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The 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids marked a major turning point in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community in Canada. On February 5, 1981, at 11:00 PM, police in Toronto raided four gay bathhouses. More than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis. Several Toronto bathhouses had previously been raided, and other raids followed. Mass protests and rallies were held denouncing the incident. These evolved into Toronto's current Gay Pride Week, which is now one of the world's largest Gay Pride festivals and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2005.

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  • 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids
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  • The 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids marked a major turning point in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community in Canada. On February 5, 1981, at 11:00 PM, police in Toronto raided four gay bathhouses. More than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis. Several Toronto bathhouses had previously been raided, and other raids followed. Mass protests and rallies were held denouncing the incident. These evolved into Toronto's current Gay Pride Week, which is now one of the world's largest Gay Pride festivals and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2005.
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  • The 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids marked a major turning point in the history of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community in Canada. On February 5, 1981, at 11:00 PM, police in Toronto raided four gay bathhouses. More than three hundred men were arrested, the largest mass arrest in Canada since the 1970 October crisis. Several Toronto bathhouses had previously been raided, and other raids followed. Mass protests and rallies were held denouncing the incident. These evolved into Toronto's current Gay Pride Week, which is now one of the world's largest Gay Pride festivals and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2005. Most charges connected to the incident were eventually dropped or discharged, although some bathhouse owners were fined. Canada's "bawdy-house" law, under which the charges in this raid were laid, has never been repealed, but has only rarely been applied against gay establishments since the trials connected to the 1981 raids ended. At the time it was widely believed that the raids were approved by Ontario Attorney-General Roy McMurtry and the provincial government, however, in a 2007 interview McMurtry said that this was not the case: "The irony of the whole thing was that I had expressed my concern to the chief of police; that it really looked like we were dissolving into a police state. The whole thing looked terrible. Without a doubt, that was one of my most frustrating experiences." McMurtry subsequently served as Chief Justice of Ontario and wrote the Ontario Court of Appeal's 2003 decision in favour of same-sex marriage.
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