The history behind Toronto’s own version of the 'Stonewall' event

It’s been over 50 years since the events of the Brunswick Four, when Toronto police brutally assaulted a group of lesbians for singing a parody at the city's Brunswick House pub. 

While some academics have likened this moment to Canada's "Stonewall" — as this was one of the first major gay or lesbian topics that received extensive press coverage in Canada — the Brunswick Four have only in recent years begun to receive the acknowledgement they deserve.  

The event also helped popularized the term "dyke," a word now used for Dyke Marches, Dykes on Bike and other initiatives internationally.

"Honestly, they all seem to have just forgot about it," says Adrienne Rosen, the only member of the Brunswick Four who was wrongfully convicted. Rosen, along with Lamar Van Dyke and Pat Murphy (now deceased) were arrested.  "Outside of a few [in the community], the gay movement never really acknowledged it."

But there was a turning point last year that culminated in Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw honouring and apologizing to Rosen, Van Dyke and Murphy for the treatment they received at the Serving with Pride Gala last November.

To learn more about the history of these events and their impact today, I sat down with Rosen to get a clearer picture of the night, the aftermath and the newfound resurgence.

Just an average karaoke night

January 5, 1974 was "amateur night" at the Brunswick House, and Murphy and her partner at the time, Sue Wells, along with Van Dyke and Rosen, were sharing a drink, only to be met with hostility from some of the patrons. "Someone threw beer on my head," Rosen says.

Because of this, Rosen, Van Dyke and Murphy decided to get on stage and sing a song to the tune of "I Enjoy Being a Girl" from the 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song.

"We went up to the piano player and asked if she knew how to play [the song]. She said, 'Of course I do!'" Rosen recalls.

But, instead of the original lyrics, the group sang a feminist parody song titled "I Enjoy Being a Dyke," originally coined by Van Dyke, according to Rosen's recollection.

"We used to sing together a lot. I was a feminist songwriter and we used to play in clubs. I think she taught it to me."

Upon hearing the word "dyke," management of the Brunswick House cut the speakers and told the group to "finish their drinks and leave." But, much to the chagrin of management, excited patrons sent them more drinks in protest.

"The crowd loved it," recounts Rosen. "When they heard we had to leave after finishing our beer, they sent us far too much beer to consume in a night. So we stayed, and then cops came out of nowhere and picked us up."

Police involvement

All of a sudden, the Toronto police arrived and arrested Murphy, Van Dyke and Rosen.

"[They] came out of nowhere and picked us up, one cop on each arm and leg, and threw us into the back of a paddy wagon." While Wells was there as a witness, she was not arrested, which is why some refer to the group as The Brunswick Four Minus One.

Police held the three women in a garage at 14 Division as they tried to figure out what to charge them with, but they couldn't find anything. Says Rosen: "We laughed at them and told them they were assholes."

Eventually, the police let the knocked-around women go with a warning not to return to the Brunswick House — but that's exactly what the group did upon release to see if they could find witnesses for what just happened.

Upon returning, they were greeted with plainclothes police officers and were violently dragged back to 14 Division, where things escalated.

"They physically threw each one of us down a hallway on the second floor. They held guns to our heads. They wanted us to know that they were in charge." The police even dropped a bag of heroin on Rosen's lap, suggesting they could be charged with trafficking narcotics.

The high-profile trial

This instance of homophobia at the hands of Toronto police was a high-profile one, as these women were leaders in their community.

Van Dyke and Rosen were leaders of A Women's Place, a women's shelter on Dupont Street, while Murphy was the vice-president of the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT). "So we knew that sending out the call would be really easy. We developed a movement very quickly," Rosen says.

The group approached lawyer and former Secretary of State Judy LaMarsh, who was working at York University as a law professor at the time.

"At first she didn't want to take the case, but after hearing our story, particularly when we detailed the abuse, she snapped her pencil and said, 'That's it, I’m taking the case!'"

Toronto newspapers heavily covered the case from day one, and the group had a wave of supporters flooding the courtroom, all wearing t-shirts that proudly read "I Enjoy Being a Dyke."

As the trial came to a close, Rosen was the only one found guilty of causing a disturbance. "I was screaming, because they kept knocking my head against the side of the police car instead of letting me get in, and that was my disturbance."

50 years later

While the movement of the Brunswick Four was impactful in spreading awareness for the mistreatment of queer people in Toronto, Rosen points out that unlike other 2SLGBTQIA+ activists, they were never recognized or remembered for their contributions and for creating visibility at a critical time in the equal rights movement.

That was until Jeremy Dias, founder of the International Day of Pink and the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity, asked Rosen and Van Dyke to speak at schools about what happened. "I was like, 'Schools? We couldn't sing in a bar!,'" Rosen tells us.

Their story was centered in the Day of Pink's 2024 campaign VISIBILITY, where, along with Monica Helms (creator of the trans flag), they traveled across Canada for six weeks and shared their story to auditoriums full of young people. The tour culminated with a event speaking to over 45,000 students through the Toronto Board of Education.

This laid the groundwork for Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw to formally apologize to Rosen, both at a private in-person meeting and the November 2024 Serving with Pride Gala where Rosen delivered an incredibly powerful keynote speech and was made an honorary deputy.

"I knew it would be the most important speech I would make in my life, because I would be counseling the police… and they loved it," Rosen recalls. "I got a standing ovation [and] a lot of women cops crying saying, 'I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn't for you.'"

The next day, Rosen and Van Dyke even got a tour of Toronto in a police cruiser bearing the Pride flag. "I asked [the officer] if he could take a picture of Lamar and me in the car, with me in the driver's seat. He let me, and I took off. [Lamar] was pressing the siren and he was screaming, 'No!' We just went around the block.'"

Sharing their legacy

Since the Serving with Pride Gala, Rosen has been asked to do a number of speaking engagements at police departments across Ontario, including raising the Pride flag with the Peel Region Police Department. At these events, Rosen continues her commitment to speaking truth to power. "Nobody censors me. Nobody's asked, and I wouldn't let them."

Despite how harrowing the events of the Brunswick Four may seem, Rosen's joyful spirit is evident, recounting the story as if it were an anecdote at a dinner party. "People say, 'You must have been terrified, you must have PTSD,' and it's like, get a life! It seems so silly now," she says.

A striking point in her keynote at the Serving with Pride is her message of education and tolerance: "Being tolerated by someone seething with hatred is not an option."

Rosen herself is learning and evolving her own views, too, having learned to better understand points of view that may not align with her own.

"The further away something is, the less you're likely to feel anything heartfelt or intellectual about it… because it's foggy when it's at a distance," she says.

As Toronto Pride this year loses more sponsors, Rosen remains unconcerned about corporate dropouts, saying that "it would be more of a parade without the sponsors."

"Canadians are so 'elbows up' that I feel we're not going to backslide. If sponsors drop out, they are probably multinational corporations, million-dollar banks, etc., so who cares," she says.

"We need to remember from whence we came. We need to remember everything historically that has happened in our lives and all that we can still learn."