Why my sexuality will be on full display at Pride (or: what Edmontonians should remember about why we have a parade) Kris Joseph Follow Jun 7, 2018 · 8 min read

Body Politic, no. 75, 1981. p. 1

Every year, at about this time, an internal queer debate appears online. In Edmonton it materializes after the Pride parade, but since our parade isn’t until Saturday I’ll highlight two non-local examples from this week:

Note that both of these discussions were started by folk who self-identify as queer. Note that they suggest that queer culture is too focused on sex (in the latter case) and that Pride parades featuring overt sexuality run contrary to our fight for acceptance (in the former case). Note that the discussion repeats every year (as evinced by Joe. My. God.’s annual repost of “Watching the Defectives,” originally written in 2005).

In a largely-conservative province like Alberta, homophobia is often more internalized than externalized. It’s a conservative province, despite its track record of socially-progressive politics. Most of this, I think, is because of the “Alberta Nice” culture: everyone has an opinion, but nobody wants to share it. On one hand, this reduces instances of having “faggot” yelled at you on the street (anecdotally, this is far more common in Ontario); on the other hand, it reduces instances of queer folks asserting their identity or sexuality in public.

There are two broad strategies that have been used in the fight for queer rights:

Promote acceptance by illustrating all the ways that queer people are just like non-queer people Promote acceptance by demanding it, often by exposing gross injustice or creating rebellious displays of queer identity

Most Albertans (largely a polite and conservative sort) prefer the first strategy. It’s about love and acceptance; we just want to raise kids and participate in capitalism; we’re not scary because we’re just like you. Rather than remind our friends that the first three letters of “sexual orientation” are “sex,” we remove sexuality from the equation and emphasize commonality. Straight people keep their sex private (a false claim, in my opinion, but let’s take it on face value and move on), so we should too.

Millicent, Empress I, circa 1975. Source: “Edmonton Queen”

There has been recent discussion about the true origins of Pride and its connections to the second strategy, largely centered around the 1969 Stonewall Riot and the work of Marsha P Johnson — the black transwoman activist and sex worker who, it is said, threw the brick that started the modern gay rights movement. To that discussion, let’s add the work of Peter Fiske, who points out that leathermen and BDSM players were critical to the formation of ACT UP and the fight against AIDS. To the local discussion let’s add the 1971 creation of the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose, including its dedication to charitable service and its first Empress: Millicent, the two-spirited drag queen. These examples remind us that our persecution — because of our sexual practises, and because of our visible and invisible differences with heteronormative society — are the source of the equality we enjoy today and the engine that drives the ongoing battle.

I prefer the second strategy (identity assertion rather than a shift towards heteronormativity) and I believe that asserting non-normative sexual and gender identities is healthy for people. However, this is not a binary. Both strategies can co-exist.

So: as armor against this weekend’s inevitable internally-sourced backlash against half-naked boys, topless lesbians, bearded drag queens, rubber gimps and pup hoods at the Edmonton Pride Parade, I offer some important local history. And — to be very clear about my agenda and bias — I will be in full BDSM kink gear at the parade and will make no excuses for it.

The first Edmonton Pride March

Edmonton’s first Pride Festival (consisting of a barbecue and baseball game) took place in 1980, but the first Pride March (not “parade”) was in 1981. That makes this the 37th anniversary of that deeply political, non-corporate, dangerous procession. The event that triggered the march (“Edmonton’s Stonewall,” occurring 13 years after Pierre Trudeau said the government had no place in the bedrooms of the nation) was a raid that took place four weeks earlier, in the wee hours of May 30, 1981.

Taking careful notes from the Toronto police, whose “Operation Soap” resulted in the raids of four bathhouses in that city in February of that year, the Edmonton Police took aim at Pisces Spa. The building still stands at the corner of 109 Street and 105 Avenue, but the spa closed permanently after the raid and resulted in the likely-fear-driven shutdown of Gemini spa one week later. Pisces was licensed as a health spa, and it was well-appointed: 40 private rooms, a Jacuzzi, a large shower room, and more. Edmonton police had been tipped off that its real purpose was to facilitate casual/anonymous/non-normative sex, but let’s be honest: they likely knew that already, and were feeling emboldened by the successful raids in Toronto and elsewhere.

