Pride Toronto in Toronto
Police raids on Toronto's gay bathhouses in February 1981 sparked the mass protests that grew into the city's modern Pride movement, now organized by Pride Toronto as one of the largest Pride festivals in the world. The festival centers on the Church-Wellesley Village with a multi-day street festival, separate Dyke and Trans marches, and a closing Pride Parade drawing an international crowd.
Toronto's Pride festival grew directly out of resistance rather than celebration: after police raided four gay bathhouses across the city in February 1981, arresting close to 300 men in what became known as Operation Soap, thousands of people marched in protest, and that response is widely credited with turning what had been a smaller annual gathering into the large-scale Pride movement Toronto now hosts every summer.