So there I was.
At my usual gay hangout (no, I’m not going to tell you the name) and yes, truth be told, I was having sex. This was a couple of days ago, exactly ten days before Pride 2017. Suddenly, a staff member at the establishment came up to us and said “Okay cool it, stop -- no more” I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something like that. And then the staff member disappeared.
This never happens. What was going on?
I spoke to another staff member: ’Why did someone try and interrupt us having sex?’ I asked.
‘Oh that’s because of the fire inspectors,’ the staff member said ‘they always come around at Pride.’
‘So you’re saying that that the police --‘
“No it’s not the police. It’s the fire inspectors.’
‘So what you’re saying is --‘
‘I’m saying they don’t want it to look like the police are harassing us so they send the fire inspectors instead.’
Ahh. I get it. So the City of Toronto makes a habit -- in fact it is actually part of City of Toronto policy -- to harass gay people every year a few days before Pride -- to send men in uniform to intimidate queer people in their own clubs. Why? Not because these gay places are filled with people, or over capacity (the establishment I attended was nearly empty) -- just because it’s Pride!
I’m tired of reading articles in the Toronto Sun saying ‘Why shouldn’t the police be able to march in their uniforms at Pride?’
I’ll tell you why -- because the police still harass queers.
I know what you’re going to say. You are probably straight or gay and happily married with children -- ‘I’m sorry but I don’t agree with PDA (public displays of affection). People should not have sex in public.’
And I would say: ‘Okay. Let’s say you are a teenage girl on a date and you decide to offer your boyfriend oral sex in a car. Expect the police to put you in jail. Let’s say you are a married couple kissing in a remote corner of a park, late at night, and your hand wanders down to your partners’ bum. Expect the police to shine a light on you and arrest you. Let’s say you are a man and a stripper in a strip bar, and the stripper is sitting on your lap. Expect the police to haul you off to jail for having public sex.’
This is a double standard. Fire inspectors marching around gay bars at Gay Pride in lieu of police is homophobic.
Gay, lesbian and trans people are still unfairly harassed. I know. In 2000 I was working at a gay sex club called the Bijou that was raided by the police. Have the cops ever apologized? Have they ever explained why they were harassing us twenty years after the infamous 1981 bathhouse raids they claim to regret?
No. Nothing has changed.
And that’s why policemen in uniform are not welcome at Toronto Pride.