At 1:30AM on May 30, men at Pisces noticed that the music had been cranked to full volume. The blaring music masked the intrusion of 54 (!) police officers and the sound of doors being broken down throughout the spa. 56 men were rounded up — regardless of their state of dress — and arrested. Owners and staff — 6 in total — were also collected, bringing the total to 62. The men found in the spa were asked to write their names on pieces of paper and were photographed in whatever they were wearing (or not) at at the time. A few hours later the group was moved to the police station, where formal mugshots were taken. Among the things seized during the raid was a full list of Pisces Spa members: 2000 in all.

Most of the men who were arrested were intimidated into testifying without legal counsel. On the next day the spa’s owners, its manager and five of its clients pled guilty to charges of operating or being “found in” a common bawdy house. The owners were later criticized for this betrayal, but they responded by saying that they were trying to protect other gay men: the Crown had threatened to call prominent community members to the stand as witnesses (thereby outing and shaming them; remember that they had the full members list) if they did not plead guilty.

People who were arrested in the raid were terrified that their names would be published. There was also fear that the full members list would be leaked or further used against the community. A possibly-apocryphal story contends that one of the “found-ins” later committed suicide. One of the spa’s two owners was a neurologist whose ability to practice was suspended by the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons for “unbecoming conduct.” (Note that another prominent Edmontonian, Delwin Vriend, wasn’t fired from his King’s College teaching job until 1991, and the court did not rule in favour of sexual orientation human rights protections until 1994).

Four weeks later, in reponse to the raid and its unnecessary, public persecution of gay men, Edmonton’s first Pride March was held. Activist and politician Michael Phair recalls that about 40 people took part in the walk down Whyte Avenue, with almost half participating anonymously, bags on their heads.

Our community was persecuted because of “unacceptable” sexual behaviour. This persecution resulted in the community rising up against sex-shaming and the vilification of non-normative forms of consensual, adult sexuality. At the Pisces spa trial, Crown attorney Morrey Ferries wallowed in sensational evidence and insisted people were “rutting like animals” even though almost nobody in the spa was arrested mid-coitus (Body Politic, no. 76, p. 11).

In other words: 37 years ago, local bigotry was used to shame queers for their sexuality. Today, local queers shame the display of sexuality at Pride for the sake of “acceptance.”

The aftermath

Thanks to the guilty plea by the owners, which included an admission that the Pisces Spa was a “common bawdy house,” provincial judges were able to find everyone else guilty in the summer and fall of 1981. The owners were fined $10,000 each. The spa was fined $20,000. The co-owner was fined $5,000. And every man arrested at the spa was offered the choice between a $250 fine or 30 days in jail. One Portuguese immigrant, who did not speak strong English and insisted he was only there to use the steam room, was fined $300. The Gay Alliance Towards Equality (GATE) set up a legal fund to help people through this process, and was able to help provide lawyers for many of the accused. GATE later became the Gay and Lesbian Community Centre of Edmonton, and is now known as the Pride Centre.

Here’s the final irony, and a tidbit that is not often included in tales of the Pisces Spa raid. Few people ask where the “tip” to the Edmonton police came from. Well, it came from an Edmonton gay man who felt that bathhouses gave gay people a bad name: “Some of us have worked hard to get our place in society, and all this publicity is bad for us, bad for people who are trying to make it” (Body Politic, no. 77, p. 14). He added that he didn’t think that gay sex was disgusting… just group sex.

Body Politic, no. 77, 1981. p. 14

37 years ago, internalized homophobia catalyzed the Edmonton gay rights movement. Today, internalized homophobia seeks to suppress that catalysis. This is why there will always be half-naked boys, topless lesbians, bearded drag queens, rubber gimps and pup hoods at Edmonton Pride. And it’s why I’ll be among them.

I will tolerate rainbow-washing, the corporatization of Pride, and the endless pandering of politicians in search of votes. However, I will also celebrate all forms of queer representation and identity at Pride — my own and those with which I am unfamiliar or uncomfortable. It’s our parade.