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In 2023, Toronto’s queer and naturist communities took up a struggle to save Hanlan’s Point Beach—one of only two official clothing-optional swimming spots in Canada—from city development schemes.1 Spearheaded by a group called “Hands Off Hanlan’s,” the fightback succeeded in preserving the beach, raised awareness of the site’s place in local LGBTQ history, and garnered government pledges for revitalization.2

But long before the campaign to save Hanlan’s, another grassroots group at the intersection of nudist activism and gay politics revolutionized the clothing-optional scene in Canada’s biggest city and left a legacy still felt to this day.

Founded in 1997, TNT!MEN—Totally Naked Toronto! Men Enjoying Nudity—was for several years the vanguard organization of not just gay nudism, but of naturist political action generally in Canada. From naked swimming to naked dancing to naked protesting, there’s barely an area of relevant Canadian law that it didn’t challenge—and change. 

The organization resisted “body fascism” and won for all Canadians the right to be their natural human selves and to bare it all—at the beach, in clubs, and on the streets. This is its history, as told through internal documents, news coverage of its activities, and by its veterans, several of whom graciously agreed to be interviewed for this article.

TCAN and the pre-history 

The pre-history of TNT!MEN stretches back many years before its official establishment. Most of the founding fathers had come across one another informally in gay nudist circles or worked together in its forerunner, TCAN—Toronto Canada Area Nudists. TCAN was formed in 1995, largely via connections made among Canadians attending gay naturist (or naturist-adjacent) events across North America.

In late March 1992, David Drascic, then a graduate student at the University of Toronto, Peter Gray, an upholsterer, and Peter Simm, an attorney, met at the “1st International Gay Vision Conference” in Toronto. As Simm describes it to Planet Nude, the event featured “workshops, panels, lectures, and visual arts” focused on “gay male sex and spirit.” It proved to be a catalyst, sparking gay nudist organizing in the city.

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<picture><source type="image/webp" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F94c36f1d-748f-454d-a78b-c44086e9a305_628x980.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F94c36f1d-748f-454d-a78b-c44086e9a305_628x980.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F94c36f1d-748f-454d-a78b-c44086e9a305_628x980.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F94c36f1d-748f-454d-a78b-c44086e9a305_628x980.png 1456w" sizes="100vw"></picture>

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<figcaption class="image-caption">Flyer for the 1992 Gay Vision Conference. | Courtesy of Peter Simm</figcaption></figure>

Later that summer, Drascic and Gray traveled to Ottawa for a local gathering of the Radical Faeries, Harry Hay’s 1970s queer counterculture movement.3 There, they learned for the first time about the annual Gay Naturists International (GNI) gatherings in the Poconos. GNI’s roots go back to the Gay and Lesbian Special Interest Group that had been incubated in Lee Baxandall’s Naturist Society in th