Sebastian White :: 25 Years Ago - The Toronto Bathhouse Raids

IN BRIEF

25 Years Ago: The Toronto Bathhouse Raids

The Empty Closet | February 2006
By Sebastian White

Twenty-five years ago this month, police officers in Toronto raided four gay bathhouses and arrested nearly 300 men in what was to become one of most significant turning points in Canadian LGBT history.

On the evening of February 5, 1981, more than 150 officers converged simultaneously on four downtown sex clubs, cutting a swath through a maze of private rooms and saunas, charging club owners with “keeping a common bawdy house,” and arresting patrons for being “found-ins,” or simply, people found in a place where prostitution or indecent acts take place.

In their path, police caused tens of thousands of dollars in physical damage to the four bathhouses -- the Club Baths, the Romans II Health and Recreation Spa, the Richmond Street Health Emporium, and the Barracks -- and also found themselves facing countless claims of severe physical and verbal abuse against patrons during the sweep, which was codenamed “Operation Soap.”

Men who were arrested that night later reported that Toronto police had been brutal, reckless, and blatantly homophobic as they made their way through the bathhouses, bloodying noses and destroying property with crowbars and hammers.

Most of the charges laid against men found in the bathhouse that winter evening were ultimately dropped, but the legacy of the massive raid did not soon fade. The arrests effectively politicized the gay community in Toronto and more broadly, in Canada, spurring days of protests and rallies -- including what was the largest gay demonstration in the country’s history when thousands marched on Queen’s Park -- during which citizens of all stripes came together to question the legality and denounce the severity of the police action.

Soon after, amidst a growing public backlash and mounting evidence of police brutality, Toronto’s city council launched an independent inquiry into police-gay community relations whose recommendations became a model for creating positive dialogues in cities across the U.S. and Canada. Today, official liaisons between police and the LGBT community are commonplace, including at the Rochester Police Department.

It’s been 25 years since Operation Soap, but the events of that February night remain deeply ingrained in the consciousness of Canada’s LGBT community as its own Stonewall moment, referring, of course, to the famous New York City riots that many consider the beginning of the modern gay rights movement.

In a city best known for its proper Victorian values, it’s ironic that it was the zeal of Toronto Police Services working to curb indecency that actually opened the door to a new era of equality for all of Canada’s LGBT citizens.