See also ACT UP; AIDS epidemic; Broderick, Mat-
thew; Film in the United States; Homosexuality and
gay rights;Kiss of the Spider Woman; Theater.
Toronto bathhouse raids of
1981
The Event Toronto police raid four gay
bathhouses, arresting hundreds of gay men
Date February 5, 1981
Place Toronto, Ontario
The Toronto bathhouse raids galvanized the city’s gay com-
munity into action, marking a point after which they would
no longer endure ill treatment by police or the wider commu-
nity. The protests that followed came to be known as “Can-
ada’s Stonewall.”
At 11:00p.m.on February 5, 1981, 150 Toronto police
officers conducted simultaneous raids, code-named
Operation Soap, on four Toronto bathhouses: the
Club Baths, the Romans II Spa, the Richmond Street
Health Emporium, and the Barracks. Police broke
down doors and smashed windows to gain entry.
Once inside, they heavily damaged each establish-
ment; the Richmond Street Health Emporium never
reopened. They terrorized and verbally abused the
men found inside. The officers had removed their
badge numbers prior to the raid, so individual offi-
cers could not be identified. In all, 253 gay men were
arrested and charged as “found-ins,” 14 were charged
with minor drug possession, and 20 additional
men were charged with “keeping a common bawdy
house.” The violence of the raid was unprecedented,
and it represented the largest Canadian mass arrest
since the invocation of the War Measures Act during
the FLQ Crisis of October, 1970.
The following night, more than three thousand
gay men and lesbians filled the streets of downtown
Toronto in a protest that lasted late into the night. In
an angry and sometimes violent protest, the commu-
nity demanded action. With the rallying cry of “No
More Shit,” they made it clear police violence could
no longer be used to intimidate the community. On
February 20, over four thousand gay men and lesbi-
ans marched on the provincial legislature and then
to Police Division 52, whose officers had led the raid.
Demanding a public inquiry from the government,
they also demanded that the Ontario Human Rights
Code be amended to protect gay men and lesbians.
Impact In the aftermath of the raids, 249 of those
arrested were found not guilty. The police rationale
for the raids, namely that the baths were actually
bawdy houses and provided on-site prostitution, was
found to be baseless. The raids capped a long period
of police harassment of the gay community. Officers
repeatedly engaged in entrapment and arrested gay
men in cruising areas, raided theBody Politicgay news-
paper in December, 1977, and raided the Barracks
bathhouse in December, 1978, when twenty-eight
men were arrested. After years of police attempts to
enforce their view of morality on Toronto’s growing
gay community, the police raids of 1981 pushed rela-
tions between that community and the police to a
breaking point. As a result, the community came to-
gether and organized in a manner never previously
achieved, establishing a base from which it would go
on to respond to an even greater crisis: the looming
HIV/AIDS pandemic.Further Reading
The Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives. http://
http://www.clga.ca/.
Kinsman, Gary.The Regulation of Desire: Homo and
Hetero Sexualities. 2d ed. Montreal: Black Rose
Books, 1996.
McCaskell, Tim. “The Bath Raids and Gay Politics.”
InSocial Movements/Social Change, edited by Frank
Cunningham. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1988.
Michael E. GraydonSee also ACT UP; AIDS epidemic; Homosexuality
and gay rights.Tort reform movement
Definition Legislation passed by the majority of
the states in order to alleviate the tort and
insurance crises
Date Mid- to late 1980’sThe majority of the states enacted legislation that included
caps on “pain and suffering” awards, limits on punitive
damages, and modification of joint and several liability
rules.Among the reasons cited for the tort reform move-
ment was the increased size and number of tort
awards in personal injury, medical malpractice, and
product liability cases, causing insurance companies974 Toronto bathhouse raids of 1981 The Eighties in America