In the wake of the Bruner report there was an emphasis on developing a liaison committee, while many of the report’s other suggestions were delayed or ignored. According to McCaskell, “the RTPC steering committee was opposed. A liaison suggested the problem was a lack of communication between two parties, rather than a state-funded, quasi-military organization using powers under the Criminal Code to systematically attack us.”166 Prior to the bath raids, many of the more radical queer activists viewed the bathhouses with disdain. For one, the baths were viewed as a space for those married or in the closet. For some, this meant these men were not “properly liberated.”167 Second, many activists shared a leftist perspective and were dismayed at the proliferation of bathhouses and bars that were designed for profit.168 McCaskell and other critical queer intellectuals had a change of heart in 1981 and extended the liberal notion of “right to privacy” to take a new meaning of community institutions and erotic spaces.169 Ken Popert argued that these businesses were also “shared social spaces” and helped foster gay sexual consciousness.170 Smith extended this argument to mean that the police were using the bawdy house law in the Criminal Code to attack these important sexual spaces.
Smith’s shift toward Criminal Code reform was reflected in the queer press and in the legal strategy. This was most expressly present in an article entitled, “Bawdy house laws: the state’s key to the bedroom door.” The article opened by stating, “Most people think Pierre Trudeau’s famous 1969 Criminal Code amendments had the effect of decriminalizing homosexuality. They did not.”171 RTPC
166 McCaskell, Queer Progress, 157.
167 Interview with Tim McCaskell, September 18, 2012.
168 McCaskell, Queer Progress, 160.
169 Ibid, 161.
170 Ken Popert, “Public Sexuality and Social Space,” The Body Politic, July 1982: 29.
171 “Bawdy house laws: the state’s key to the bedroom door,” The Body Politic, April 1981: 13.
lawyer Dianne Martin elaborated, “Trudeau’s famous liberation of the laws against homosexual sex is almost meaningless. Canada’s bawdy house laws … restrict the rights of consenting adults to have sex in private. They do much, much more than control brothels.”172 In April 1981, Smith and the RTPC saw an opportunity to implement their desired Criminal Code changes by lobbying the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs on provisions relating to group sex contained in Bill C-53.173 Maloney, who returned to work with the RTPC after Operation Soap, suggested that pressure for further reform be placed “on high-ranking cabinet ministers.”174
The RTPC shift to the Criminal Code meant lesbian issues were essentially ignored. This
occurred despite several attempts by various activists in the RTPC to foster deeper intersectional ties to lesbian issues. For example, on June 25, 1981 at the 519 community centre Kinsman and McCaskell joined with lesbian activist Amy Gottlieb for an event entitled, “Strange Bedfellows: Lesbians, Gays, and the Left.” The flyer for this event stated, “the recent attacks on lesbians and gays in Toronto have resulted in growing unity between lesbians, gays, the women’s movement and the left.”175 On May 9, a group of 75 lesbians met for brunch at the 519 community centre, and decided that they would actively create social spaces for lesbians to discuss lesbian issues. This was initially a committee of GLARE, formed in response to the closing of the Fly-by-Night lesbian bar run by Toronto Gay Action member Pat Murphy on February 9, 1981, but it grew beyond any single issue. Lorna Weir reported in Broadside that the consensus of the meeting “was that a lesbian organization is needed in Toronto.”176 The lack of lesbian social spaces and political groups was blamed on “a lack of political experience” by a movement that had “been in existence for little more than a decade.”177 Ultimately, the closing of the Fly-by-Night,
172 Ibid.
173 “Coordinating Committee meeting,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002) Box: 1, File: Minutes, April 26, 1981: 6.
174 “Minutes of Executive meeting,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002) Box: 1, File: Minutes, November 22, 1981: 6
175 “Flyer – Strange Bedfellows,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002), Box: 1, File: Posters, June 25, 1981.
176 Lorna Weir, “Lesbians Against the Right,” Broadside: A Feminist Review, June 1981: 9.
177 Ibid.
attacks on lesbians, and lack of protection from the police resulted in the formation of a new group, Lesbians Against the Right (LAR). Several groups joined in organizing a boycott of the Quest, which was owned by Phil Stein. Stein also owned the space where the Fly-by-Night operated, and there were complaints that he mistreated the bar’s lesbian workers.178 The RTPC provided lukewarm support.
McCaskell and the PAC decided to support the boycott, but Smith and the RTPC Coordinating Committee voted against this.179
The LAR and RTPC briefs to Bruner serve as a useful lens to view the difference in priorities for these two groups, particularly because the LAR arguments had no reference to the Criminal Code. LAR was concerned about other aspects of the law that were used against lesbians and lesbian spaces. For example, their first point was about the enforcement of liquor licence laws, that were used to disrupt the Bi-National Lesbian Conference in 1979, and used against dances in 1980 and 1981.180 This demand was prophetic of the September 2000 raid on the lesbian bathhouse night, Pussy Palace. This raid was not due to bawdy house charges, but rather, alleged violations to the liquor licence.181 They argued that police used verbal harassment against lesbians, and that agents conducted surveillance at the Fly-by-Night and at the Brunswick Hotel.182 The RTPC brief to Bruner made 26 demands aimed at reforming the police and the enforcement of the law. Some of these would have intersected with the LAR demands, including police discipline, harassment by police on the streets, and a call for an inquiry into police brutality at protests.183 However, the RTPC brief did not mention any specific instances directly affecting women or lesbians.
