by Oscar Wolf

Toronto's Pride parade is the biggest in the world. Yes, it is bigger than San Francisco's. It is bigger than New York's. It is way bigger than Antartica's! True, Sydney's Mardi Gras is a bigger congregation of queers, but it isn't Pride, and it isn't a celebration of the Stonewall Riots--and in Toronto, the Bathhouse Raids--that instigated the need for visibility and pride.

This year, this month in particular, Canadian queers had reason to be proud. As expected, one day after the parade, the federal government voted to extend marriage to same-sex couples, providing the last detail in extending full equal rights to lesbians and gays.

Approximately 1 million people watched the parade that closed down several miles of downtown Toronto, and over 80,000 people marched in the parade that took 4 hours to make its way through the cheering crowds. (Over 10,000 womyn marched in the Dyke parade one day earlier.)

For TNT MEN, the 2005 Pride Parade was one where members of the group and their out of town supporters could walk naked in the parade without fear of police arrest or fundamentalist opposition. According to previous court judgments, nudity relates to community standards, so if the queer community has no problems seeing our genitals, than neither does the police. Last year, when a religious fundamentalist in the crowd complained to the police about our nudity, she was told by the police not to attend the parade!

Watching the parade, I happened to be in a crowd as TNT MEN walked by. Unlike other years, where I heard jeers, laughter, and shocked comments along with the applause, this year the response I heard was no different from that given to the queer civil service union or any other group. This is good. it shows that, for the public, TNT MEN are accepted as part of the community, and not as some shocking fringe group (although TNT MEN is a men's nudist group, and not a gay nudist group, a large part of our membership is gay). This acceptance was most evident in having the TNT MEN information booth, where people congregated nude before and after the parade, only a few yards away from the Toronto Municipal Police information booth. Another illustration of TNT MEN's integration into the community was through examining the balloons held by young children and attached to baby strollers across the parade grounds: hundreds of children had balloons that read "TNT MEN! BORN NAKED, STAY NAKED."

Pride in Toronto is not one day long, but over one week in duration. it includes dances, theatrical performances, concerts, comedy cabarets, and a queer street life that goes 24/7. TNT MEN welcomed out of town male nudists to Toronto for the second time in what is, now, an annual event, at their hospitality suite. Men from as far away as Los Angeles and Memphis attended a relaxing evening of wine and cheese, conversing with people not seen since last year, and enjoying a photograph exhibition by TNT MEN photographer Massao Abe. The exhibition displayed photos of TNT MEN involvement in previous Pride parades, as well as shots of our regular nudist activities, such as yoga, swimming, and book reading groups. Abe's portraits of TNT MEN members, posing nude in their homes, were also on display.

For Pride 2006, more TNT MEN events are being planned for male nudists visiting Toronto. We hope for a free yoga class, as we had last year, as well as a swim at our regular pool (it was closed for cleaning this time). Our annual Show your Pride dance, attended by over 400 naked men, will resume at a new location, and we are in discussion with a restaurant for a naked dinner, exclusively for TNT MEN and their out of town guests (check the website for events).

Word of advice: If you plan to visit Toronto and TNT MEN for next year's Pride Week, many hotel rooms are already booked! Tourists who come once tend to book their rooms for the following year before they leave. Once you have been a part of Toronto's Pride, you will understand why.