RESOURCES
Ready to dive deeply? Browse our selected list of primary and secondary sources about the Pussy Palace, the raid, our oral history project, and Toronto’s queer history.
PRIMARY SOURCES
A selection of materials created by or featuring Palace organizers, patrons, and community allies.
Publications by Palace Patrons and Organizers
Books, chapters, blogs, articles, and other ephemera authored by those involved in or supporting the Palace.
Bell, Shannon. Fast Feminism. New York: Autonomedia, 2010.
Gallant, Chanelle, and Loralee Gillis. “Pussies Bite Back: The Story of the Women’s Bathhouse Raid.” Torquere 3 (2013): 152-67.
MacCool, Fiona. “The First Rule of Pussy Palace.” In Any Other Way: How Toronto Got Queer, edited by Stephanie Chambers, Jane Farrow, Maureen FitzGerald, Ed Jackson, John Lorinc, Tim McCaskell, Rebecka Sheffield, Tatum Taylor, & Rahim Thawer, 290-92. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2017.
Miklos, Lyla. “Six-minute Memoir: Queer Love Stories,” 2019.
Salah, Trish. “Transfixed in Lesbian Paradise.”. Atlantis 30, no. 2 (2007): 24-9.
Singh, Deb. “How to Find Self-Love + Community While Getting a Lap Dance: BIPOC Adventures in Queer and Trans Bathhouse Organizing.” LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (blog), Apr. 29, 2022.
Whittall, Zoe. “What’s a Wiggle Worth?” Xtra, Jul. 14, 1999.
Media Coverage on the Raid
Selected press articles and media features covering the raid and its aftermath.
Anderson, Scott. “Crybabies.” Now Toronto, Sep. 28, 2000.
Bolger, Meghan. “You’ve Come a Long Way, Pussy.” Xtra, May 25, 2005.
Brown, Eleanor. “Male Cops at Pussy Palace.” Xtra, Sep. 20, 2000.
—. “A Bureaucratic Halt at Police Board.” Xtra, Oct. 4, 2000.
—. “Charges Laid.” Xtra, Oct. 18, 2000.
—. “Cops Sue Kyle Rae.” Xtra, Nov. 15, 2000.
CBC News. “Lesbian Bathhouse Raid Charges Tossed by Judge.” CBC, Feb. 1, 2002.
Cohen, Ben. “Who is Myron Demkiw, Toronto’s New Chief of Police?” Toronto Star, Sep. 15, 2022.
Darra, Irene. “The Cop Speaks.” Xtra, Oct. 4, 2000.
Editorial. “Barging In.” Globe and Mail, Sep. 25, 2000.
Gallant, Chanelle. “20 Years Ago, Queer Women in Toronto Fought the Police. And Won.” Xtra, Sep. 14, 2020.
Gallant, Paul. “Oops, We’re Sorry.” Xtra, Apr. 18, 2001.
—. “Got Booze, No Privacy.” Xtra, Oct. 31, 2001.
—. “Pussy Palace Triumph.” Xtra, Feb. 6, 2002.
Giese, Rachel. “Pussy Pals.” Xtra, Nov. 29, 2000.
Irwin, Nancy. “Police Raid Women’s Bathhouse Party.” Siren 5, no. 4 (2000): 12-14.
Luksic, Nicola. “Improving Cop/Queer Relations.” Xtra, Sep. 28, 2005.
Nolen, Stephanie. “Angry Crowd Decries Raid on Lesbians.” Globe and Mail, Sep. 22, 2000.
—, and Colin Freeze. “Bathhouse Raid Angers Lesbian Community.” Globe and Mail, Sep. 16, 2000.
Pazzano, Sam. “Gay Cop Rips City Councillor.” Sun Media, Jun. 5, 2002.
Shahzad, Ramna. Women Strip-searched, Charged in Bathhouse Raids Reject Public Apology.” CBC, Jun. 22, 2016.
