Thanks to Covid-19, all major Pride events in Toronto (at least those requiring a city permit) have been cancelled. Like the rest of the world, Pride Toronto has gone virtual. Since I have nothing new to post this year, I thought I’d offer a smattering of images from the previous 15 years. Pride of course has been a thing for more than 15 years, but it was a little over 15 years ago that I bought my first DSLR and started creating digital images that didn’t suck.
2005
My first images from a Pride event happened by accident. In 2005, I was in Victoria, BC to visit my brother-in-law and one morning, while browsing in Munro’s Books on Government Street, I heard noise outside. I ran onto the sidewalk in time to catch the Victoria Pride Parade. Parade is an exaggeration. There were a couple wingèd faeries on roller blades, a few students marching with signs, and a couple decorated pickup trucks carrying people with rainbow flags and coloured balloons. If I’d blinked, I would have missed it. Twelve years later, I caught the Victoria Pride Parade again and it has definitely grown! In 2017, it ran for nearly an hour. It was loud and fun and lots of locals lined the streets to cheer everyone on.
2006
Toronto Pride’s theme for 2006 was Fearless. The Civil Marriages Act had come into effect on July 20th, 2005 making same-sex marriage legal in Canada.
2007
Toronto Pride’s theme for 2007 was Unstoppable. It’s honoured group was PFLAG Toronto.
2010
The bigger Toronto Pride gets, the greater the tension between advocacy at the edges and the lure of the mainstream. In 2010, QuAIA—Queers Against Israeli Apartheid—forced Pride Toronto to address that tension. Initially, Pride Toronto had yielded to the city’s demand to exclude the group from the Pride Parade and other events. The city upped the ante when it threatened to cancel its funding. At the eleventh hour, Pride Toronto did an about face and ignored the city’s demand/threat. QuAIA marched in the Parade as did several pro-Israel groups. Most people ignored the controversy and were happy just to dance.
2011
Despite his well-publicized homophobia, Toronto’s new mayor, Rob Ford, made an appearance at the parade anyways.
2012
In 2012 we moved downtown because tbh suburbia is boring. I had just bought my first full frame DSLR and was eager to put it through its paces. Nobody else cared. Even so, it kept me amused and out of trouble.
2013
2014
Toronto hosted the fourth WorldPride in 2014 and Pride Week that year drew nearly 2 million visitors to the city. As an aside, I note that not all Prides are created equal. For example, a man who makes a regular appearance is the “I Love My Foreskin” guy. I don’t know his name, but he’s always in Toronto during Pride Week and he’s quite adamant that men keep their foreskin. Naturally, he wants you to see what a fine thing it is to keep your foreskin. In 2017, I saw him in Victoria, still doing his schtick with his schlong, but there he had to keep things covered up. It’s not for nothing that BC’s capital shares its name with a person who has become the poster child of prudery.
2015
It rained a lot. I think that was the theme. Even so, people were enthusiastic, especially Kathleen Wynne.
2016
Pride Toronto named the Toronto chapter of Black Lives Matter an honoured group. During the Parade, the honoured group staged an intervention until a list of nine demands was met. It seems the honoured group didn’t feel so honoured. For one thing, there was the concrete issue that Blockorama, founded by the Black queer activist group, Blackness Yes! kept getting forced into smaller and smaller spaces even as it grew in popularity. For another thing, there was the more general issue that the white dominated Pride organization was not representing Black queer and Trans interests. Desmond Cole provides a detailed account of the issues at play here in the June chapter called “Honoured Group” in his book, The Skin We’re In.
After a half hour delay, Pride Toronto executive director Mathieu Chantelois acceded to the demands and the parade resumed. The following day, Chantelois reneged on his promises, stating that he did not have the authority to grant them in the first place. Chantelois subsequently resigned.
Reaction to BLM-TO was harsh. The organization was excoriated in the press and some of its leaders received death threats.
2017
Despite adverse reaction, Pride Toronto issued a formal apology to BLM-TO and worked to meet its demands. In particular, it agreed to prohibit police floats and uniformed police officers from participating in Pride events. So, in 2017, police were conspicuously absent, as they have been ever since.
2017 – Victoria
Two weeks after Pride had wrapped up in Toronto, I was again in Victoria visiting my brother-in-law and caught the parade there. This time around, my brother-in-law was married and had young children, so we all went to the parade together.
2018
2019
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