With all the advances made in recent years around acceptance and rights, it is easy to forget what it was like in earlier periods. Even those who lived during such periods have a too-human tendency to, if not forget, then certainly gloss over the day-to-day realities.
It’s been several years since the Department of National Defence (DND) moved to fully accept gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans personnel, becoming one of the few nations where being queer and military simply is not an issue.
As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up Army during the 60’s and 70’s, long before the acceptance of gay/lesbian soldiers. In fact, back then if a soldier was even suspected of being gay his fellow soldiers made damn sure he understood they did not accept it...middle-of-the-night beatings or other forms of harassment were not unheard of and usually unreported, even by the victim.
While such outrages rarely, if ever, occur in the Canadian military now - and would be severely dealt with by the military if they did - the rank-and-file has been far slower to accept GLBT comrades-in-arms than policy would suggest. It’s better than it was, certainly, but your average soldier/sailor/airforce person is pretty conservative. No surprise there. However, there does now seem to be a live-and-let live ethos, which is as it should be.
Back then, however, if the higher-ups got wind of a member’s homosexuality, or rumoured homosexuality, he or she was out. I can’t speak to the experiences of women in the military but I do know the perception was pretty harsh: that female personnel were assumed dykes anyway, unless proven otherwise...and even then she was just a slut, especially if she was foolish enough to date servicemen.
A dishonourable discharge from the military had major repercussions. Many honourable, dedicated and valuable individuals were drummed out of the Armed Forces for being homosexual, forever disgraced. And not just disgraced but denied benefits and pensions.
To be dishonourably discharged had career repercussions as well. “Civvie street” is an adjustment for many service personnel as it is, being quite different from what one was used to in the military. Couple that with a dishonourable discharge on one’s record and it’s not difficult to imagine the adversities in landing any sort of “respectable” job. Such discharges carried a host of associations; one’s whole character was immediately suspect.
Peter Stoffer, an NDP MP, has called for the federal government to apologize to surviving GLBTQ veterans, or their survivors, expunge the ”dishonourable discharge” and moral turpitude charges on their records, and restore their benefits.
Army pensions, I can assure you, are not huge, but if the benefits are restored retroactively (i.e. pre-1992, with some dating back to WWII and the 1950’s Korean War), they will be substantial and allow surviving veterans a fairly decent quality of life.
Surprisingly, this issue has not been raised in the past according to Dan Dugas, a spokesperson for Minister of Defence Peter MacKay, but DND is willing to “look into it.” That could take a while, knowing how the DND works.
To his credit, Dugas is quoted as saying, “The Canadian Forces is an inclusive organization and is fully compliant with the Charter and the Canadian Human Rights Act in terms of not tolerating conduct or behaviour that would allow discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
No word on whether gender identification is included in that, although there have been cases in recent years of Armed Forces personnel undergoing gender reassignment surgery while being an active member of the service and continuing to serve following the surgery with no loss of rank, privilege, or benefits.
Make no mistake, the climate that existed in the Canadian Armed Forces prior to 1992, when DND policy changed to include GLBTQ, was at best secretive, even paranoid, on the part of any serving member who was GLBTQ. I remember hearing the usual arguments about how “legitimizing homosexuality” within DND would negatively affect its esprit de corp, that somehow having openly gay and lesbian individuals would affect “morale.” Of course, nothing was said about the morale of those directly affected; the GLBTQ personnel. But that’s the military for you....
We also had the usual comments about Red-Blooded All-Canadian guys being ogled by some homo in the barrack showers or...gasp...being outright propositioned! All garbage, of course.
What’s so often lost sight of is that, it’s a particular sort of personality that is attracted to the military, regardless of the sexual orientation of the individual. A gay soldier, sailor, or airman is more like his fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen than different. Like them, he is dedicated, probably a tad on the conservative side, honourable, focused on the job, tough, capable, respectful of authority, and willing and able to serve wherever DND decides to send him. More often than not, his fellow soldiers are his brothers, his comrades: family. He is not about to jeopardize that for a quickie in the showers.
After coming out in 1980, and when Calgary still had a military presence, I did meet a few guys from Currie Barracks. It was pretty easy to spot them when they decided to go to The Parkside Continental, then one of only two gay clubs in town. They kind of stood out, even then; soldiers have a certain look to them, even when in blue jeans and a t-shirt. Like good art, I may not understand it, but I know it when I see it. Without exception, every one of them was deeply attached to the military even as they understood the risk they were taking by patronizing a known (notorious?) gay establishment. Not an enormous risk, mind you, but a risk nevertheless.
