosexuality from the Criminal Code more than a decade earlier, in 1981 being out of the closet was still a major risk, even in Toronto. It was still legal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and being a fag could mean losing your job without recourse, risking the love of family and friends, being ostracized, being beaten up in the street (and having, letâs see, the police to protect you). This was long before gay characters were written into television shows, and before talk-show hosts, athletes and celebrities began coming out publicly. Such things were still unimaginable. And these were the earliest days of a gay political presence in the city of Toronto, with its first unabashedly gay-positive and openly gay politicians.
John Sewell was mayor of Toronto at the time of the bath raids. Two years earlier, he had spoken in support of the gay newspaper
Body Politic
, as well as for the proposed amendment to the Ontario Human Rights Code that would protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Mayor Sewell admitted later that he was surprised by the vociferous criticism and opposition he faced for taking such a stance; he hadnât counted on people actually defending discrimination.
In the 1980 Toronto municipal elections, an openly gay politician by the name
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