[URBAN NOTE] "An Oral History of Toronto’s Pride Parade"

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist interviews some of the people behind the birth of Toronto Pride in the 1970s.

On a warm summer day in August 1971, dozens of gay and lesbian activists headed to the Toronto Islands to celebrate a gay picnic, the first iteration of Pride in the city. The gathering was very different than the corporate party that Pride is today: political at its core, the group assembled to demonstrate gay solidarity just two years after then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau decriminalized homosexuality.

The picnics eventually became annual celebrations. It was only a decade after the bathhouse raids of 1981 that the City officially recognized Pride.

[. . .]

Amy Gottlieb (founding member of Lesbians Against the Right, Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere and the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Committee): The first [official] Pride was the first celebration was organized in conjunction with the marking of the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots [in 1969], which is why we now celebrate Pride at the end of June. But there were other gatherings since 1971: something called gay days at Hanlan’s Point.

Tim McCaskell (Toronto AIDS activist, member of the Body Politic collective): There was one [gathering] in 1971, a number in ’72, and I don’t think there was anything in ’73, and I came out at the one in ’74. Then nothing happened until after the bath raids in ’81. When a lot of people talk about Pride they obliterate the ancient history and talk about ’81 on.

Gerald Hannon (journalist, member of the Body Politic collective): I’ve been in every one since ’72 essentially. That one I remember well, including the Hanlan’s Point crazy, youthful fooling around. Building a gay and lesbian pyramid. People on backs and on top of each other. It was fun.

Peter Zorzi (founder of Toronto Area Gays): I was a street messenger in downtown Toronto in 1971 when I discovered gay liberation, and I met my lover, Charlie, at a Toronto Gay Action [activist organization] meeting in July of that year. In the 1970s when we took part in Pride events it was very much with a feeling of kinship with the people we were among, a ragtag group sharing a sense of mission. We all wanted a future where people would not have to deal with the things we’d had to deal with.