178 Elinor Mahoney, “Boycott is hurting, Quest owner admits,” The Body Politic, June 1981: 11.
179 “Coordinating Committee meeting,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002) Box: 1, File: Minutes, April 26, 1981: 7.
180 “Lesbians Against the Right Brief to the Bruner Study,” CLGA, Arnold Bruner (98-050), Box: 1, File: 7, n.d: 1.
181 JP Hornick, “Pussy Palace: Fighting the cops and winning,” Daily Xtra, June 22, 2005 [online]
http://www.dailyxtra.com/toronto/pussy-palace-fighting-the-cops-and-winning-12333
182 “Lesbians Against the Right Brief to the Bruner Study,” CLGA, Arnold Bruner (98-050), Box: 1, File: 7, n.d: 2.
183 “RTPC Brief to the Bruner Study,” CLGA, Arnold Bruner (98-050), Box: 1, File: 7, n.d: 1.
This was part of a larger divide between lesbians and gay men: lesbians were generally not the target of Criminal Code provisions relating to indecency. According to Karen Pearlston, lesbians in Canada were not the target of gross indecency. The 1969 Omnibus Bill was a partial decriminalization for gay men, not for queer women. Instead, changes to the Divorce Act in 1968, which made it easier for men to divorce their lesbian wives, had a greater effect on the lived experiences of women.184 Becki Ross noted these differences in her study of LOOT:
…lesbians have been much less directly managed by the Criminal Code and police activity through obscenity and gross indecency statutes. State-administered legislation is anchored in the institutionalization of compulsory heterosexuality, for instance, child custody laws, tax and probate laws, and laws that govern medical/health insurance, inheritance, pensions, and immigration in ways that have negatively affected lesbians.”185
Although Bill C-53 included some amendments that would have affected gay sex, its primary purpose was to alter sections of the Criminal Code affecting women. George Smith and the RTPC was contacted by individuals in the women’s movement who were also preparing briefs on C-53, they were curious to find issues in which in which queer men and women could work together. During Smith’s academic career he studied under the supervision of Dorothy Smith and developed a Marxist approach to feminist theory. However, there was no broad consensus within the RTPC to pursue additional reforms beyond Criminal Code references to indecency. Smith acknowledged that there was a division between the aims of gay men in Criminal Code reform, versus the aims of feminists. He replied:
… our brief has little to do with the status of women or with the prosecution of rapists. I am not sure, consequently, just how relevant our brief is to your
research. The RTPC, of course, is prepared to support progressive legislation with regards to the status of women, but being essentially an all-male organization, it believes that the leading edge of such reform is essentially the work of women themselves.186
184 Karen Pearlston, “The State’s Business in the Bedrooms of Lesbian Nation,” [draft] in Christabelle Sethna and Christopher Dummitt, eds., Canadian Sex Lives and the Omnibus Bill (forthcoming 2019).
185 Becki Ross, The House That Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in Formation, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995:
6. 186 Letter from George Smith to Suzanne Morphet, CLGA, RTPC (88-011), Box: 1, File: 10, February 13, 1982.
As political attentions shifted to the courts, a rally was held on February 5, 1982 to commemorate the first year anniversary of Operation Soap. During the rally, the only speaker to reference women’s and lesbian issues was the sole lesbian speaker, and any lesbian chants were drowned out by the RTPC-led sound truck. According to the men in the RTPC, the rally was during bitter cold weather and all of the speeches had to be cut. McCaskell remembers that Smith was angry with him for cutting his speech, given that he had an important message to deliver to the community about continuing the battle over the Criminal Code.187 In keeping the speeches short and the speakers list small, lesbians and issues facing women were excluded. In a letter to the RTPC from LAR, they confronted the men:
All too frequently, our expected role at demonstrations has been to identify our issues with yours, and then to offer gay men unconditional support for our supposedly mutual struggles. This can leave us with the uneasy feeling of playing in to the self-oppressive script of women identifying with and selflessly nurturing male needs. Lesbian feminists do not relish the role of being cheerleaders at gay male rallies.188
An apologetic response was crafted by the RTPC at their next executive meeting, blaming the cold weather for the lack of lesbian representation, and promising to ensure lesbian speeches and chants would be given from the sound truck at future rallies.189
Bill C-53 provided an opportunity for the RTPC to stand in solidarity with women’s issues with regard to prostitution. In their political actions over the legislation, the RTPC launched a campaign to place a full page advertisement in the Globe and Mail using the language of Trudeau’s 1967 Omnibus Bill statement that “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” The idea for this ad came from Tim McCaskell and was debated by the RTPC executive committee on May 25, 1981. The debate centred on whether to solely call for the repeal of the indecency section of the law, or make a broader case for eliminating the bawdy house law entirely. RTPC member Paul Rapsey argued that “the
187 Interview with Tim McCaskell, September 18, 2012.
188 Letter from LAR to RTPC, CLGA, RTPC (88-011), Box: 1, File: 10, March 6, 1982.
189 “Minutes of Executive meeting,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002) Box: 1, File: Minutes, March 21, 1982: 7.
