Toronto Pride parade organizers on Sunday cancelled the annual event after a group of pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted it.

Media reports indicate more than two dozen protesters blocked the parade near the intersection of Yonge and Wellesley Streets, and chanted “from the river to the sea” and “Pride was a riot.”

The pro-Palestinian protestors that brought the Toronto Pride Parade to a stop chant the genocidal “From the river to the sea” slogan as they continue to block the parade’s path.

Footage by @BethBaisch pic.twitter.com/SMldTpLFvk

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2024

The Toronto Star reported the protesters disrupted the parade at around 5:30 p.m., more than three hours after it began. Toronto Pride around 45 minutes later announced the parade’s cancellation.

“Today, we made the decision to cancel the remainder of the Pride Parade out of our commitment to ensuring public safety,” they said in a statement. “While we deeply respect and uphold everyone’s right to peacefully protest, our foremost priority is the well-being of all participants and spectators.”

“We recognize the Pride parade as a highly anticipated event that many organizations and individuals eagerly prepare for,” it added. “We empathize with those who were looking forward to participating and regret any inconvenience caused by this decision.”

The Coalition Against Pinkwashing organized the protest.

Protesters disrupt NYC Pride parade

This year’s Pride Month took place eight months after Hamas launched its surprise attack against southern Israel.

The Israeli government says Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, including at least 260 partygoers and others at the Nova Music Festival. The Israeli government says upwards of 80 people who were taken hostage on Oct. 7 remain alive in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry says more than 35,000 people have died in the enclave since the war began. The National LGBTQ Task Force and Outright International are among the groups that have called for a ceasefire.

The New York Daily News reported the New York Police Department on Sunday arrested 10 pro-Palestinian protesters who disrupted the city’s annual Pride parade near the Stonewall Inn. The newspaper said those who the NYPD took into custody, among other things, threw red paint onto a pickup truck inside police barricades.

The Telegraph on Saturday reported London police arrested more than 30 pro-Palestinian activists to prevent them from disrupting the city’s annual Pride parade that took place on the same day.

A Wider Bridge, a group that “advocates for justice, counters LGBTQphobia, and fights antisemitism and other forms of hatred,” last month called upon Pride organizers to ensure Jewish can safely participate in their events.

A prominent Ugandan activist who was stabbed outside his home earlier this year has asked for asylum in Canada.

Two men on motorcycles attacked Steven Kabuye, co-executive director of Coloured Voice Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, on Jan. 3 while he was going to work. 

Kabuye posted a video to his X account that showed him on the ground writhing in pain with a deep laceration on his right forearm and a knife embedded in his stomach.

He spoke with the Washington Blade from Kenya on Jan. 8 while he was receiving treatment. Kabuye arrived in Canada on March 6.

Kabuye during an April 27 telephone interview with the Blade from Canada said Rainbow Railroad, a group that works with LGBTQ and intersex refugees, helped him “get away from the dangers that were awaiting me in Kenya and Uganda.” Kabuye said he asked for asylum in Canada because he “cannot return to either Uganda or Kenya.”

“The Ugandan government fails to get the culprits who wanted to end my life,” he said.

Kabuye told the Blade that Ugandan police officials threaten his colleagues when he publicly speaks about his case.

“Every time I come up and demand for the police to act out, they end up calling the colleagues of mine that remain in Uganda and intimidate them so they can scare me off, so they can make me pack up and keep quiet,” he said.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni last May signed his country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act that, among other things, contains a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality.” 

Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly described the law as a “blatant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of LGBTQ+ Ugandans.”

The U.S. has sanctioned Ugandan officials and removed the country from a duty-free trade program. The World Bank Group also suspended new loans to Uganda in response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The Ugandan Constitutional Court last month refused to “nullify the Anti-Homosexuality Act in its totality.” A group of Ugandan LGBTQ activists have appealed the ruling.

“The previously concluded ruling did not make a difference,” said Kabuye.

Kabuye told the Blade he has an interview with Canadian immigration officials on Friday. He said he will continue to advocate on LGBTQ Ugandans from Canada. 

