Toronto Bathhouse Raids

On the late winter night of February 5, 1981, Toronto police officers rushed into several of Toronto’s gay bathhouses as part of a coordinated raid. The raid had been several months in the making and the intent was to investigate alleged sex work and other activities that officers perceived as indecent at local gay bathhouses. Toronto Police used the code name “Operation Soap” for the investigation. The night would go on to be an incredibly violent and discriminatory event that would help galvanize Toronto’s gay community to stand up to the harassment and be a turning point in the fight for equality. 

“Operation Soap” began around 11 pm in the evening when hundreds of Toronto police officers raided several gay bathhouses throughout the city. Witnesses recalled police using crowbars, sledgehammers, and excessive force when entering these businesses. Although many of the gay bathhouses had been operating legally for months and years on end before the raids when police entered the premises, they not only began arresting patrons for such menial and archaic violations as being found in a common bawdy house, but they also trashed the premises of some of the bathhouses. Doors had been knocked in and the environs had been torn apart and destroyed. Some of the men that were arrested were arrested in little more than a towel.  

Close to 300 men were arrested that night and their names were published in media accounts of the raid. At that time in Toronto, it was the largest single arrest. Many of the men who were arrested faced devastating consequences after their names had been released to the public, such as discrimination from employers, friends, and family. Although charges for some were dropped years later, the damage had been done. 

The bathhouses had been a safe space for many in the gay community and the fact that they had been violently desecrated, and patrons arrested on frivolous charges, enraged the community. The day after the raids thousands of protestors took to the street to protest and march, which was again met by violence from the police.  

The protests continued after the raids and culminated in a more formal response to the discrimination and brutality, with the creation of an advocacy group called the Right to Privacy Committee that represented the vast majority of men indicted in the raids. Many of the cases were successfully defended and in the coming years formal apologies were issued by the government. Despite the horrific discrimination that took place, the raid served as a catalyst for change in the ongoing struggle for queer rights. 

Sources  

https://digitalexhibitions.arquives.ca/exhibits/show/nancy-nicol/-operation-soap 

https://historyofrights.ca/encyclopaedia/main-events/1981-bathhouse-raids-toronto/  

https://globalnews.ca/news/9888886/what-happened-to-the-1981-toronto-bathhouse-raids/ 

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2021/02/05/toronto-bathhouse-raids-40-years/ 

Written by: Laura H.