Open Letters on Truxx – Gay Rights and Human Rights
By Tess Frauley-Elson
The
1977 raid on the Truxx Cruising Bar in Montreal was a particularly tense moment
in the city’s gay history, one that evoked such outrage that it pushed many
people, gay and straight alike, to come forward publicly against homophobia and
discrimination. In a newspaper clipping found in the Gay Archives of Quebec’s
collection, two writers— neither of whom explicitly identifies himself as being
from this community— respond to this event in open letters. In the first
letter, Thomas R. Robinson from New York expresses his shock and disgust after
having witnessed the excessive violence used by police officers during the
raid; Mr. Robinson watched officers armed with bulletproof vests and machine
guns laugh as they terrorized and abused people in the streets. The second
featured letter is written by John Morton, from Montreal, who speaks against the
tyranny, ignorance, and fear faced by gay people in his city and beyond. His
letter explores what this raid reflects, in terms of the “health” of the
society out of which it comes. These men seek to denounce the injustice of this
night and to condemn the dehumanization of gay men; both are successful in
crafting pieces that appeal to both the morality and logic of any who might not
yet be outraged. This clipping is a valuable primary source because these
letters indicate not only an increased demand for tolerance, but a turning
point that comes from a growing awareness of and solidarity with the gay
community in Montreal; the raid on Truxx is cast as a social and human rights violation
rather than an isolated case of discrimination against the gay community.
Thomas R. Robinson’s letter, written in
a conversational tone with emphasis on his firsthand account of the raid on
Truxx, is an impassioned emotional response to the injustice he witnessed on
the night that police forces descended upon the gay bar. Robinson begins with
the traditional formal address used in all letters to the Editor, “Sir,” and
then compliments the city of Montreal and its “gracious” people, thus showing a
value for proper etiquette and formality, as well as establishing the
credibility of his voice and perspective. He states his profession, travel
agent[i],
to establish himself as an upstanding man with a good job who values order and
civility; by doing so, he also implies that he is someone worldly who has
travelled, and who therefore has a perspective on the larger world. As the
letter continues, he gives his account of the raid and does not sugar-coat the
details; his descriptions detail the violence and unnecessary force used by
officers with images of unassuming people being herded and beaten by men brandishing
excessive tactical gear: “Is it necessary to beat people over the head till
blood runs to make them leave the bar?”[ii].
He repeats the phrase “is it necessary” four times; this repetition of
rhetorical questions signals his indignity and emphasizes the excessive and
outrageous nature of this behaviour. He acts as a voice of reason and common
sense, the outsider to the situation who has a clear perspective, remarking “now,
really!” at the thought of trained officers bringing machine guns to raid a bar[iii].
Robinson appeals to the moral and logical impulse of his audience and urges
them to share his outrage at what is clearly a human rights violation: “the
lowest form of life should not be treated in this manner, let alone fellow
humans!”. His criticism ultimately lies with the police, whom he calls
Gestapo-like[iv]
in their treatment of these gay men. His purpose is not to champion the cause
of gay rights in general, but to denounce the behaviour he witnessed on this
occasion and to highlight the fact that it signals a breakdown in civil society
at large. Robinson is calling out to Montreal to recognize a wrong and to condemn
this excessive police brutality. He focuses on the pain of helpless
individuals, and his conversational tone feels like a personal address and plea
to feel shame and be better.
In his letter, John Morton is certainly
outraged at the events of the raid on Truxx, which he calls “harsh and brutal,”
but creates a formal and fact-based piece rather than a purely emotional one, in
what seems to be an attempt to educate as well as rally his audience. Morton’s
piece relies on facts and statistics, and he selects his language carefully, moving
purposefully away from the “sexual” connotations often attached to the gay
community by emphasizing homosexuality as “preference” and a search for a “love
partners”[v].
He debunks myths as he goes along, such as false statistics linking criminality
and child abuse to the community, all with the goal to put things into
perspective: these men have been treated this way not because they committed a
crime, but because they were “found in.” These are not criminals, not “low-lifes,”
but professionals, regular people. He pairs these observations with comments on
the reality of gay discrimination in the contemporary world: “In Quebec, as in
the vast majority of the world, gay people have no rights and are not protected
by law”[vi].
This statement emphasizes the vulnerability of this group. Like Robinson, he
sees the comportment of Montreal police as Fascistic, and links this event to the
heinous crimes committed by the Nazis against minorities, vulnerable groups. The
spectre of the abuses of the Nazis would still be fresh in the minds of his
readers, as this was still relatively recent history. The gay community,
similar to other communities that suffered at the hands of the Nazis, were
targeted for no other reason than that they were “outsiders.” Morton, in linking
the current political and social climate in Canada to that of Nazi Germany, presents
a warning: Montreal currently seems to be ruled by the same kinds of fear, and
to support the same kind of policing tactics is to allow “outsider” minority
groups to be targeted and abused without consequence. The massive scale of the
Nazi horrors is a reminder of the dangers of allowing the power of hatred and
apathy to go unchecked, and Morton suggests that such permission ultimately
leads to a society which is “(weakened) to the point of apathy”[vii].
Morton stands with the gay community and points to the dangerous implications
of the hateful and violent raid on Truxx to the Montreal community, as well as Canada
at large, which risks drifting towards corruption and settling into comfortable
ignorance.
These
letters are primary sources worth analysis because they showcase the growing
sympathy, awareness, and solidarity with the oppressed gay minority in Montreal
during the late 1970s. Neither of these men identifies himself as being
explicitly of this community, and part of the intention here is to show that
this doesn’t—shouldn’t—matter; this is a question of human rights. The state of
affairs in Canada at this time and long before left, or forced, gay people into
obscurity. Although homosexuality was decriminalized in 1968, the gay community
was not safe, even when working within the context of the government itself, as
writers such as Nathaniel M. Lewis have attested to. In his article, “Ottawa’s Le/The
Village: Creating a ‘Gaybourhood’ Amidst the Death of the Village,” Lewis,
whose research exposes a long history of discrimination and abuse perpetuated
and enabled by the federal government, focuses on the gay community in Ottawa.
For one, he refers to tests and experiments developed in the 1950s and 60s by
Carleton University in cooperation with the RCMP that were meant to identify and
record homosexual people.[viii] Lewis’s
findings indicate that discrimination against gay and lesbian Canadians was
easily justified in such a society because institutionalized brutality had been
perpetrated and encouraged by the intolerant majority. The letters of Thomas R.
Robinson and John Morton highlight the fact that those who were subjected to
this treatment were citizens of the same country, deserving the same right to
exist and be safe. Their approaches differ somewhat, but both men recognize the
injustice of the raid on Truxx and are willing and comfortable to speak out
against the police brutality and to —more than anything else—signal a problem
in society, a slippery slope towards the erosion of rights and liberties of
all. This raid marked a terrible moment of injustice and abuse in Montreal’s history,
but these letters showcase the change in behaviour and call for solidarity that
arose in its wake.
The
story of Truxx hit headlines across the country and spurned a march attended by
thousands of people down St. Catherine street in October of 1977. Countless
articles and open letters would have been published in Montreal in the wake of
such an event. These particular letters, however, stand apart as eloquent and
passionate pieces written by people outraged by the unjust treatment of gay men
on this night. In response to Truxx, they advocate the need for peaceful
co-existence and solidarity, the result of which will surely be a healthier
society for all.
[vii] Nathaniel M. Lewis,
"Ottawa’s Le/The Village: Creating a Gaybourhood Amidst the ‘Death of the
Village’." Geoforum 49 (2013): 233-242.
Comments
Post a Comment