Sharpe, Emily. “Don’t Cross the Cops.” Xtra, Jun. 26, 2002.
Valverde, Mariana. “A Pussy-Positive Judgement.” Xtra, Feb. 6, 2002.
Vogels, Josey. “Polite Gal Love.” Now Toronto, Sep. 21, 2000.
Archival Sources
Archival documents and records related to the Pussy Palace and its historical context.
Carlyle Jansen Collection. Sexual Representation Collection, Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto.
Her Majesty the Queen v. Hornick. (October 22, 2001). Court Proceedings, Ontario Court of Justice.
Her Majesty the Queen v. Hornick. (October 23, 2001). Court Proceedings, Ontario Court of Justice.
Her Majesty the Queen v. Hornick. (January 31, 2002). Judgment, Ontario Court of Justice.
Kyle Rae Fonds 1979-2010, City of Toronto Archives, Toronto, Canada.
“Policing and the Queer Community: Community Consultation” (facilitator notes), 2005.
Pussy Palace Oral Histories. Interviews by Alisha Stranges and Elio Colavito. 2021. LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (PI Elspeth Brown). Zoom video recordings.
Pussy Palace Oral History Project Fonds, The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ+ Archives. Toronto, Canada.
Willats, Anna. “Recommendations from the Community Consultation on Policing and LGBTT Communities,” 2005.
Film and Video
Moving image materials featuring or documenting Pussy Palace events.
Egale Canada. “#HearOurStory – Pussy Palace Raid.” YouTube. Apr. 10, 2018. Video, 5:11.
unpopulararts. (2018, April 29). “Pussy Palace Panty Picket Protest!” YouTube. Apr 29, 2018. Video, 1:40.
Year Zero One. “The Power of the Pussy.” Vimeo. May 22, 2014. Video, 2:29.
—. “The Pussy Palace.” Vimeo. May 22, 2014. Video, 3:31.
ABOUT THE PPOHP
A selection of blogs, reflective essays, and media coverage on the Pussy Palace Oral History Project.
Brown, Elspeth, and Alisha Stranges. “The Pussy Palace Oral History Project: Sensory Portraits of Public Sex.” Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 15 (2023).
Colavito, Elio. “Hindsight is 2020.” LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (blog), Mar. 4, 2022.
––. “A Piece of a Trans Guy.” LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (blog), Apr. 1, 2022.
—. “Can I say this?. LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (blog), Aug. 5, 2022.
—. “Bringing Publics to the Palace: User Experience Design and Digital Exhibition Prototyping with Peter Luo.” LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (blog), Sep. 2, 2022.
—, and Alisha Stranges. “When Memory Gets Wiggy.” LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (blog), May 13, 2022.
Drmay, Sid. “The Pussy Palace Was More than the Raid.” Xtra, Oct. 3, 2022.
Sismondo, Christine. “A Look Inside Toronto’s Pussy Palace Before the Police Stormed In.” Toronto Star, Sep. 8, 2022.
Stranges, Alisha. “Tangible Traces: Searching for the Pussy Palace Polaroids.” LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory (blog), May 27, 2022.
SECONDARY SOURCES
A selection of scholarly works exploring the Pussy Palace events and Toronto’s queer history.
On the Pussy Palace
Scholarly articles and book chapters analyzing the Pussy Palace bathhouse events.
Bain, Alison L., and Catherine J. Nash. “Undressing the Researcher: Feminism, Embodiment and Sexuality at a Queer Bathhouse Event.”Area 38, no. 1 (2006): 99-106.
—. The Toronto Women’s Bathhouse Raid: Querying Queer Identities in the Courtroom. Antipode 39, no. 1 (2007): 17-34.
Blair, Jennifer. “‘What we do well’: Writing the Pussy Palace into a Queer Collective Memory.” Torquere 6 (2004): 143-67.
Brown, AD, and Nerissa Gailey. “Organizing Lesbian/Queer Bathhouse Events: Emerging Forms of Sexual Experience.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 20, no. 2 (2013): 251-65.
Cooper, Davina. “‘Well, you go there to get off’: Visiting Feminist Care Ethics Through a Women’s bathhouse.” Feminist Theory 8, no. 3 (2007): 243-62.
—. “Erotic Care: A Queer Feminist Bathhouse and the Power of Attentive Action.” In Sexualities: Past Reflections, Future Directions, edited by Sally Hines and Yvette Taylor, 206-25. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Hammers, Corie. “Bodies that Speak and the Promises of Queer: Looking to Two Lesbian/Queer Bathhouses for a Third Way. Journal of Gender Studies 17, no. 2 (2008): 147-64.
—. “Making Space for an Agentic Sexuality?: The Examination of a Lesbian/Queer Bathhouse.” Sexualities 11, no. 5 (2008): 547-72.
—. “An Examination of Lesbian/Queer Bathhouse Culture and the Social Organization of (Im)Personal Sex.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 38, no. 3 (2009): 308-35.
—. “Space, Agency, and the Transfiguring of Lesbian/Queer Desire.” Journal of Homosexuality 56, no. 6 (2009): 757–85.
Lamble, Sarah. “Unknowable Bodies, Unthinkable Sexualities: Lesbian and Transgender Legal Invisibility in the Toronto Women’s Bathhouse Raid.” Social & Legal Studies 18, no. 1 (2009): 111-30.
Nash, Catherine J., and Alison L. Bain. “‘Reclaiming raunch’? Spatializing Queer Identities at Toronto Women’s Bathhouse Events. Social & Cultural Geography 8, no. 1 (2007): 47-62.
—. “Pussies Declawed: Unpacking the Politics of a Queer Women’s Bathhouse Raid.” In Geographies of Sexualities, edited by Kath Browne, Jason Lim, and Gavin Brown, 173-82. London: Routledge, 2007.
Valverde, Mariana, and Miomir Cirak. “Governing Bodies, Creating Gay Spaces. Policing and Security Issues in ‘Gay’ Downtown Toronto.” The British Journal of Criminology 43, no. 1 (2003): 102-21.
On Toronto’s Queer History
Books and articles focused on the broader history of queer, trans, and LGBTQ+ communities in Toronto. Email us if you’d like to suggest additional resources!
Brown, Shannon. “Molly Wood’s Bush: Settler Colonialism, Queer Activism, and Commemoration in Toronto.” Journal of Canadian Studies 54, no. 2-3 (2020): 290-319.
Chenier, El. “Sex, Intimacy, and Desire Among Men of Chinese Heritage and Women of Non-Asian Heritage in Toronto, 1910–1950.” Urban History Review 42, no. 2 (2014): 29-43.
—. Strangers in Our Midst: Sexual Deviancy in Postwar Ontario. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Churchill, David. “Mother Goose’s Map: Tabloid Geographies and Gay Male Experience in 1950s Toronto.” Journal of Urban History (2004): 826-52.
—. “Personal Ad Politics: Race, Sexuality and Power at The Body Politic.” Left History 8, no. 2 (2003): 114-34.
Da Costa, Jade Crimson Rose. “From Racial Hauntings to Wonderous Echoes: Towards a Collective Memory of HIV/AIDS Resistance.” PhD diss., York University, 2023.
Grozelle, Renee S. “The Rise of Gay Liberation in Toronto: From Vilification to Validation.” Inquiries Journal 9, no. 01 (2017): 1-2.
Halferty, John Paul Frederick. “Political Stages: Gay Theatre in Toronto, 1967-1985.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2014.
Haritaworn, Jinthana, Ghaida Moussa, and Syrus Marcus Ware, eds. Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018.
Hill, Darryl B. Trans Toronto: An Oral History. New York: William Rodney Press, 2012.
