Education ProjectResearch Project
Setting the Stage for Resistance
Many know of the Toronto Bathhouse Raids, which occurred in February 1981, but fewer have heard of the Edmonton Bathhouse Raids which occurred that very same year. By the time these raids occurred, dozens of raids had occurred across Canada between 1969 and 1981, resulting in hundreds of arrests. These raids were far from the first, but this year was different because it had the distinction of being the year that the Canadian queer community began to resist.
How Events Unfolded at Pisces
Beginning in February 1981, pairs of young undercover police detectives — nine in total — were posing as members of Pisces Spa, spending weekend nights mingling, watching, and making copious, detailed notes concerning the activities of the men who gathered there.
Forty members of the Edmonton Police service, six RCMP officers, and two crown attorneys stormed the Pisces Health Spa, a bathhouse used by gay men, on May 30, 1981, at around 1:30 AM. In the raid, 56 men were arrested and charged while an additional six men, owners and employees, were charged with being keepers of a common bawdy house.
The Edmonton raid had two Crown Prosecutors present, surveying the arrests. Everything about the raid had been arranged beforehand in great detail, including having staff ready at the courthouse for an extremely unusual middle-of-the-night arraignment. The men were filed out of the spa and into vans and police cruisers and driven to the courthouse, where a few were pulled aside and questioned, and no one was allowed counsel. It was close to daybreak when the 56 found-ins finally made their way out of the courthouse.
Community Response
The members of the gay community stepped forward in solidarity. Both Flashback and Edmonton’s other principal gay bar, The Roost, offered space for the found-ins to meet and plan their legal strategies. A group of lawyers met the men at the bars to talk them through their options.
As the trials proceeded through the summer months, it became apparent that instead of forcing the gay community to retreat into the shadows, the perceived overreach of the arrests had emboldened the community to resist. Not only was there a protest in front of city hall to draw attention to the injustice, but real outcry came from the frustrated community.
The Formation of Edmonton Pride
After the raid and court cases, what remained was a sense of frustration and outrage that would become a prominent characteristic of the Edmonton gay community. In June 1982, the city’s first Pride events began. There was no parade, but several small events grouped together to honour the theme “Gay Pride Through Unity” attracted 250 people. These events grew into Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week around 1984.
It would be a decade after the raid before the first Pride Protest/Parade would take place, infamously featuring people with bags over their heads to protect their identities. Official support finally arrived in 1993 when Mayor Jan Reimer proclaimed Gay and Lesbian Pride Day.
