While Veterans Affairs made news on the hustings this week, the Canadian government has still not come to terms with a mostly forgotten part of our history – the national-security purge campaign directed against LGBT people in the Armed Forces.
Authorized at the highest levels of the Canadian government and organized through its national security institutions, the campaign saw many put under surveillance and destroyed the careers of hundreds in the military, the RCMP and the civil service, from the 1960s to as recently as the early 90s. Many suspected homosexuals in the military chose to resign or accept dismissal. Here are the stories of five, told in their own words. The We Demand An Apology Network says an official apology is long overdue.
BRENDA BARNES former lieutenant in naval reserve (Whitehorse)
In the summer of 1983, in the face of an economic recession and no jobs in Ontario, I joined the Summer Youth Employment Program at the Naval Reserve unit HMCS Queen in Regina, my hometown. After graduating at the top of my class, I was encouraged to apply for officer training upon my return to Toronto to complete my undergraduate degree.
While in officer training at Albert Head on the West Coast, I was called to a meeting that I did not request. Ostensibly, it was to discuss my training, but the real reason was because of allegations by co-trainees that I was a lesbian.
Unbeknownst to me, there was an official policy prohibiting homosexuals in the military, and it also required all members to report any suspicions to their superiors. The policy lumped together homosexuality, bestiality and pedophilia as unacceptable behaviour for which, the system presumed, members could be blackmailed to reveal state secrets.
I served for six years, initially as a naval control-of-shipping officer. I became one of the first five women in Canada to obtain a bridge-watching certification for minor war vessels. In 1989, after my promotion, I was due for re-investigation by CSIS as I had a “secret” security designation. Rather than subject friends and family to possible interrogation about my life, I voluntarily resigned.
At a 27-year reunion in 2007, I heard from some women with whom I had trained that they had all been asked about me and had lied at the risk of their careers to protect me.
During my time in the service I knew many sailors who were persecuted or were dishonourably released because of their homosexuality.
FRANK M. LETOURNEAU former naval lieutenant (Halifax)
In early 1970 I was called to the offices of the military police at CFB Halifax and told that enough evidence had been gathered to indicate that I was homosexual. It became apparent that I had been under investigation and observation for about one year. I was then a 30-year-old naval lieutenant serving as the operations officer on a destroyer and on the way to what appeared to be a promising career in the Canadian Forces.
In view of the then existing administrative order addressing “sexual perversions,” fighting the accusation would have resulted in my immediate removal from the ship, the downgrading of my top-secret security clearance and a difficult-to-explain temporary posting to an insignificant position pending further investigation.
As I assessed my situation, I saw I was only postponing the inevitable and running the risk of a less-than-honourable discharge. This led me to submit a letter resigning my officer’s commission, which was quickly processed. I was honourably released.
After some 13 years with the Canadian Forces, I had to seek a new career and begin a new life.
MARTINE ROY former medical assistant in the Armed Forces (Montreal)
I joined the Armed Forces in 1983 at the age of 19. The events leading up to my discharge a year and a half later consisted of many hours of interrogation in a little house that I didn’t even know existed on the base. I was asked very personal questions, like “Who did you sleep with?” and “How often do you have sex?” I felt exhausted, scared and humiliated. I lost all sense of my self-worth and self-respect.
Months later, after I had been transferred to the National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa, I was summoned to the office of a psychologist for an evaluation to determine if I was normal or abnormal as per the investigation of my homosexuality. I did a couple of sessions that did not go very well.
I was working as a pharmacist assistant the day I got the call to report to the office of the base colonel. I was asked, “Do you know why you are here today?” I answered, “No.” I was informed that I had been dishonourably discharged for homosexuality. I had just signed a new contract. I was confused. It made no sense to me.
It took 15 years of intensive therapy and the help of my family to finally find my place in society and feel safe to be my authentic self.
SIMON THWAITES former master corporal (Halifax)
To most, I was a soft-spoken, quiet military guy who kept his business to himself. Imagine, then, in the spring of 1986, being ordered to a meeting of the military’s special investigations unit and upon arriving being hustled into a small interrogation room with two chairs and a lie detector machine sitting on a table.
Then the questions started. Some were extremely personal, from my medical files, about being HIV-positive. I was gay, and most knew about it, so how did this apply to me? To the military it became a witch hunt, wanting to know friends and other military members who were gay.
A possible promotion suddenly vanished as my security clearance was removed. A series of officers informed me that I would be reassigned to custodial duties in the drill hall. (That meant sweeping floors.) I was ordered not to visit the ship I belonged to at the time.
I wondered some days if I was being followed. Simply going out to a gay bar downtown became a mystery novelist’s dream, with military personnel taking photographs of people entering and leaving.
Toward the end of my career they tried to pressure me to sign an “administrative release.” This was the way most gay people were terminated, but I refused and managed a medical release but with no benefits, which led to my Human Rights challenge. In the process I lost my car, my house, my job, friends and social life.
In the end, I won my case and was awarded compensation for lost wages but no medical coverage or pension. The fact that I was gay and how I was treated became a silent backstory. It’s been just over 25 years since the military released me, and I still get emotional and angry over how things turned out.
DARL WOOD former member of the Canadian navy (Halifax)
In 1975 I was young and idealistic, and as corny as it sounds, I went into the military just wanting to serve my country and be part of something noble. I was three years into my military career when one morning I was called into my boss’s office I worked in the military police office orderly room at the time. That spring, many reports came across my desk from across the country about the purges that were going on. Each one made me ill, because I lived in constant fear of being found out. I knew some of these people, and now I was the one being asked into the office.
I was taken into custody by the special investigations unit and was interrogated for hours and hours in a small room, sitting on one of those wooden straight-back chairs. I was “accused” of being a lesbian. I was young, scared, alone and vulnerable. It took me years to realize that what had happened to me was an assault.
They tried to coerce me to name names of women whom I might even suspect of being lesbian. I was in total shock. That day I lost my home, my career, my lover and my family in one fell swoop.
To add insult to injury, I was required to type my own release papers because it was a busy time on the base. Because of our cult-like training in obedience, I didn’t think I could refuse.
I became an academic, a psychotherapist and an activist to try to make sense of what had happened to me and heal from the post-traumatic stress. After all this time, I still have flashbacks, nightmares, sleep problems, anger and suicidal thoughts. Am I not owed, at the very least, an official apology?
news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto
