Tricks & Treats

Saturday, October 22, 1983
The Concert Hall

“The dance that was the pinnacle every year was the Halloween dance because there was a costume contest and winners were brought up onto the stage and some people had very elaborate costumes.”

- Ron Merko, GCDC DJ 

Halloween has long been a complicated holiday for LGBTQ2+ people in Toronto. While the costume-oriented celebrations of the day meant possibilities for experimenting with gender play and drag, sustained negative attention and often violence from heterosexuals and Toronto Police marred the potential of the day throughout the mid- and late-20th century. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Letros Tavern held an annual Halloween ball that featured drag and cross-dressing by the mostly queer clientele. The St. Charles Tavern continued this tradition in the 1970s, but faced brutal acts of violence. As Christine Sismondo writes in her article “Halloween Balls: From Letros to the St. Charles,” mobs of angry onlookers threw eggs while chanting “kill the queers” as costumed participants entered and exited the St. Charles. It wasn’t until 1980 that Toronto Police intervened–a full decade after queer activists began asking them to keep the mobs under control. And, as many activists note: police intervention at this time was half-hearted at best. Even long after the ostensible police intervention, queer activists continued to groups to safely escort individuals in drag through the area. 

Things got better in the 1980s and there’s a good chance that the GCDC had something to do with this. There is safety in numbers: when thousands of costumed revellers amassed at the Masonic Temple, they helped create a safer space to play with gender and presentation of self. As Ron Merko and Rob Stout indicate, the GCDC’s Halloween dance was a highpoint of the year for queer folks in Toronto. 

"The Halloween parties were amazing, that was sort of like the highlight. I mean, we were known to everybody as being the best Halloween party in town. Halloween was just the party to be at. It was very, very successful."

- Rob Stout, GCDC Organiser