2SLGBTQIA+ History and Identities in Canada

I excelled in cadets. I really loved it. To me, it was really something I was good at, and something that I wanted to continue to do. So, the military was an obvious option for me. My plan was that this would be a career, that I would be in the military for quite some time. My brother ended his career just recently after 30 some years. I expected I would be doing the same.

So about a year in, I had been on the ship for probably three or four months at that point. I had come home for the New Year’s. And when I got back to the ship, I found out that three individuals had been called in and questioned about me. All three were told that they weren’t to speak to me about it, and all three did separately. And that was kind of the first time I was aware that I was under investigation. It took probably a couple of months before they actually approached me, the Military Police Special Investigation Unit, and that investigation totally went on for 18 months.

Part of the reason why the investigation went on so long is I couldn’t admit to myself that I was gay. I knew I was gay, but to me, anything I could do to not be gay was kind of my end goal. And I was going to the church in Victoria, you know, particularly in the 80s when this was happening, a lot of young people envisioned a life that would be normal, where they could get married, have kids, and kind of, you know, almost the expression, pray the gay away.

Eventually, they had asked me to take a polygraph examination, which I did, and the initial polygraph examination, as they were reviewing the questions beforehand, had the question: “Are you gay”? I went through the polygraph exam. When they asked me that question, I answered no. I think because of my whole nerves during this, the polygraph, the whole thing came back inconclusive which then raised even more suspicions. At that point, this was probably about six months into the investigation, I told them I wasn’t going to cooperate anymore.

When they approached me again to do the polygraph, it was at that point when I agreed that I would do it again, when they were going through the initial questions before I was on camera, again, they asked me if I was gay. I said yes, and it was almost like they closed the book as soon as I said yes. That wrapped up the investigation for them.

They knew there was something that I was hiding. Then, they continued to go through, look at all of my personal documents. I gave them access to my apartment and everything in it. And they eventually came back and said: “You have a photograph in your possession that you’re in, and in the background of the photograph…” And I was in the photograph with three other people. “In the background of the photograph is a radio frequency written on the wall. So you’ve broken security protocol with that. So we’re probably going to take away your security clearance or we’ll give you an honourable discharge.”

There was nothing about the other individuals in the photo. But this was what they singled in on as the excuse. And then, I received the release of 5D, I believe it is not advantageously employable, which was the release that they were giving to people who were homosexual at the time.

I had no idea what I was going to do. I still had the internalized homophobia. To me, I was horrified by the fact that I had now come out to the government of Canada. I really didn’t see a path forward.