‘indecent acts’ issue is most crucial, and incorporating our argument with the prostitution issue will make the matter very complicated.”190 The executive opted to debate the issue at a general meeting of the membership, which proved contentious. At the end of that process, the RTPC opted to stand in solidarity with sex worker advocates in calling for the repeal of the bawdy house law in its entirety.191 In January 1982, McCaskell began raising funds required to place the ad.192 The advertisement was
featured in the June 2, 1982 edition of the Globe and Mail, and read, “The State has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.”193 In the text of the ad, the RTPC declared the bawdy house law “vague and archaic” and that the intent of Parliament in 1969 was “being flagrantly disregarded.”194 Ultimately, McCaskell raised $14,500 to pay for the ad, and he collected 1,482 signatures which surround the advertisement text.195
The RTPC used Pierre Trudeau’s own words against him, but the 1967 phrase must be understood in gendered terms. “The bedrooms of the nation” was gendered space. According to Kinsman, the private/public divide that emerged after the Wolfenden Report shifted many sex and gender questions to the realm of the private dwelling space. The “idea of privacy was associated with private property and ownership,” which privileged men and regulated women.196 The Committee Against Street Harassment (CASH) argued in the Body Politic in 1979 that “though the law maintains it has no jurisdiction in the sexual activities of two consenting adults, it still governs women’s sexual behaviour with men.”197 In the bedrooms of the nation, women were the sexual property of their
190 “Minutes of Executive meeting,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002) Box: 1, File: Minutes, May 25, 1981: 4.
191 McCaskell, Queer Progress, 167.
192 “Minutes of Executive meeting,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002) Box: 1, File: Minutes, February 2, 1982: 1.
193 “The State has no business in the bedrooms of the nation,” Globe and Mail, June 2, 1982: 12.
194 Ibid.
195 “Minutes of Executive meeting,” CLGA, RTPC (1986-002) Box: 1, File: Minutes, June 13, 1982: 2; Kevin Orr,
“Prominent Canadians sign up for privacy,” The Body Politic, May 1982: 14.
196 Kinsman, 221-222.
197 CASH was formed as a successor to Better End All Vicious Erotic Repression (BEAVER), see Deborah R. Brock, Making Work, Making Trouble: Prostitution as a Social Problem, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998, 40.
husbands, so indecency did not apply. As part of C-53, the criminalization of spousal rape was a top priority for women’s groups. The RTPC ultimately stood in solidarity with women’s issues on the bawdy house law. However, this support must be understood within the broader context of a continual trend toward associating the bathhouse raids solely with the struggles of gay men.
The bathhouse raids had implications for lesbians beyond their relationships to gay men. Sue (Johnny) Golding, who was a writer for the Body Politic and a protest marshal in several RTPC
demonstrations, noted the transformation of lesbian consciousness in the wake of Operation Soap. This was a time that Golding dubbed the “Historical Crumble,” where spaces that catered to queer women disappeared and the sexual liberation movement was increasingly associated solely with white, middle-class, gay men. The bathhouse raids and the defense of kink and non-monogamous sex meant that many queer women were increasingly questioning the state of lesbian sexual consciousness.198 Golding argued that after Operation Soap, sex-positive attitudes among women could be classified into three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good, which prevailed until the bath raids, were
“bambi-sexuals” who “would attempt to strive for monogamous-but-equal lover/friendships and would tend to understand that striving as feminist.”199 Lesbian couples who attempted kinky sex or were open to “flings and affairs” comprised “the bad.” Finally, the ugly sex radical developed after the community rallied behind the gay bathhouses. This “ugly” included public and park cruising, leather, “Crisco,”
dildoes, and viewed this “as a fundamental challenge to heterosexist power relations and bourgeois regulations which either assumed women had no Sex, or if we had a Sex, had assumed that that sex must be contained in as close to a propertied/monogamous relationship as possible.”200 Golding and others were inspired by the work of Michel Foucault in understanding the social construction of
198 Sue Golding, “Knowledge is Power: A Few Thoughts about Lesbian Sex, Politics and Community Standards,”
Fireweed, 13 (1982): 93.
199 Ibid, 98.
200 Ibid, 99.
sexuality.201 The bath raids helped inspire a new debate among libertarians, sex radicals, and feminist scholars on the place of pleasure and sadomasochism in sexual liberation.202