“I’m very grateful to Rainbow Railroad,” said Kabuye. “They’ve still given me a chance to continue my advocacy.”

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service is warning that anti-gender and anti-LGBTQ activists are posing a risk of “extreme violence” against the LGBTQ community in Canada, following a year of spreading organized anti-LGBTQ+ protests, anti-transgender rhetoric coming from provincial governments and an attack on a gender studies university class.

In a report obtained by the public broadcaster CBC, the CSIS Integrated Terrorism Assessment Center says it is monitoring the potential for a violent attack on Pride festivals and nightclubs across the country. The ITAC is charged with forecasting the possibility of terrorism in Canada, based on analysis of actor intent, capability and opportunity.

“Anti-LGBTQ+ narratives remain a common theme in violent rhetoric espoused by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, the Freedom Movement and networks such as Diagolon and QAnon,” the report says, according to the CBC. “Trans and drag communities in Canada have been the target of several online threats and real world intimidation tactics in recent months.”

The Washington Blade has requested a copy of the report, but it has not been made public at this time. 

Last June, a knife-wielding man attacked a class on the philosophy of gender at the University of Waterloo, approximately 70 miles west of Toronto, injuring the professor and two students before he was subdued. He now faces 11 terrorism-related charges.

“CSIS assesses that the violent threat posed by the anti-gender movement is almost certain to continue over the coming year and that violent actors may be inspired by the University of Waterloo attack to carry out their own extreme violence against the LGBTQ+ community or against other targets they view as representing the gender ideology ‘agenda,’” CSIS spokesperson Eric Balsam says in an email.

Balsam says that CSIS believes the network of anti-LGBTQ and far-right communities in Canada may be a breeding ground for violent activities.

“While violent rhetoric itself does not equate or often lead to violence, the ecosystem of violent rhetoric within the anti-gender movement, compounded with other extreme worldviews, can lead to serious violence. CSIS assesses that exposure to groups and individuals espousing anti-gender extremist rhetoric could inspire and encourage serious violence against the LGBTQ+ community, or against those who are viewed as supporters of pro-gender ideology policies and events,” he says.

Last year, Pride Toronto Executive Director Sherwin Modeste told Xtra Magazine that the festival was boosting its security and increasing emergency drills to prepare for the festival in the wake of rising anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and hate crimes.

According to the latest figures from Statistics Canada, the number of police-reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation has increased in each of the last three years, from 265 incidents in 2019, to 491 in 2022, the most recent year for which statistics are available, a staggering 85 percent increase. The 2019 figure had been a record number when it was reported. 

Far-right groups in Canada coalesced during the COVID-19 pandemic around protests against vaccine and mask mandates, culminating in a siege of downtown Ottawa and a blockade of border crossings that lasted for nearly a month in February 2022. It is believed that as COVID-19 receded as an animating issue, many of the networks involved transitioned to protesting LGBTQ rights and trans rights in particular.

A small but organized group of anti-LGBTQ activists have organized sustained campaigns targeting school boards, libraries, drag performances, Pride festivals and provincial legislatures to oppose LGBTQ rights and sex education in schools for the last two years. The protests are generally outnumbered by counter-protesters who support LGBTQ rights, but there have been sporadic reports of violence and arrests at the protests.

Last fall, the far-right X account Libs of TikTok, whose operator Chaya Raichik has boasted that her anti-LGBTQ “shitposts” frequently inspire violence and bomb threats, turned her attention to a school in suburban Vancouver because a teacher who is nonbinary works there. 

While no violence emerged from the post, the parent who drew Riachik’s attention was given a warning by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to stop harassing school officials, but she has continued to post racist, homophobic, and transphobic statements to her X account. While Canada has long enjoyed relative peace on LGBTQ issues, starting last year, several conservative-led provincial governments began introducing policies to restrict the names and pronouns students can use at school in the name of “parents’ rights.” 

Recently, the Alberta government went further, announcing that it would restrict gender care for minors, bar trans girls from sports, and require schools to obtain written permission from parents before sexual orientation or gender can be discussed in classrooms.