1983 Pride,
Toronto
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Lots of familiar faces on this page to which we can no longer put names. Charlie's slides and photos of Toronto events were often used by other organizations and not a few of them are undoubtedly in The Arquives under other names. These are the slides we have left.
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Gathering at King's College Circle, University of Toronto, before the parade: this is one of two lesbian & gay pride day banners. The parade assembled in King's College Circle at the University of Toronto, exiting along Wellesley to Queen's Park Crescent E. It proceeded north on Queen's Park Crescent to Bloor, headed east on Bloor and I think went down Yonge to College. It turned west on College, headed for the U of T, re-entering King's College Circle from the south.
passing behind the Legislature on Wellesley
turning north from Wellesley onto Queen's Park Crescent E.
the tradition: Dykes On Bikes leading the parade
the second lesbian and gay pride day banner
Barry Blackburn, Tim Ryan
John Kellerman turning onto Bloor St. W. ahead of the banner
Richard Fung at centre
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In 1981 the highlight of the parade for Charlie and me was its end, with the band No Frills calling us all into Grange Park in a tremendously powerful moment; and in 1983 it was Parachute Club doing the same with that anthem of the 1980s, Rise Up
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Gay Bell as emcee: she says "Arlene Mantle sang at that event. I remember it was blazing hot out there in the sun and there was a huge barrel of water that we could dip into if we wished. I was just about to do that when Arlene stopped me, saying I could electrocute myself if I touched the mic!"
Penny Lamy, director of the 519, with her daughter
Sister Andrew Virginia, aka Bill Dwyer
Harvey Hamburg, front and centre, was one of the main speakers scheduled for the day. He'd been a gay activist in Toronto since the mid-1970s, heavily involved in the start-up of a number of community organizations. Since the first story about a rare cancer among gay men appeared in the NY Times in July, 1981, he'd been concerned about a coming health crisis. In early 1983 he'd gone to New York, and alongside Bob Cecchi of New York's Gay Men's Health Crisis, had visited AIDS patients in the city's hospitals. This 1983 Pride Day, Harvey became the first in Toronto to publicly say so when he told the crowd it was time to start using condoms when having anal sex. At this point a number of other AIDS activists considered that an unnecessary and alarmist message and were unhappy with his decision to speak up. But he refused to back down. He repeated the message three days later at the large public information meeting at Jarvis Collegiate called to discuss AIDS. Shortly thereafter those who had been opposed came to see the wisdom of his public statements.
Michael Johnstone, Del Mansell
TAG's hot dog stand, Allan Stewart at centre. Toronto Area Gays (1975-2008), an information and peer counselling telephone line on a shoestring budget. In its early days it also ran a number of in-person activities and discussion groups, mostly at the 519 e.g. for married men, for people coming out, an after-your-out group, the No Name Cafe, the Women's Group. There's an in-depth description of it elsewhere on my website and a link to that at the bottom of this page.
Facing the camera, Daniel
Clarence Barnes, John Grube, and Alex Liros produced work individually but also formed the JAC Collective to collaborate on canvases such as this
Gay Bell in costume as performer
Kyle Rae
John Higgins on the left, shirtless
Andrew Mullin
??
Norm Taylor, Gary Wynacht
Steve Fontaine, Bob Stout working the TAG booth
Peter Zorzi having the last word !
Pride in Toronto in the 1970s: http://www.onthebookshelves.com/prideweeks.htm
If you want to see Jearld Moldenhauer's two videos of the 1973 Pride march go to Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GZ7UeLBsBc.
TAG (Toronto Area Gays) was capable of doing a lot more than running a hot dog stand at Pride Day. For those interested in a consensus-based, non-heirarchical way of doing things, here's my discussion of Toronto Area Gays in its early days, http://www.onthebookshelves.com/tag.htm.