Sex Garage
Location | 494 Rue de la Gauchetière Ouest, Montreal, Canada |
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Coordinates | 45°30′9″N 73°33′49″W / 45.50250°N 73.56361°W |
Type | Nightclub |
Genre(s) | LGBT |
Sex Garage was an after-hours venue located in Montreal's Old Montreal district that catered to LGBT patrons in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[1] The venue is most known for a 1990 police raid that has since been referred to as "Montreal's Stonewall".[2]
Police raid
In the early morning of July 16, 1990, police officers
Once in formation the police began to heckle the patrons by shouting homophobic insults and making suggestive gestures, which the patrons responded to by chanting slogans such as "We're here, we're queer, we're proud of it!"[4] At this point the officers began removing or covering their name tags and badge IDs and started trying to steer patrons towards Beaver Hall Hill, where more officers were waiting. It is believed that one partygoer, Bruce Buck, was the first person to be assaulted after he tried to go back into the venue to retrieve his leather jacket.[5] He was severely beaten and arrested for "assaulting a police officer".[3] After this point the officers began beating the other patrons.
During this entire process Hammond shot photographs of everything, a process that was somewhat hampered as she was only carrying a camera with a 28 mm wide angle lens, which required her to be in close proximity to take detailed photographs.[4] She stated that the police did not initially stop her from taking photographs, which she believed was done because "the police may have speculated that I could be taken at any time, and I may as well provide THEM with the documentation."[4] However eventually the police began pursuing Hammond, at which point she managed to throw her camera to another patron as they were fleeing the scene.[5]
The following day Hammond's pictures were published in The Gazette and La Presse.[5] Video footage of the raid was also found and released, which showed officers using homophobic and derogatory language while physically assaulting members of the crowd, which has since been used to deem the raid as a targeted assault against Montreal's LGBT community.[3] By the assault's end eight people were arrested.[6]
Protests
Hours after the raid victims of the assault, along with other citizens of Montreal, held a sit-in at Saint Catherine Street to protest the night's events.[5] The group demanded several things, including a public inquiry and the removal of any charges against the patrons.[3][5] The protesters disbanded after they were promised that police chief Alain St-Germain would meet them the following day at downtown Station 25. When St-Germain did not appear the following day protesters held a sit-in demonstration, only for about 70 police officers to attack the protesters.[6] Forty-eight protesters were arrested with most assaulted by the police both on the streets and when they were taken into the police station, one of which, was hospitalized after paramedics argued with police to let them attend his injuries.[6]
Legacy
Due to the violence inflicted during the raid and during the resulting protests, the civil rights group Lesbians and Gays Against Violence was formed and several members became part of the Montreal police's minority relations committee.[6] The brutality of the assault against the Sex Garage patrons and protesters is also credited with bringing the Montreal LGBT community together and with alerting other citizens of the unfair treatment of gays and lesbians.[5]
The event led to the creation of Divers/Cité in 1993.[7] Divers/Cité served as the city's primary LGBT pride festival until repositioning itself as a general arts and music festival in 2006 before filing for bankruptcy in 2015.
The yearly Pervers/Cité, an alternative culture event organized as a reaction to Divers/Cité, has named one of their stages the Sex Garage stage after the venue.[2]
References
- ISBN 9781843531951. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
Sex Garage Montreal.
- ^ a b "Montreal's Pervers/Cité Festival raises finger to Divers/Cité, Black & Blue and Gay Pride". Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
- ^ S2CID 142911996. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f Hammond, Linda Dawn. "The Police Attack". Linda Dawn Hammond. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Burnett, Richard. "Montreal's Sex Garage raid: A watershed moment". Daily Xtra. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
- ^ ISBN 9780802084606. Retrieved 26 March 2015.
- Montreal Gazette, June 27, 2015.
External links
- Photographs of the protest at The Ottawa Citizen
- Linda Dawn Hammond's account of the raid