By Gary Kinsman

This year is the 25th anniversary of the celebration in Toronto of queer pride at
the end of June. This date is in memory of the Stonewall riots against police
repression in New York City in 1969 that led to the eruption of the contemporary
lesbian and gay liberation movements. In 2005 Kyle Rae is being given an award by
the Pride Committee as the "Pride founder." While Kyle Rae was actively involved in
the organizing of the Pride events that first year it was not an individual but a
collective event and he was involved in Pride organizing as a project of Gay
Liberation Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE), a left-wing gay liberation group
dedicated to fighting the anti-gay, anti-feminist, and racist right-wing. To focus
on only one person as the "founder" does a real disservice to our histories. Here I
attempt to set the historical record queer!

The Pride event in 1981 would not have taken place without the new political and
social context created by the massive resistance that took place against the bath
raids that year. Thousands of queer men, lesbians and our supporters took to the
streets on a number of occasions, including taking over Yonge Street when it was
against the law to march on Yonge Street. Many people of colour facing racist police
repression came out in support of the struggles organised by the Right To Privacy
Committee (RTPC) and we returned the solidarity. Many feminists came out in support
of those arrested and in return the largest ever gay men's contingent in the
International Women's Day march was organized that year by GLARE and the RTPC. Gay
postal workers got the Metro Toronto and District Labour Council to come out against
the bath raids. As a result the city was turned on its ear and the police raids
backfired creating more queer visibility and mobilization in the city.

It was in this context that GLARE which had been organizing against the moral
conservative right-wing in the city, and was involved in the resistance to the bath
raids, decided as a group that it was time that there was a Lesbian and Gay Pride
Day in Toronto at the end of June to commemorate the anniversary of the Stonewall
riots. The idea was to create an event that was not only a political protest against
the social forces oppressing queer people but also to celebrate our lives and
struggles. It was to be political and fun, celebrating a riot and being a carnival
at the same time in the best of queer traditions. A number of people from GLARE were
involved in initiating what became the Pride Committee including Brian Conway, Hugh
English, Ian Lumsden, Jim McNeil, Brian Woods, along with Kyle Rae, myself and
others. Other people got involved in the Pride Committee as it formed and the
Committee worked with Lesbians Against the Right (a major lesbian formation active
against the right-wing), the Right to Privacy Committee, and other organizations.

On the day itself more than 1,500 people came out to the festival in Grange Park.
Keynote speakers were Lorna Weir from Lesbians Against the Right, and gay writer and
activist Michael Riordon. There was entertainment and lots of tables on the
activities of struggles of various community groups. More than 1,000 people joined
the march that went along Queen, up Yonge, and across Dundas where we stopped in
front of 52 Division of the Toronto Police for more than five minutes with people
chanting "Fuck You 52!" and "No More Shit!" Only a week before in response to
another bath raid thousands of people had again taken to the streets, blocking
traffic at Yonge and Bloor, and fending off violent attacks from queerbashers. In
this context the Pride event was very political and fun and the police were pissed
off with people for stopping in front of the cop shop and violating our parade
permit.

Although 'red-baited' by some in the gay scene since GLARE was a left-wing group,
the first Pride Day at the end of June was a major success setting the stage for
Pride to expand as a queer celebratory and political event over the next few years.
Pride 1981 was a collective effort and there was no single "founder" of Toronto
Pride Day.

Gary Kinsman was a member of GLARE, the RTPC, and the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day
Committee in 1981. He is the author of "The Regulation of Desire, Homo and Hetero
Sexualities" and the forthcoming "The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as
Sexual Regulation." He teaches Sociology at Laurentian University in Sudbury.