Polaroid photo police investigation6/10/2023 And public opinion was resoundingly on the pussies’ side. The police, who charged one organizer with violations under the Liquor Licence Act, had barely left the building before the patrons and organizers developed a plan for a “Pussies Bite Back” movement. Part of the reason it was the last bathhouse raid in Toronto was that meetings, protests and fundraising efforts were organized almost instantaneously. Of course, the legacy of the palace is also a testament to the power of community activism and organization. “But as the project developed and we got to talking to people, it felt more important to preserve the joyfulness, the radicalism and this attempt for an inclusive environment for queer women and trans people.” “I think when we began the project, we were definitely like yes, the raid, this is what we’re here for,” recalled Elio Colavito, a PhD candidate in history at U of T and oral historian for the Pussy Palace Oral History Project. This will all soon culminate in a digital media project, scheduled to launch this fall, that allows people to explore what it would have been like to attend a Pussy Palace party two decades ago. And it’s only thanks to their research that we know all about the turquoise waters, the Polaroid parties, the sounds of floggers being snapped and the constant moaning - all of which was told to me by Stranges, who’s been carefully chronicling the details. The rest of the historians at the collaboratory, though, realized that learning about the significance of the space went well beyond a single night. When historians (or journalists, for that matter) discuss the Pussy Palace, the focus is generally on the raid. “It was important to us for people to have a lot of space to talk about their joyful fun and all the experiences they had at the bathhouse, both the night it was raided and every other night they might have gone,” said Alisha Stranges, research manager at the collaboratory, an initiative led by principal investigator and University of Toronto Mississauga history professor Elspeth Brown. Or, as the team of researchers working on the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory call it, “a historic moment of radical sexual culture.” It was designed to be a sex-positive, woman-centred, trans-inclusive space for women who wanted to explore their sexuality. There were lap dances on offer that night, as well as other sexual services, but nobody was getting paid. “They were trying to build a bawdy house case.” “The way they conducted the investigation, it was clear to all of us who were watching them that they were initially trying to build a case that the palace was in violation of the anti- prostitution laws,” says Chanelle Gallant, writer, activist and part of the Pussy Palace collective that organized the bathhouse events. And one of the reasons it would be the last is because the Toronto Police Service couldn’t find what it was looking for. Nobody knew it at the time, but that search would mark the beginning of the last queer bathhouse raid in Toronto. They were followed by five plain-clothes officers from 52 Division, who started to search the premises and break up all of the fun. Not long after midnight, the cops showed up. It was a special event, dubbed the “2,000 pussies” party, in celebration of the second anniversary of the Pussy Palace, Toronto’s first ever, open-to-the-public bathhouse for women and transgender people of all sexual identities. Whatever they were up to, everyone was in a celebratory mood. Others “cruised” the staircases, occasionally stopping to appreciate the sounds that could be heard over the music: laughter, beer cans being popped open, chains clanging in BDSM rooms and, of course, moans everywhere from the dozens of people having sex at any given time. Inside, some partygoers were taking that era’s equivalent of “selfies” in the cavelike space that was called the Polaroid photo room. Others lounged in the hot tub or played in the warm turquoise water of the pool, all the while listening to the deep bass music pulsing inside. Some were poolside, enjoying the nice fall breeze. Roughly 350 folks were having the time of their lives at a party at a club on Mutual Street, just south of Carlton.
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