Hooper, Thomas Harold. “‘Enough is Enough’: The Right to Privacy Committee and Bathhouse Raids in Toronto, 1978-83.” PhD diss., York University, 2016.
Iaconetti, Gabryelle. “Borders of Belonging: Situating Bisexual Communities in Toronto’s Queer History, 1980s-2000s.” Master’s thesis, Concordia University, 2023.
Irving, Dan, and Rupert Raj, eds. Trans Activism in Canada: A Reader. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2014.
Jennex, Craig, and Nisha Eswaran. Out North: An Archive of Queer Activism and Kinship in Canada. Vancouver: Figure.1 Publishing, 2023.
Lord, Cassandra R. “Performing Queer Diasporas: Pelau MasQUEERade in the Toronto Pride Parade.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2015.
—. “We Have Always Been Here: Pelau MasQUEERade Disturbing Toronto Pride History.” Journal of Canadian Studies 54, no. 2-3 (2020): 360-94.
Kinsman, Gary, and Patrizia Gentile. The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010.
Maynard, Steven. “Through a Hole in the Lavatory Wall: Homosexual Subcultures, Police Surveillance, and the Dialectics of Discovery, Toronto, 1890-1930.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 5, no. 2 (1994): 207–42.
—. “‘Horrible Temptations’: Sex, Men, and Working-Class Male Youth in Urban Ontario, 1890-1935.” Canadian Historical Review 78, no. 2 (June 1, 1997): 191-235.
—. “‘Hell Witches in Toronto’: Notes on Lesbian Visibility in Early-Twentieth-Century Canada.” Left History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Historical Inquiry and Debate 9, no. 2 (2004).
—. “Meet Me in Pervert Park: Epistemology, Positionality, and Praxis in the Queer History of Policing and the Law.” Law and History Review 40, no. 4 (2022): 827-37.
McCaskell, Tim. Queer Progress: From Homophobia to Homonationalism. Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016.
McLeod, Donald W. Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada: A Selected Annotated Chronology, 1964-1975. Toronto: ECW Press/Homewood Books, 1996.
—. A Brief History of GAY: Canada’s First Gay Tabloid, 1964-1966. Toronto: Homewood Books, 2003.
McKenna, Emma. “The White-painters of Cabbagetown: Neighborhood Policing and Sex Worker Resistance in Toronto, 1986–1987.” Sexualities 25, no. 7 (2022): 867-91.
Nash, Catherine J. “Toronto’s Gay Village (1969–1982): Plotting the Politics of Gay Identity.” The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien 50, no. 1 (2006): 1-16.
—. “Trans Experiences in Lesbian and Queer Space.” The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien 55, no. 2 (2011): 192-207.
—. “Consuming Sexual Liberation: Gay Business, Politics and Toronto’s Barracks Bathhouse Raids.” Journal of Canadian Studies 48, no. 1 (2014): 82-105.
Phipps, Kelly. “‘Look over here, look over there, lesbians are everywhere’: Locating Activist Lesbians in Queer Liberation History.” PhD diss., Concordia University, 2019.
Rayter, Scott, and Laine Halpern Zisman, eds. Queerly Canadian: An Introductory Reader in Sexuality Studies. Second edition. Toronto: Women’s Press, 2022.
Rosenberg, Rae D. “Geographies of Hegemonic Gay Masculinity: Interplays of Trans and Racialized In/Exclusions in the Gay Village of Toronto.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 113, no. 9 (2023): 2219-36.
Ross, Becki. The House that Jill Built: A Lesbian Nation in Formation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995.
Sayers, Jourdan. “Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto.” Ethnic Studies Review 42, no. 2 (2019): 247-51.
Sismondo, Christine Alexandra. “Toronto the Gay: The Formation of a Queer Counterpublic in Public Drinking Spaces, 1947-1981.” PhD diss., York University, 2017.
Warner, Tom. Never Going Back: A History of Queer Activism in Canada. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2002.
