In the 70’s Yonge Street was a road in downtown Toronto that was known as the Sin Strip which included various businesses that offered adult services and explicit goods that were within a legal grey area. After a tragic event in 1977, Yonge Street received attention from the public and the police force, which would inevitably launch protests that grew in size until the large en masse march down Yonge Street that would later be known as the first Pride Parade.
On July 28th of 1977, Emanuel was working as a shoeshine boy with his brother, Luciano, earning money to help their parents in supporting their family of 7. The family moved to Canada from Portugal with 5 children in tow just under 4 years prior to the heinous crime that would ultimately take Emanuel’s life.
On an offer of $35 to help move photography equipment, Emanuel went with Saul David Betesh. Betesh would lure 12-year-old Emanuel away where they would join up with Robert Kribs and Joseph Woods – Betesh’s sick friends who would join Betesh in torturing the child. The torture involved sexual assault and the taking of his life through drowning him in a sink at Charlie’s Angels Massage Parlour.
The 12-year-old child’s body was found on top of a roof at 245 Young Street on August 1st, 1977. It would take more than a decade for all three of his murderers to be convinced of this evil crime.
Emanuel’s death sparked outrage from public that largely pointed the finger incorrectly at the LGTBQIA+ community due to the presumed orientation of the three men who murdered Emanuel. This outrage showed itself through protests up and down Yonge street, demands for changing the laws surrounding sex work, and an increase in bath house raids. The raids would cause dozens of charges against patrons, owners, and employees of businesses within the Yonge Street area; the majority of charges were dropped.
“Operation Soap” was the precipitating bath house raid that caused a retaliation by citizens frustrated with the constant attack on their livelihoods, lifestyle, and freedom to be themselves.
In 2016, “cisgender” entered into the dictionaries as an adjective used to describe an individual whose gender aligned with their sex. You may also see the term “cis” in reference to a non-trans person. It is a descriptor, much like “trans” or “transgender” might be used to describe someone.
In March of 2023, Canada finally expunged its historic indecency laws. This comes decades after it was used to perform many raids that targeted the LGBTQ+ community.
Toronto Bathhouse Raids
After years of smaller raids performed by the Metropolitan police against Toronto’s gay community, one of the largest raids occurred on February 5th, 1981. This large raid was called the Toronto Bathhouse Raid. Under the name “Operation Soap,” the raids took place across four alleged bawly houses running as bathhouses located in Toronto.
By the end of “Operation Soap,” 286 men were charged with various accusations by the police, primarily related to sex work and other “indecent acts,” despite the lack of evidence of sex work taking place. Most of these men were found not guilty and the charges were dropped.
This blatant discrimination of the gay community was one of many events that encouraged a community response of large proportion.
Yonge and Wellesley street welcomed 3,000 people…
The following night at midnight, a marching protest began at Yonge and Wellesley an travelled to the 52 Division police station, peaking at over 3,000 participants. This was a large turnout for a time period when landline telephones were the primary source of communication.
A blockade of 200 police officers met the marching protestors at the police station, which encouraged the march to divert towards the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. As with any large gathering, violence did break out in a few areas, but injuries were rarely reported as a result.
Toronto Sun and the Toronto Star proved themselves to be bigoted news agencies of the time; the former accusing the Globe and Mail of spouting nonsense when they published the news with journalistic integrity. The latter proudly named victims of the smaller police raids leading up to this monumental raid.
Although bathhouse raids continued amongst the noted homosexual/gay bathhouses up until September 2000; these protests against police violence and unjust police tactics were successful in garnering support from Toronto citizens and allowed for more civil rights movements to continue.
The initialism LGB was introduced shortly after the protest that took place, though the initialism is difficult to pin down for Canadian-specific history.
Even in 2023, there are seemingly constant debates around what qualifies something as being feminine or masculine. Let’s take a moment and see what these two terms mean for you.
First, let’s just establish what these two terms mean in simple English definitions as opposed to these two terms as concepts or themes.
Masculine
Having characteristics or a set of attributes or behaviours that are generally associated with boys or men.
Feminine
Having characteristics or a set of attributes or behaviours that are generally associated with girls or women.
Now what?
Through many modern movements, we have learned that women and men can both share attributes of masculinity and femininity without requiring either of these attributes to influence their gender.
In your journal, let’s explore these two attributes and see how you apply them to yourself. Remember that these journal entries are only for yourself and your individual journey.
Prompt:
What parts of yourself feel masculine to you?
What parts of yourself feel feminine to you?
Do these pieces influence how you see yourself?
In 2021, Lia made waves in the USA after she competed in the Zippy Invitational, finishing first place in the 500 free. Unfortunately, it wasn’t her accomplishments that made the news nearly as much as the backlash she received for competing in the women’s category. This article is meant to look at the situation as a whole without any interpretation nor any judgment.
Her birthday is not known, but Lia was born between 1998 and 2000. She is the youngest of two children in her home, raised in Austin, Texas, USA. She started swimming in kindergarten and began competing in high school where she went on to place 6th place in the state high school swimming championships in 2017. She started her educational career at Penn, where she initially was enrolled while identifying as her gender assigned at birth: Male. She spent three seasons competing as a man against other men, including the 2018-2019 season where she placed second place in a few men’s freestyle categories in the Ivy league championship races.
She told Sports Illustrated that she began questioning her identity by the end of her high school career. In the same interview, Lia confided that she began her medical transition into womanhood in May of 2019 and her social transition was complete by January of 2020.
She took a year off of school so that she wouldn’t miss her last year of eligibility by graduating during a time when she was in between gender categories, being a senior. Returning in the late 2021 season, Lia began training with her female counterparts. At the time that she joined the women’s swimming team in a professional capacity, Lia had been on hormones for a little over two years and it had already impacted her performance in the water at that point.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has a bylaw stipulating that a male-to-female transgender athlete can compete in their identified gender category if they have completed one full year on testosterone suppression therapy. No rules were broken by Lia when she competed on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania Swimming and Diving Team in the Zippy Invitational swimming competition. Her 2021 team, The Quakers, was also made up of Keara McGowan, Margot Kaczorowski, and Hannah Kannan. They were coached by Mike Schnur.