AIDS coverage in The Body Politic, 1981-1987: An annotated bibliography

[Introduction:] "In the several years after the 1969 Stonewall riots, North America saw the flowering of the gay press in major urban centers. Toronto had numerous gay periodicals of its own prior to this time, but the city's most significant chapter in gay journalism began in November 1971 when The Body Politic published its first issue. The periodical continued for another fifteen years, publishing 135 issues before its demise in February 1987. The Body Politic eventually became the source of some of the best gay journalism in North America. Its influence on the gay and lesbian movement in Canada cannot be overestimated, helping to define gay thought throughout the country and beyond. In fact, The Body Politic was not simply a gay newspaper, but was seen by some as "the house organ of the Canadian gay movement." For its writers, journalism was essentially politics by other means. Many of the important moments in Canadian gay history during this period were played out on the pages of The Body Politic. There are many examples of the political role of the periodical, but the two most prominent examples of this are surely the high-profile obscenity trials sparked by a 1977 article on intergenerational sex, and the key role played by The Body Politic in organizing a response to the notorious bathhouse raids that took place in Toronto between 1978 and 1981. Throughout its history, The Body Politic advocated what were then considered radical gay values: its perspective was consistently community-based, sex-positive, anticensorship, and supportive of choice and self-determination."