‘I just needed somebody to listen’: Canadian military LGBT Purge survivor tells story

Fredericton’s LGBTQIA2SP+ community gathered at Saint Thomas University on Tuesday, April 29.

Organised before a showing of Alex Rioux’s play Fruit Machine, this LGBT Purge commemorative event featured a variety of speakers including LGBT Purge survivors Diane (dee) Doiron and Todd Ross, Rioux, and UNB professor Carmen Poulin.

Activist and retired photojournalist dee Doiron joined the Canadian Navy young, in the 1985: “I was out before I joined the military and didn’t think it would be an issue.” She quickly came to suspect the military were scrutinizing her communications (mail, phone calls) and would mail her letters from town instead of on base.

Close to 20,000 people were investigated about their sexuality, including anyone associated with people suspected of being gay: “straight friends wouldn’t hang out with you.”  It was a “toxic environment,” Doiron said.

“Canada only found out in 2017 what actually happened,” Doiron declared.

Doiron first spoke about what had happened to her to researcher Carmen Poulin and her partner, who had also been purged. “They kept our story” because “a lot of us didn’t make it,” Doiron stated.

“In 2016, I hit bottom,” Doiron wasn’t receiving benefits from Veterans Affairs but came to Fredericton and talked to a Veteran’s Affairs administrator that helped her. She was told “I’ve never heard this story before.” That bureaucrat nevertheless found her in the system and called her a “veteran” for the first time since being forced to leave the Armed Forces.

Subsequently, Doiron was invited to attend the Purge apology event in Ottawa in 2017. But, when she received the invitation: “I hadn’t told my story for 30 years and I was outed again.” She later finally revealed to her mother what had happened to her.

Doiron had to “heal all that trauma” again. “I just needed somebody to listen,” she said, in order to heal from the PTSD resulting from the Purge. Veterans Affairs created a hotline for LGBT members of the military.

At the Apology event, there were many more women than men, said Doiron. Many gay men purged in the 1980s, “got HIV and died,” she declared.

Fruit Machine director and writer Alex Rioux said he took this project on after hearing Justin Trudeau’s apology, when he was a “young queer artist.”

Rioux was eager to take on “something that felt so far away” and invited “exclusively queer artists” to help him with the project.  Doiron said about Rioux’s play: “It will make you feel what we felt.”

Métis veteran Todd Ross was also present at the event. He is the Acting Piluwitahasuwin (VP Indigenous) at the University of New Brunswick.

Ross was discharged from the Army in 1990 and his expulsion papers actually stated he could not be employed because of his homosexuality. Ross was one of the complainants on the lawsuit against Veteran’s Affairs.

The LGBT Purge Fund is “blood money,” according to Ross, one of the Board members for the organization. The fund of $24 million was created to commemorate those who died without being able to receive the compensation.

Using this money, a memorial called “Thunderhead” is being built in Ottawa, along the Ottawa River. The monument will be surrounded by 13 stones —representing the provinces and territories— surrounding a sacred fire. The New Brunswick stone was selected by Ross and Wolastoq Grand Chief Ron Tremblay.

UNB researcher Carmen Poulin is continuing with the project of collecting narratives from purged veterans and said she would also eventually tell “the second story,” the one about the consequences on partners of victims of the Purge.

Poulin said it is important to “keep that story alive (…) to know where it started.” Poulin added: “we can’t afford to forget (…) because we make the same mistakes again.”

Meredith Batt, the director of the Queer Heritage Initiative of New Brunswick, introduced the exhibition of Purge artifacts. Doiron generously donated their military items to the Queer History Initiative.

Doiron’s psychiatric hospital band was part of the exhibit. The military kept Doiron hospitalized for a while: “I guess they were hoping I’d tell on other folks.” Doiron also explained that they had lost a lot of weight because of worry in order to explain why their displayed uniform is so much bigger than they are.

The Fruit Machine, produced by Solo Chicken, is touring in the Maritimes and finishing the tour in Dartmouth, where a similar panel will be held.

Veterans Affairs Canada sponsored the tour, as well as the Government of New Brunswick, Arts and Culture, the LGBT Purge Fund, Trius Truck Centre and Saint Thomas University.

Sophie M. Lavoie is a member of the NB Media Co-op’s editorial board.