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Pride Day Pictures
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Photo Gallery of Pride Day Pictures (40 images)
What a day! Over 800,000 people attended the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day festivities here in Toronto, and TNT!MEN certainly made a splash! Our party on Sat 29 June was the largest gay nude even ever held in Toronto, with 167 men packing the Barn. Due to an advertising mixup, we ran the party from 1 to 8:30 pm. We were afraid that this might leave us with large periods where few people were present, but we were wrong. By 2 pm we had over 50 men already, and the numbers just kept growing throughout the day. Many men joined TNT!MEN at that event, and as a result got in for free!
On Sunday, we set the TNT!MEN booth up on Church Street by 11 am, and the people started coming by. We had a marvellous banner stretched across the front, hand-made by our resident lawyer and board member Peter S, stretched across the front. Enlargements of various photos I've taken at nudist events decorate the inside of the booth, and many of the volunteers helping at the booth wore matching pink-triangle loin cloths that my lover Peter made. We had two petitions out, one to have Hanlan's Point made officially clothing-optional, the other to ammend the Criminal Code to remove nudity as a crime, and we filled all of the signature sheets we had with us.
We had our own spot in the parade. We carried another banner, also made by Peter S, which also looked marvellous, and we had 6 different placards in rainbow colours with a variety of slogans on them, made by Richard. We started the parade with nine men, and two more joined us en route. We started off wearing the matching loin-cloths, but most of us took those shortly after the parade started, to the great delight of the crowd.
It really was a spectacular day. For another description of it, with lots more photos, see Nude Gay Pride Marchers, courtesy of Jim W, from San Diego.
Pride Day Reaction
(5 July 97)So what kind of response did we get from the city when we marched? Well, the most important reaction, legally and morally speaking, was that of the people present, and from what I saw, virtually everyone who saw us loved us. Some were shocked, some were titillated, some were excited, and many were quite joyful and excited, which makes me feel that perhaps they were proud of us! Hardly anyone reacted negatively, and I saw a LOT of people!
Even the press was quite accepting of us. We didn't rate a mention in the Pride Parade articles of either the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail, the two reputable papers in Toronto. However, the Toronto Sun, an evil, hate-filled reactionary bit of trash, in an article entitled Toronto's Gays Burst with Pride, did their best to create sensation by writing that "One group of 10 bottomless men flaunted their nakedness in front of children watching from the sidelines." They also invented a studded dog collar on Jim, one of our contingent.
A few days later, on Friday July 4th, the Sun really put its foot in its mouth by publishing "Police Reigns on Pride Parade?", in which they vaguely threaten that the police were going to shut Pride Day down next year. The local radio and television stations reacted quickly, as did the police department, which issued a statement dismissing the Sun's story as simply the opinion of one officer. The Police Commissioner responsible for working with the parade publicly stated that the police department was very happy with this year's parade, and that they had no complaints or problems, and were satisfied that everything was in order. CBC Radio's noon report ended their story with the statement: "And of course, no-one wants to kill the Golden Goose. It is estimated that the gay pride celebrations bring in over $50,000,000 to Toronto each year."
Footage of the naked marchers was aired on most of the local tv stations, although most used rear shots only. CityTV did feature my lover Peter and I marching proudly from both the front and back, and though they fuzzed the good bits during their dinnertime broadcast, they did not censor the evening edition. This goes even farther to indicate that casual, non-sexual nudity in the right context is indeed acceptible to Canadians.
The next day, the Toronto Star featured the article "No plan to cancel parade despite nudity, say police", debunking the sensationalist garbage printed by the Sun. They also had a feature on Ontario censors, and included a copy of the official "Ontario Film Review Board guidelines". They say that "casual, non-sexual nudity with no close-ups" is suitable for a "Family" rating, and that "Brief nudity in a non-sexual context, non-exploitive close-up" is suitable for a "Parental Guidance" rating. Therefore is seems pretty clear that our nudity in the Gay Pride Parade does not legally offend the community.
In today's Toronto Sun, the featured letter of the day was written by our very own Peter S, Board Member and Banner Maker extraordinaire. Here's the article as it appeared in print.
Obviously there are lots of different points of view regarding what we did, even within TNT!MEN. The arguments of those who disapprove centre around two fallacies:
Want to have your say? Write to me and I'll put your letter online.
We have one great letter so far, and a copy of a letter I sent to Xtra!, and a letter I sent to NOW.