Prides of the past: 1987
10 June 2020. -

Okay, Sherman, let’s get in the WABAC machine. As you know, this year’s Pride events have been cancelled due to the Bubonic plague. So what better way to celebrate the event by looking back at Prides past? 

Today, we step into 1987, long before special interest groups came along and ruined all the fun. According to the Pride website, which doesn’t appear to have been updated since 2014, this was the year that sexual orientation was finally included in the Ontario Human Rights Code. The theme was Rightfully Proud, and about 15,000 people, mostly neighbourhood types, attended. Unfortunately, curmudgeon mayor Art Eagleton once again refused to issue a proclamation for the day. Nowadays, it’s hard to believe how backwards things were way back then.

Now for the parade itself. Glorious! This was back in the day when local bars like Colby’s and Soltero’s and Chaps actually paid money to build floats. Groups marching included Gays and Lesbians Aging, The Out & Out Club, the Gay Asians of Toronto, Mensa (!), the Judy Garland Memorial Bowling League, Gay Fathers of Toronto, and Fruit Cocktail. There were so few people in attendance that the City didn’t even close the intersection, so everyone had to scurry out of the way of cars. The parade, which assembled in front of the 519, made its way down to College, then north on Yonge Street. 

Other highlights include a guy with an inflatable boa constrictor (replaced in later years by a guy with an actual boa around his neck); drag queens in big hoop skirts with motors underneath; contingents from other smaller cities like Kitchener and Sarnia; Miss Galaxy, whoever that is; some person in a terrible costume with a banner reading Captain Condom; Bitch Diva, sitting on a park bench twirling an Oriental umbrella; June Callwood, whose Casey House was newly opened; mad drag diva Gina, who was famous for singing big loud operatic notes for no reason at all; some guy dressed like Queen Elizabeth; and of course Michelle DuBarry elegantly perched atop the Trax float. Sexy clones with moustaches wore unzipped onesies or really tight basket-revealing shorts and classic 1980s muscle tops.

Best of all was the show, which took place on the world’s tiniest stage (about six inches high) in the Beer Store parking lot. I remember that a band was playing when some totally drugged out queen felt he had the right to jump onstage and deliver some big stupid speech about how we are all proud to be gay. The flustered singer said, “Is this part of the show?” There was no security to get rid of the annoying twat, who eventually danced off in a drug haze. 

Was it fun? You bet it was. Wish I could snap my fingers and go back to then. Instead, we’re stuck here in shitty 2020, with no option but to look back on our better days. Join me next time for a look at yet another year in the life of Pride.