Remembering the Sugar Shack

What does it mean to build pleasure-centered space for QTBIPOC communities—then and now? How do we honour the labour, tensions, and joy that shaped those spaces, even when they were imperfect?

Join us for Remembering the Sugar Shack, a community-led storytelling event guided by the very organizers, volunteers, and patrons who helped shape the Sugar Shack—a sex-positive bathhouse night designed by and for queer and trans folks of colour in the early 2000s. Together, they’ll reflect on the emotional, political, and cultural legacies of these events and why their memory continues to resonate.

Come witness, remember, and dream forward—because this history still has something to teach us.

This event is free and open to the public, but space at Glad Day is limited, so RSVP is encouraged to save your spot! To register select the “Get Tickets” link.

Presented with support from the LGBTQ Oral History Digital Collaboratory, The ArQuives: Canada’s LGBTQ2+ Archives, and Glad Day Bookshop, this gathering has been shaped by those who were there, and we’re honoured to help hold space for this remembering.

Storyteller Bios

DEB SINGH (Moderator)
Deb is a Toronto-based community worker, consultant and writer. She has focused her life’s work around love, healthy sex, and relationships. Working for over 20 years in the gender-based violence sector, Deb works from the Seven Grandfather Teachings leading with values such as intersectionality and accountability. Supporting people and movements with kindness and humour, Deb is a polyamourous, non-disabled, cisgender, queer, Indo-Caribbean mom who’s a settler on Turtle Island.

CAROL THAMES
As a Black Lesbian/parent, Carol has endured many systems of oppression—experiences that ground her work in a human rights lens and foster her commitment to social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. She is dedicated to breaking down the barriers that sustain systemic oppression and institutional marginalization. Carol is an advocate, educator, continued learner, and a champion of body liberation. She holds an LLM and MPPAL.

OMISOORE H. DRYDEN
OmiSoore (she/her/hers), a Black queer femme, is a professor at Dalhousie University, whose scholarship and research focuses on Black 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, blood donation systems in Canada and addressing anti-Black (homophobic) racism in healthcare. She loves cute shoes, glitter, and radical practices of liberation and care.

KUSHA DADUI
Kusha is a Transmasculine Muslim person of colour who came to Turtle Island as a refugee 30 years ago and has been active in the queer and trans community for 25 years. Their work has focused primarily on supporting trans refugees and challenging systems of incarceration.

REES NAM
Rees (He/They) resides in Tkaronto, ON. A dedicated community advocate with 15+ years of experience working within anti-oppressive and relational frameworks. Committed to fostering kindness, care, and compassion through reflexive practices. Neurodivergent, transmasc, queer, a Korean settler on Turtle Island—who engages in community-based justice work that centers equity and connection.