Things weren’t horrible during the 80’s, despite what those who came after believe, but life for your average gay or lesbian person still could have some difficulties. One could be evicted from one’s rental accommodation (or denied it to begin with) on the mere suspicion one was gay or lesbian, let alone being known to be GLBTQ. One could be denied a job, denied access to public services, or subjected to any number of small indignities with impunity.
I remember one fellow I hooked up with who was an Army cook. He had no issue whatsoever being sexual with guys, despite being married and living in military married quarters in Lincoln Park (where my parents were still living at the time...just up the street!). A nice fellow from rural Quebec who, when his wife was off visiting relatives down there, would head out and meet guys. He was also a bit naive. He let it be known, quite openly, to the base medical officer that he engaged in homosexual sex. He was being responsible, in my opinion, ensuring his own sexual health. The medical officer didn’t quite see it the same way and immediately informed the guy’s Commanding Officer and, within weeks, the guy was packed and heading back to rural Quebec as a civilian.
When I last saw him, he was confused and hurt, still not understanding why his dream of serving in the Canadian Armed Forces had been ripped from him just because he happened to enjoy sex with guys now and then. I have no idea what the repercussions to his married life were; he had sort of intimated his wife was quite aware of his “other interests” and accepted it. I hope so.
At any rate, this young corporal suddenly found himself out of uniform, ostracized, barred from the base, dishonourably discharged, and sent home in disgrace. I have no idea what became of him. I realized then, that the DND I had grown up within and respected, whatever my political feelings regarding ”the military” might have been, had a side to it I could not respect. I felt betrayed by it; heaven knows what my Quebecois buddy felt.
I came out while still living at home in the Lincoln Park Married Quarters. My dad was a Warrant Officer and a gentle, intelligent, I would even say sensitive man, but “career Army” through and through. Having a gay son was difficult for him (don’t even get me started on my mother’s reaction!) but he struggled to understand, in his way.
Despite having fallen in love for the first time when I was 17, I never did anything about it (besides, he was straight). Part of that was very much tied into, not so much with what the effect my coming out might have for me (I was, I believed, prepared to deal with that), but what affect coming out would have on my father’s military career. Essentially, it would have ended it.
Sure, he’d have remained in the army but his file, at least unofficially but probably officially as well, would have been ”tagged.” I remained silent for years specifically out of concern, even fear I suppose, of what declaring I was gay would do to my father’s career.
If being a gay soldier would automatically result in a dishonourable discharge, having an openly gay son or lesbian daughter in the 1970’s would strike the death knell for the father’s career just as surely as a discharge would. The only difference being in uniform rather than being denied the right to wear it, and keeping one’s pension rather than having it voided.
Coming out in my mid-20’s had little, if any, effect on my father’s career. Shortly after I came out, I was out of the family home and was therefore no longer a DND dependent.
I mention the personal side here only to highlight what actually living within DND was like. There is a maxim every Army family knows: “The Army looks after its own.”
This is true, it does. But like any family - and the Army is a family in a myriad of ways - it can turn on you just as easily as support you.
If the Armed Forces believes its way of life has been threatened or compromised, the fallout from that can be dire. Authority and following the rules and regulations is everything within a military culture and anyone who flouts that does so at their peril.
This, then, was the mindset behind the pre-1992 attitude towards homosexuals within the military. It wasn’t so much that DND was being homophobic (which of course it was), but that it was reacting to a perceived breach of its discipline, of one of its own “choosing” to go against everything the military stood for. This could not, and was not, tolerated.
However,the Canadian military establishment was never quite as rigid as the American system was, and is.
The Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force (later integrated, with some resistance within the ranks, as the Canadian Armed Forces) was, in comparison to the United States, a quite “liberal” military - even back when we were The Dominion of Canada and our military served under the Red Ensign, swore allegiance to Crown and Country, went to war for their King, and fought with distinction in two World Wars, Korea, and served under NATO with honour during the Cold War. The move to be inclusive of gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans service personnel in 1992 was an extension of that.
It is only right, then, that DND continue that admirable tradition and re-instate the honour and integrity of those gay men, and lesbian women, who served Canada so well when called upon to do so. It is time.
