On Feb. 5, 1981, nearly 200 plainclothes and uniformed police officers raided four of Toronto’s gay bathhouses: the Club Baths, the Romans II Health and Recreation Spa, the Richmond Street Health Emporium and the Barracks.
Armed with crowbars and hammers, Toronto police knocked down doors and walls, smashed windows and mirrors, broke into private rooms and arrested nearly 300 gay men as part of a six-month undercover operation that police called “Operation Soap.”
The men were subjected to verbal abuse and hostile searches and were charged with being “found-ins” at a place of prostitution. The raids also caused significant damage to the bathhouses themselves. The physical and financial impact was so severe that the Richmond Street Health Emporium would never reopen.
Back in 1969, the Canadian government “decriminalized” homosexuality. But that’s not exactly what happened. No criminal laws related to homosexuality were repealed. Instead, the Criminal Code was amended to change how certain gay sex acts were defined legally.
For instances of “gross indecency” or “buggery,” an exception was made only if the acts occurred between two people over 21—and were behind closed bedroom doors. So, consensual sex in spaces like bathhouses remained criminalized, which led to them being highly targeted by police.
Queer historian Tom Hooper told Xtra in 2021 that bathhouse raids in Canada go as far back as 1968. Between 1968 and 2004, Hooper’s research found that more than 1,400 arrests have occurred at bathhouse raids.
And what followed was the emergence of Canada’s modern gay rights movement. In the days following the raids, queer people took to the streets, overwhelming police, to make a statement that enough was enough.
More than 90 percent of the charges from the Toronto bathhouse raids were eventually dropped. But Toronto police would not apologize publicly until 2016, 35 years after the raids. On the 45th anniversary of the bathhouse raids, Toronto mayor Olivia Chow announced at a news conference that the city will create a heritage plaque to ensure that history will not be forgotten.
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