Queer & Trans

At around 9am on Sunday, August 7th, Fierté Montréal informed the public via Twitter that they were cancelling the pride parade. While they initially claimed that there had been an impasse between organizers and the SPVM on questions of ‘security’ following early-morning negotiations, Fierté later retracted that statement, assuring the public that the SPVM had nothing to do with the decision. The current media line coming out of Fierté seems to be that the person responsible for making sure there were enough volunteers on the ground to block off the streets simply ‘forgot’ to do exactly that. ...

In the past few weeks, the state has once again revamped its war on queers. A few days before Hamilton police targeted Cedar for arrest, Quebec city police bragged online about using plainclothes cops to entrap 11 queer men who were consensually cruising. These targeted attacks will not be tolerated. Fuck the police. Solidarity with Cedar and with all queers facing repression.

Two weeks ago, the LGBTQ2 community in Hamilton, Ontario, was targeted for a unprecedented attack by a coalition of individuals from fundamentalist Christian groups and far-right groupuscules like the Wolves of Odin, the “Yellow Vests,” and the Canadian Nationalist Party. Furthermore, the tense relationship between the radical queer and trans community and the police in Hamilton was exacerbated by the manifest indifference police showed to the far-right trolls, instead moving against the queer and trans folks who took measures to defend themselves… while giving the far-right attackers a free hand! ...

On June 15th, 2019 in Hamilton, “Ontario”, Pride was attacked by a group of far-right homophobes, christian fundamentalists, neo-nazis, and queer bashers. As they did in 2018, they arrived with massive homophobic signs and banners, and immediately began to scream insults and slurs. They aggressively harassed individuals, made jokes about rape, and threatened physical violence. Things quickly escalated as the bigots violently confronted people who were holding a fabric barrier in an attempt to block them from disrupting Pride. Initiated by the far-right activists a brawl broke out – queers who refused to allow their presence to go unchallenged were attacked, but fought back. Several friends were injured and required medical attention. The police did nothing during this hour-long conflict, and only stepped in at the end when there was nothing left to do. The haters knew they couldn’t sustain their presence any longer, and welcomed the police escort out of the park. After being kicked out of Pride, this same group chased and assaulted queer youth in the neighbourhood, and then went on to attack people at Toronto Pride the following week. ...

Statement by The Tower It’s been a very intense and revealing week since Hamilton Pride. We helped our friends heal, debriefed our strategies, and circulated as much information about the people who attacked us as we could. The videos and statements have gone viral, the outrage is visceral. Homophobic white nationalists attacked Pride, they were confronted by a huge group of queers, the police did nothing and then took credit for stopping the attack, the mayor backed the police despite hundreds of witnesses, and the homophobes walk free. While the helmet-wielding maniac who smashed our faces continued his crusade in Toronto, posing for celebrity pictures with a new helmet and brutally attacking at least one more person (you can watch the video here: http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2019/06/violence-after-pegida-march-northern.html) ), the police were busy banging on the doors of known queer anarchists in Hamilton, lurking in backyards, and shaking down our entire community. ...

The evening of the 15th, we redecorated a few installations at Parc Maisonneuve. In 2013, this park had been the site of Operation Narcisse, a police operation during which plainclothes cops placed charges of “indecency” against men, after having seduced them. Some placards against “indencency” - which have, for the most part, been stolen or vandalised - were installed in the context of this operation with the purpose of intimidating us. Through our actions, we want to denounce the role that undercover cops play in the absurd and useless production of “crimes” implicating queer people. We also wish to denounce the recent installation of a camera at the entrance of the bathrooms in the basement of the Parc Mausonneuve chalet. Sooner or later, they will meet their sad fate.

The following is a list of cops who have, near or far, participated in the development of police operations with the purpose of harassing queer men cruising in public spaces in the so-called province of Quebec. This list is not exhaustive. Sébastien CHARRON constable│PDQ 15 │SPVM │ Opération Sentier Geneviève PÉPIN constable│PDQ 15 │SPVM │ Opération Sentier Jean-Ernest CÉLESTIN chief │PDQ 15 │SPVM │ Opération Sentier ...

On September 25, 2018, we destroyed three cameras in the men’s washroom in the basement of the Calixa Lavallée building in Parc Lafontaine. We also smashed a peephole. These cameras were installed in the context of Operation Nirvana. This operation seeks to criminalize and arrest men who meet in these washrooms. Plainclothes police go there to seduce men and to incite them into so-called “indecency”. In the place where the cops stand to cruise men, we tagged “RIP Nirvana”. These provocations fit within a long history of morality policing that aims to purge public spaces of all visible queer desire. As such, we affirm that the liberation of our desires is incompatible with the existence of the police.

An interview with a member of a Montreal-based collective that is researching and raising awareness about police crackdowns in gay cruising areas. Links: Cruise Control collective page (facebook link) Ultra Red audio activists, Los Angeles, USA

On the afternoon of Thursday, June 16, some respectable gay organizations held a ‘vigil’ in Montreal’s Gay Village for the victims of the recent shooting at a gay club in Orlando. The Collectif carré rose (CCR), which campaigns for more cops and security in the Village to counter ‘homophobic attacks’ (read: rich people getting mugged), disgustingly invited a slew of local and provincial politicians to speak to the crowd, including Quebec premier Philippe Couillard. While the politicians pretended to not be complicit in violence against queer and trans people, mining the crowd’s grief for political capital, the CCR and their buddies salivated at the promise of new lobbying possibilities for their pro-cop bullshit. ...

In response to the International day of solidarity with trans and queer prisoners, we roamed our streets leaving messages of solidarity in french, english, and spanish. Because war against the existent begins with the reappropriation of our lives and the deconstruction of established norms. The struggle is individual, collective, but especially daily. Against domination, fire to the prisons!

The following flyer was distributed during the Trans March of Pervers/Cité (the “radical queer pride”) which had its route approved by the SPVM: In the last two weekends in Montreal, two of the summer’s bigger queer parties have been shut down by the police (July 18th Cousins and July 25th fundraiser party for perverse/cite). In the first case, a large number of filth conducted an operation against La Vitrola forcing the organizers to finish the party and violently dispersing partygoers - there were numerous beatings and several arrests. In the second case (perverse/cite), one car with two officers successfully ended the fun by threatening people with individual tickets; the response by queers at the party was dismal, lacked solidarity, and in the writers of this article’s opinion was ‘unqueer’ (we’ll explain what we mean by this later). Despite the efforts of some agitators to hand out face masks, the party was swiftly shut down and people drifted off into the night. These attacks by police are only one of many forms of violence against queers, but they are one of the most easy to fight back against since they are attacks on large groups of people; if we take collective action, we can resist and we can win. Below are some reasons why we cannot sit back and let these things happen, we hope they will encourage you to take a mask next time someone offers you one. ...